Updated

Hunter vs Emelia vs Derrick: Which Is Better in 2026?

Short answer
Hunter vs Emelia vs Derrick: Hunter is a email finder, verifier and lightweight cold-email platform, Emelia is a affordable all-in-one b2b prospecting tool for cold email + linkedin at fixed pricing. 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 Emelia) 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 Emelia 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.

Quick Facts

Hunter vs Emelia vs Derrick at a glance

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)
4.4/5 G2 4.4/5 Capterra

Emelia

  • Starting price: PAYG credits €19/mo · Start €37/mo (3 mailboxes, unlimited sending)
  • Free plan: 7-day free trial (no card) - paid entry Start €37/mo
  • Founded: 2020
  • HQ: Paris, Île-de-France, France
4.5/5 G2 4.4/5 Capterra

Derrick

★ Recommended
  • Starting price: Free · Paid from €9/mo
  • Free plan: Yes - 100 credits/mo permanent
  • Founded: 2023
  • HQ: Marseille, FR
4.8/5 G2 4.8/5 Capterra
Why Derrick wins

Why teams pick Derrick over Hunter and Emelia

3 core reasons SDRs and ops teams switch to Derrick. Click to expand each.

01

Real-time verification and deep enrichment without manual overhead

Hunter and Emelia focus on email finding, verification, or basic enrichment, but neither provides real-time verification paired with deep, multi-attribute enrichment without manual overhead. Derrick delivers real-time verification and deep enrichment directly inside Google Sheets, eliminating manual data cleaning and external lookups. Users gain immediate, 50+ attributes per contact and live email validation, reducing bounce risk while saving 5-10h per month. For quick wins, Derrick’s AI-powered scoring and bulk enrichment automate profile updates without leaving the sheet.

02

3000+ integrations for seamless automation across apps

Hunter struggles with multi-channel data depth, often delivering email-first results without broad integration or real-time enrichment, while Emelia excels at outreach but lacks comprehensive account intelligence across apps. Derrick unifies 3000+ integrations through Zapier/Make/n8n to automate workflows across tools without export or complex setup, directly addressing cross-app automation. Expect measurable gains like time saved and faster pipeline velocity, with credits-based actions that scale as you connect more apps. This seamless, native Google Sheets platform keeps all data in one place, enabling consistent enrichment and scoring across your stack.

03

Rapid, scalable prospecting data with 50+ enrichment attributes

Hunter and Emelia both fall short on comprehensive, scalable enrichment beyond basic emails; Hunter focuses on email discovery, while Emelia emphasizes outreach automation with limited deep firmographic data. Derrick delivers rapid, scalable prospecting data with 50+ enrichment attributes natively in Google Sheets, eliminating complex imports. Users gain richer, multi-attribute profiles per contact-saving hours and reducing data gaps, with real-time validation and AI-powered scoring to boost targeting accuracy. In practice, Derrick turns Sheets into a full prospecting workspace, enabling faster outbound with richer context without leaving your familiar workflow.

Honest Comparison

What each tool does better

We're upfront - every tool has strengths. Here's where Hunter, Emelia, 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
Read full Hunter review →

What Emelia does better

  • Cheapest meaningful cold-email tool in the category
  • All-in-one bundle (built-in warm-up + sender rotation + spintext + LinkedIn)
  • Fast and efficient for small-team workflows
Read full Emelia review →
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 Emelia Derrick
Starting price (monthly) Free 50 credits/mo · Starter €34/mo (annual) PAYG credits €19/mo · Start €37/mo (3 mailboxes, unlimited sending) €0 (free) · €9/mo paid
Annual cost (base) ~€600/yr ~€228/yr €0/yr free · ~€108/yr paid
Free plan? Yes - 50 credits/mo, 500 recipients/sequence 7-day free trial (no card) - paid entry Start €37/mo ✓ 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 Emelia vs Derrick: full feature comparison

hunter Derrick App emelia
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 37€/mois
Permanent free plan
Rollover credits to next month
Simple and transparent credit system
Simple setup & onboarding
Complete documentation
Pricing in a nutshell

Hunter vs Emelia vs Derrick pricing breakdown

Affordable Cold Email + LinkedIn Multichannel

Emelia

PAYG credits €19/mo · Start €37/mo (3 mailboxes, unlimited sending)

Best for: Solo founders + small teams running cold email on a budget

Emelia offers a free tier with limited usage and paid plans starting at a competitive entry price; for exact tiers, quotas, and upgrades, see the full pricing breakdown on the Pricing emelia page.

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
Read full Hunter review →

Pick Emelia if…

  • You specifically need solo founders + small teams running cold email on a budget
  • Cheapest meaningful cold-email tool in the category
  • All-in-one bundle (built-in warm-up + sender rotation + spintext + LinkedIn)
  • You're already invested in the Emelia ecosystem
Read full Emelia review →

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
Try Derrick free →

What teams say after switching from Hunter vs Emelia

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

Reviewed on Product Hunt

"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

Reviewed on Product Hunt

"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

Reviewed on Capterra

"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

Reviewed on Capterra

"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

Reviewed on Capterra

"This app is fantastic. Brilliantly created to help small and mid sized businesses."

