Hunter
- Starting price: Free 50 credits/mo · Starter €34/mo (annual)
- Free plan: Yes - 50 credits/mo, 500 recipients/sequence
- Founded: 2015
- HQ: Wilmington, DE (US entity) - team distributed (Paris, remote-first)
Updated
Hunter vs ContactOut vs Derrick: Which Is Better in 2026?
- Short answer
- Hunter vs ContactOut vs Derrick: Hunter is a email finder, verifier and lightweight cold-email platform, ContactOut is a linkedin-focused email and phone finder for recruiters and individual sdrs. Derrick is a B2B enrichment platform with three surfaces - a Google Sheets add-on, a REST API, and an MCP server (Claude and ChatGPT drive enrichment for you). Hit rates are noticeably higher (more emails + phone numbers returned per query than Hunter or ContactOut) and pricing is lower - free forever with 100 credits/month, paid plans from €9/month. Most teams pair Derrick for the data layer with Hunter or ContactOut for outreach.
Hunter competes on hit rate, accuracy and waterfall fallback when one source is blank. The side-by-side comparison below isolates Hunter's per-find cost (email vs mobile vs direct-dial), real-world deliverability of what comes back, and how it fits into Derrick's 10-source waterfall enrichment workflow.
Free plan Yes - 100 credits/mo
Starts at €9/mo
Setup time 30 seconds
Where it lives Google Sheets
✓ Free forever · ✓ No credit card · ✓ Cancel anytime · ✓ Your data stays in your Sheet
Trusted by 31,000+ users worldwide.
CURSOR Quick Facts
Hunter vs ContactOut vs Derrick at a glance
ContactOut
- Starting price: Free 4 emails/day · Email $49/mo (annual)
- Free plan: Yes - 5 emails + 5 phones + 5 exports per day
- Founded: 2015
- HQ: San Francisco, CA
Derrick
★ Recommended- Starting price: Free · Paid from €9/mo
- Free plan: Yes - 100 credits/mo permanent
- Founded: 2023
- HQ: Marseille, FR
Why Derrick wins 01
02
03
Why teams pick Derrick over Hunter and ContactOut
3 core reasons SDRs and ops teams switch to Derrick. Click to expand each.
01 Real-time validation without manual data wrangling
Derrick delivers real-time email validation within 100% native Google Sheets, addressing hunter’s limitation of basic email discovery without immediate verification and ContactOut’s slower, multi-source validation. Unlike Hunter and ContactOut, which focus on finding or confirming emails, Derrick validates in real time as you enrich, reducing bounce risks and improving deliverability directly in your sheet. This translates to faster campaigns and measurable efficiency gains, such as time saved on manual validation and lower rejection rates. Use cases include instant confidence checks while building live prospect lists.
02 3000+ integrations for seamless automation and scale
Derrick delivers 3000+ native integrations via Zapier, Make, and n8n, enabling seamless automation and scale beyond what hunter or ContactOut can offer with their limited multi-source enrichment. Hunter excels at email discovery but lacks comprehensive, multi-channel integration depth for automation; ContactOut focuses on contact data with fewer native automation pathways. Derrick unifies 3000+ integrations to power end-to-end workflows directly in Google Sheets, reducing manual handoffs and saving up to 5-10 hours per month. Use cases like automated prospect routing, scoring, and multi-source enrichment become instant and scalable with Derrick’s native ecosystem.
03 Unified data quality across all sources for reliable outreach outcomes
Hunter and ContactOut deliver strong contact data, but their enrichment depth often stops at emails and basic context, lacking unified, multi-source data quality for scalable outreach. Derrick goes beyond by centralizing 50+ enrichment attributes across sources inside 100% native Google Sheets, ensuring consistent data quality for every lead. With real-time email validation and AI-driven scoring, Derrick reduces deliverability risk and increases outreach reliability by up to 15-25% in response rate, while preserving unspent credits monthly. This unified approach eliminates mismatches across hunter and ContactOut data, enabling precise segmentation and faster campaign execution.
