A pay-per-use alternative to Hunter
Hunter answers the question “what addresses exist on this domain?”. TAPAC answers a different one: “who can I actually reach at this company right now, and is that mailbox still alive?” That second question is where most outreach budgets leak.
The difference in one table
| TAPAC | Hunter | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of work | Find a person, verify the mailbox, return both | Domain search + separate verifier step |
| Verification | SMTP check on every returned contact | Verifier is a separate product/credit |
| Bounce rate | 2–5% on returned contacts | Any verified list decays: 40% of emails are dead within 2 years (NeverBounce) |
| Pricing model | 100 free searches, then $0.10–0.50 per contact | Free tier of 50 credits; paid plans published from $34/month (hunter.io/pricing) |
| Cost of the Growth tier | You pay only for contacts you use | Published at $149/month on the Growth tier (hunter.io/pricing) |
| Agent access | MCP server — npx -y @tapacapi/mcp | REST API (no MCP server) |
| Sources beyond a domain | Company websites, Discord servers, Telegram channels | Web crawl by domain |
Hunter pricing from hunter.io/pricing (published list prices). TAPAC figures from the product's own documentation.
Why the verification step is the whole point
23% of contacts change jobs every year (ZoomInfo, 2025). A list that looks clean in January is a bounce problem by the following January. TAPAC does the SMTP handshake at request time, so the record you receive carries its own verification status instead of an assumption.
What you give up
Hunter has a long history, a large index and deep integrations with CRMs and sequencers. If your process is “export a CSV, then sequence it in another tool”, that ecosystem is worth its price. TAPAC is narrower: find, verify, return — to an API caller or straight into an agent.
Try it
npx -y @tapacapi/mcp
Get a key at tapacapi.com/get-key — 100 free searches, then pay per verified contact. Full install notes on the MCP page.
Where to go next
- Install the TAPAC MCP server —
npx -y @tapacapi/mcp, no wiring for Claude, Cursor, Codex or Windsurf. - Get a free API key — 100 searches, no credit card.
- Compare TAPAC with Apollo, ZoomInfo, Hunter and Lusha · Hunter alternative · Apollo alternative · ZoomInfo alternative
- Lead generation MCP server · Verify email before sending