Dan Hughes

Founder/CEO, AlmanacIO

Reviewed on Product Hunt

"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

Reviewed on G2

"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

Reviewed on Capterra

"Have tested over 10+ LI scraper apps, Derrick beats them all. Simple to use, accurate data, and affordable price."

AJ Alexander

Opportunity Prospector

Reviewed on Capterra

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the Derrick vs hunter difference in data enrichment quality?

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Derrick delivers significantly deeper data enrichment quality compared to Hunter, which focuses primarily on email discovery and verification. While Hunter excels at finding accurate email addresses, Derrick provides 50+ enrichment attributes per contact and company, including firmographic data, technographics, intent signals, and real-time validation. Derrick's integrated AI capabilities with Claude and ChatGPT enable advanced scoring and segmentation directly in Google Sheets, whereas Hunter lacks these enrichment layers. For teams requiring comprehensive prospect intelligence beyond email alone, Derrick offers more dimensional data enrichment in a unified, native Google Sheets environment without requiring external tools or CSV exports.

Is Derrick a better alternative to hunter for accuracy?

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Derrick delivers superior accuracy through real-time email validation combined with 50+ enrichment attributes per contact, directly addressing Hunter's limited enrichment depth. While Hunter excels at email discovery alone, Derrick integrates comprehensive company intelligence, AI-powered scoring, and multi-channel data enrichment natively within Google Sheets-eliminating manual lookups. For teams requiring both email accuracy and broader prospect intelligence without switching platforms, Derrick provides a more complete solution that reduces workflow friction and data gaps Hunter users typically experience when scaling complex B2B campaigns.

Derrick vs hunter vs emelia: which platform has the best pricing?

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Pricing varies significantly across the three platforms. Hunter operates on a subscription model with tiered plans based on email searches and verification limits, making it cost-effective for email-only workflows. Emelia charges based on contact volume and outreach capability, positioning itself as a mid-range automation tool. Derrick App offers the most flexible pricing with rollover credits, no card required for the free tier, and transparent per-credit costs starting at just nine dollars monthly. For teams already using Google Sheets, Derrick eliminates expensive LinkedIn Sales Navigator subscriptions and reduces setup overhead, making it the most economical choice for comprehensive enrichment without hidden costs or complex infrastructure requirements.

How do Derrick and emelia compare on features and use cases?

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Derrick and Emelia differ in core focus and use cases. Derrick is a 100% native Google Sheets enrichment platform with multi-attribute profiling (50+ attributes per contact), real-time email validation, and AI-driven scoring and segmentation using Claude and ChatGPT, all inside Sheets. It emphasizes scalable B2B prospecting without complex imports, offering 3,000+ integrations via Zapier/Make/n8n and roll-over credits, plus a free tier. Emelia, by contrast, concentrates on AI-powered email outreach automation and enrichment to scale personalized campaigns across channels. It excels at automating sequences and improving deliverability but provides narrower firmographic depth than Derrick. For teams needing deep enrichment within a familiar spreadsheet workflow and flexible budgeting, Derrick offers stronger data intelligence; for those prioritizing rapid multi-channel outreach workflows, Emelia is a strong companion tool.

Is hunter a good alternative to emelia for outreach automation?

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Hunter is primarily an email discovery and verification tool, while Emelia focuses on outreach automation and personalization. Hunter excels at finding accurate email addresses but lacks comprehensive prospect enrichment, whereas Emelia automates campaigns but has limited data depth. Neither platform provides the integrated B2B intelligence that modern sales teams need. For teams wanting both email accuracy and deeper enrichment with AI-powered segmentation, Derrick App combines real-time email validation, 50+ contact attributes, and native Google Sheets integration without requiring external tools or complex workflows, making it a more comprehensive alternative to piecing together Hunter and Emelia separately.

What are the reviews for Derrick replacing both hunter and emelia?

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Reviews comparing Derrick replacing both Hunter and Emelia generally reflect Derrick as a complementary, not a direct one-to-one swap. Users often note that Hunter excels at email discovery and verification, while Emelia shines in outbound automation and personalization. Derrick, by contrast, combines 100% native Google Sheets enrichment, extensive firmographic data across 50+ attributes, real-time email validation, AI scoring and segmentation, plus broad integrations, offering deeper prospect research and actionable insights in a single workflow. Reviews tend to say Derrick reduces the need for multiple tools by providing richer data and automation in one platform, while acknowledging that teams may still pair Emelia or Hunter for specialized email-first or outreach tasks. Overall, Derrick is valued for depth of data and seamless Google Sheets use, rather than being just a replacement for either tool.
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