Honest Comparison 
derrick
What each tool does better
We're upfront - every tool has strengths. Here's where Hunter, ContactOut, and Derrick each genuinely win.
What Hunter does better
- Outstanding email accuracy + verification
- No charge if Hunter can't find it
- Strong free tier + simple onboarding
What ContactOut does better
- Best personal email coverage in the category
- Dead-simple Chrome extension UX
- Triple email verification reduces bounces
What Derrick does better
- Free forever - €0/mo with 100 credits permanent in Google Sheets
- 100+ data points per lead - verified emails, phones, LinkedIn, tech stack, SIRET
- Zero LinkedIn ban risk + real-time email verification built in
- Pair with any sequencer - LaGrowthMachine, Smartlead, Lemlist, HeyReach
Real Annual Cost
True cost over 12 months
Headline pricing rarely tells the whole story. Here's the real cost of running each tool for a year.
| Hunter | ContactOut | Derrick | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price (monthly) | Free 50 credits/mo · Starter €34/mo (annual) | Free 4 emails/day · Email $49/mo (annual) | €0 (free) · €9/mo paid |
| Annual cost (base) | ~€600/yr | ~€48/yr | €0/yr free · ~€108/yr paid |
| Free plan? | Yes - 50 credits/mo, 500 recipients/sequence | Yes - 5 emails + 5 phones + 5 exports per day | ✓ Forever - 100 credits/mo |
| Setup cost | Hours to days | Hours to days | 30 seconds via Marketplace |
| Switching cost | CSV export + retraining | CSV export + retraining | Zero - works alongside any stack |
💡 Most teams pay 2-5x more on add-ons (extra seats, phone credits, integrations) than on the headline base price. Derrick keeps everything in one transparent tier.
Feature-by-Feature
Hunter vs ContactOut vs Derrick: full feature comparison
| hunter | Derrick App | ContactOut | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works natively in Google Sheets | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Requires LinkedIn Sales Navigator ($100/month) | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Sales Navigator 1-click import | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email finder with real-time validation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Phone finder from LinkedIn | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Company tech stack lookup | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| SimilarWeb & G2 insights integrated | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
| AI integration (Claude & ChatGPT) | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Automatic AI Lead Scoring | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Data cleaning & normalization | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Multi-platform scraping (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| Zapier, Make, n8n integrations | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public API available | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Native CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce) | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Entry price (paid plan) | 49$/mois | 9€/mois | 40$/mois |
| Permanent free plan | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rollover credits to next month | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Simple and transparent credit system | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ |
| Simple setup & onboarding | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Complete documentation | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Pricing in a nutshell Email Finder + Light Outreach derrick
best value for money
Results first.
Discover Derrick →
LinkedIn Recruiter Email + Phone Finder
Hunter vs ContactOut vs Derrick pricing breakdown
Email Finder + Light Outreach Hunter
Free 50 credits/mo · Starter €34/mo (annual)
Best for: Solo SDRs and small teams doing email-first outbound
Hunter offers a free tier with limited credits and paid plans starting at modest monthly rates; detailed pricing varies by plan and usage. See full pricing breakdown for all tiers and features.
Results first.
Complexity removed.
Free · Paid plans from €9/mo
While other tools pile on features, complex setups, and pricing tiers that grow faster than your results, Derrick focuses on what actually matters:
getting usable leads, directly in Google Sheets.
No heavy workflows, No endless configuration. No learning curve.
LinkedIn Recruiter Email + Phone Finder ContactOut
Free 4 emails/day · Email $49/mo (annual)
Best for: Recruiters needing personal emails from LinkedIn at scale
ContactOut offers tiered plans with entry-level credits and scalable paid options, starting at accessible entry points for smaller teams, with a comprehensive pricing page detailing all tiers and add-ons. See full pricing breakdown for complete details.
Migration Guide
How to switch from Hunter to Derrick in 3 steps
Derrick is a Google Workspace app - no formulas to learn, no pipelines to migrate, no engineering work. Add it to Google Sheets and you're enriching in under a minute.
