What does an email confidence score mean?

How is an email finder confidence score worked out

Each email finder has its own method, but the score usually reflects how many independent signals agree on the address. The more they agree, the higher the score.

Typical signals are the company's known address pattern, whether the address has appeared publicly, how the mail server answered a check and how recently the person's role was confirmed. Because every tool weighs these differently, a high score in one tool and a high score in another do not mean the same thing.

What does the catch-all flag mean

A catch-all flag means the company's mail server says yes to any address at its domain, real or not, so a check cannot tell whether this particular mailbox exists. The address may be right; nobody can prove it in advance.

Mail to a catch-all domain can reach the person, land in a shared folder nobody reads, or bounce later once the server looks more closely. Larger companies often run catch-all servers, so the flag says something about the domain, not about the person.

Should I send to a low-confidence email

Not as part of a batch send. A low score means the address is likely to be wrong, and a run of bounces tells mailbox providers your list is careless, which affects every email you send afterwards.

If the person matters, look for another route: ask someone at the company who handles the area, connect with them on LinkedIn, or wait until you find a better address.

What should you do at each confidence level

Treat confidence as three bands and decide in advance what each band gets. However your tool shows the score, as a number or a label, the bands keep everyone on the team making the same call.

• High confidence: send as normal, and still watch for bounces.
• Middle confidence: send in small groups first, or confirm the address another way.
• Low confidence: keep out of sends and look for another route.
• Catch-all with high confidence: send to a few, check what comes back, then decide.
• Catch-all with low confidence: treat as low confidence.

Is an email accuracy score the same thing

Mostly, yes: accuracy score, deliverability score and confidence score are names different tools give to a similar estimate. The difference lies in what each one measures.

Some tools score whether the address belongs to the right person; others score only whether the server will accept it. An address can pass the second and fail the first, for example when it reaches the right company but someone who left last year.