1
~30 sec Install Derrick from Google Workspace Marketplace
Click the install button on our Marketplace listing and grant Google Sheets access. No credit card required - you start with 100 free credits per month.
2
~30 sec Open any Google Sheet → Extensions → Derrick
Open a Sheet with your prospect list (paste a CSV from Hunter, scrape from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, or import from your CRM). Click Extensions → Derrick and the sidebar opens with all enrichment features ready to use.
3
~1 min Enrich your list with one click
Select the column with names, LinkedIn URLs, or company domains. Pick what you want - emails, phone numbers, LinkedIn data, company info, tech stack - and click "Enrich". Derrick fills the columns directly in your Sheet. No exports, no pipelines, no waiting.
Install Derrick free →
100 free credits / month · No credit card · Cancel anytime
Decision in 60 seconds
Which one is right for you?
Pick Hunter if…
- You specifically need solo sdrs and small teams doing email-first outbound
- Outstanding email accuracy + verification
- No charge if Hunter can't find it
- You're already invested in the Hunter ecosystem
Pick ContactOut if…
- You specifically need recruiters needing personal emails from linkedin at scale
- Best personal email coverage in the category
- Dead-simple Chrome extension UX
- You're already invested in the ContactOut ecosystem
Pick Derrick if…
- You want B2B enrichment directly in Google Sheets
- You need a usable free plan (100 credits/mo, no card)
- You don't want long contracts, lock-in, or sales calls
- You need 100+ data points per lead in one tool
What teams say after switching from Hunter vs ContactOut
See what our customers say about Derrick.
"This app saved me so much time and effort. Great for anyone looking to build a contact list or network at scale quickly. As a start-up it's been invaluable."
Alex Clark
Director | SaaS GTM Leader
"Working pretty nifty compared to Snov.Io. Price wise it does give a fair shake, and IMO better interface since it's google sheets."
David Sire
Mortgage Broker at Zero Point Mortgage
"Derrick is a very simple and user-friendly app to enrich your contacts database. Best thing: you can test it for free. And then the price is so low, it's a no brainer."
Etienne Grange
CEO Form'actions
"Super easy to enrich linkedin urls using this tool. Both personal and company url data can be easily enriched with a click of a button."
Zaid Bilal
RevOps Professional
"Amazing Tool, I would like to advocate this to my colleagues. So that you can get more users. Keep it Up. 5 Stars!"
Asif Hanzala
Lead Generation Specialist at IdeaPeel
"This app is fantastic. Brilliantly created to help small and mid sized businesses."
Dan Hughes
Founder/CEO, AlmanacIO
"I have been using other expensive apps or freemium like phantombuster, but Derrick has replaced them all. I love the simplicity of the Google sheet add-in, but what is best is the efficiency it delivers."
Julien Walon Cohen
CEO & Co-founder @ Diffly | B2B Sales Advisor
"The LinkedIn scraping and email finder combo is incredibly powerful. I can build a complete prospect list with contact info in under an hour. Absolute must-have for outbound."
Michael Kim
SDR Team Lead at CloudScale
"Have tested over 10+ LI scraper apps, Derrick beats them all. Simple to use, accurate data, and affordable price."
AJ Alexander
Opportunity Prospector
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Derrick vs Hunter the right alternative for you?
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Whether Derrick or Hunter is right for you depends on your specific prospecting workflow. If you primarily need email discovery and verification as a standalone tool, Hunter excels with strong accuracy and simplicity. However, if you want a unified prospecting platform that enriches data directly within Google Sheets without exporting CSVs, Derrick offers greater efficiency by combining email verification, 50+ enrichment attributes, and integrated AI scoring in one native interface. Derrick also provides rollover credits and no credit card requirement for the free tier, making it more flexible for teams with variable needs or budget constraints.
How does Derrick compare to Hunter in features?
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Derrick operates as a fully native Google Sheets platform, eliminating the need for CSV exports or complex setup that Hunter and ContactOut require. While Hunter specializes purely in email discovery and ContactOut focuses on LinkedIn-based contact extraction, Derrick delivers comprehensive enrichment with 50+ data attributes, integrated AI scoring using Claude and ChatGPT, and real-time email validation in a single environment. Derrick's rollover credits and free tier without requiring a credit card provide greater flexibility for teams managing variable prospecting volumes compared to Hunter's API restrictions or ContactOut's aggressive volume-based pricing scaling.
Derrick vs Hunter vs ContactOut: which is best overall?
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Derrick, Hunter, and ContactOut each serve different prospecting needs. Hunter excels as a pure email finder with strong verification accuracy, while ContactOut offers recruitment-focused contact discovery with automation features. Derrick stands out as the only 100% native Google Sheets platform, eliminating CSV exports and complex integrations entirely. Unlike both competitors, Derrick includes built-in AI scoring with Claude and ChatGPT, real-time email validation, 50+ enrichment attributes, and rollover credits with no card required for free users. For teams already using Google Sheets who want unified prospecting without switching platforms, Derrick delivers faster implementation and lower total cost of ownership, particularly when factoring in saved time and eliminated tool dependencies.
Who handles pricing better, Hunter or ContactOut?
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Between Hunter and ContactOut, pricing handling is mixed, but Derrick stands out with a clearer value proposition and more flexible cost structure. Hunter emphasizes strong email finding and verification with straightforward pricing, while ContactOut tends to have higher pricing and steeper learning curves for similar contact data quality. Derrick, by contrast, offers a transparent tiered credits model (Free 100 credits, Small 4000, Medium 10000, Large 25000, XL 100000) with credits rollovers and no credit card required for the free tier, plus native Google Sheets integration and a broad set of enriching attributes, which can reduce total cost of ownership and time spent on setup. If you’re evaluating pricing efficiency and total value, Derrick often provides more predictability and lower friction for ongoing prospecting, while Hunter and ContactOut may incur higher or less flexible costs for comparable outcomes.
What’s the Derrick review compared to ContactOut’s offerings?
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Derrick is a Google Sheets-native enrichment platform that transforms spreadsheets into a complete prospecting hub without technical complexity or CSV exports. ContactOut specializes in LinkedIn-based contact discovery with email and phone verification, excelling at individual prospect finding. However, Derrick offers broader enrichment with 50+ attributes per contact, integrated AI scoring using Claude and ChatGPT, and real-time email validation all within Sheets. ContactOut requires external workflows and steeper onboarding, while Derrick's rollover credits and no credit card free tier provide greater flexibility for teams managing variable prospecting volumes.
Can Derrick replace both Hunter and ContactOut for enrichment?
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Derrick can efficiently enrich data, but it’s best viewed as a comprehensive enrichment platform rather than a direct one-to-one replacement for Hunter and ContactOut. Hunter excels at email discovery and verification, while ContactOut emphasizes verified contact details plus outreach workflows. Derrick offers 50+ enrichment attributes per contact, real-time email validation, native Google Sheets integration (no CSV exports), AI scoring and segmentation, and broad automation via Zapier/Make/n8n, all within a familiar Sheets environment. If your needs are strictly email discovery or phone/LinkedIn-style contact extraction, you might still rely on Hunter or ContactOut. However, for teams seeking multi-attribute enrichment, integrated scoring, and streamlined workflows without leaving Sheets or paying extra for multiple tools, Derrick can cover the enrichment aspect and reduce tool fragmentation.
One-on-one
hunter vs Derrick - solo duel
Drop the third-party context and see how hunter compares to Derrick alone.
Open the head-to-head → One-on-oneContactOut vs Derrick - solo duel
Drop the third-party context and see how ContactOut compares to Derrick alone.
Open the head-to-head → Curated stackAll B2B sales tools we reviewed in depth
Step back from the duel - see our hand-picked sales-tool selection and how every category fits together.
See the full curation → Keep Exploring
