Email Verification

Email Verification checks each recipient’s address just before BetterMerge sends to it. If an address is confirmed invalid, BetterMerge skips it, so fewer emails bounce and your Gmail sender reputation stays healthier.

It is a lightweight, built-in check, not a full list-cleaning service. It catches many bad addresses at no extra cost, but it cannot check every address. This guide explains what it does, where it stops, and when a dedicated verification service is worth paying for.

Plan Availability

Email Verification is included in the Pro plan at no extra cost. See pricing for current plans. If you are on an older plan, check Settings → Optional Features to see whether it is available on your account.

How It Decides What to Send

Every recipient gets one of three outcomes:

Outcome	What BetterMerge does
The address is confirmed invalid	Skips the recipient and records why
The address is confirmed valid	Sends the email
The address cannot be confirmed either way	Sends the email, the same as with verification turned off

BetterMerge only skips an address when it is sure. Skipping a real customer by mistake costs you more than an occasional bounce, so anything uncertain is sent.

Examples of addresses that are skipped:

• the mailbox does not exist at the recipient’s mail server;
• the domain does not exist or cannot receive email;
• the domain is an obvious misspelling of a major provider, such as gmial.com or hotmial.com;
• the domain is reserved for examples and testing, such as example.com.

Turn It On

You can enable Email Verification for one campaign or for your whole account.

For One Campaign

1. Open the campaign in the campaign editor.
2. Go to the Delivery tab.
3. In the Email Verification section, turn on the switch.

Switching Between Editors

In the classic editor layout, all sections appear on one page. Scroll to Email Verification.

For All Campaigns

1. Go to Settings in the left sidebar.
2. Open the Optional Features tab.
3. Turn on Email Verification.

When the account-wide setting is on, every campaign is verified, including campaigns where the per-campaign switch is off.

See Which Recipients Were Skipped

• Google Sheet: skipped rows show SKIPPED in the campaign’s status column, with a note that the address is invalid.
• Campaign report: the Email Verification count shows how many recipients were skipped.

Skipped rows are not sent later. Correct the address in your sheet and include it in a new campaign if you still want to reach that person.

Limitations

Email Verification is intentionally conservative. Keep these limits in mind:

• Some providers cannot be checked reliably. Many large mailbox providers, including Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail, Microsoft 365) and Yahoo, and many corporate email security systems, either accept every address or refuse verification checks. Those recipients are sent without a verdict.
• Catch-all domains accept everything. Some company domains accept mail for any address, so a mistyped name at that company still looks valid.
• Results are a snapshot. A mailbox can be closed or become full after it is checked, and a recipient’s server can still reject the final email.
• Very poor lists get less checking. If a campaign shows an unusually high share of invalid addresses, BetterMerge may stop verifying the rest of that campaign and send normally. Clean the list before sending.
• Emails can still bounce. Verification lowers your bounce rate; it does not remove bounces entirely.

Built-In vs. a Standalone Verification Service

Dedicated verification services are more thorough, and they charge for every address they check. For comparison, here is what verifying 60,000 addresses a month would cost. That is a Pro account sending its maximum of 2,000 emails a day for 30 days.

Standalone service	Approximate cost for 60,000 checks
ZeroBounce	about $599 (pay-as-you-go)
Kickbox	about $345 (a 50,000 pack plus a 10,000 pack)
Bouncer	$250 for 50,000 or $400 for 100,000
NeverBounce	about $300 pay-as-you-go, or $159 a month on a plan for up to 100,000

List prices in USD from each provider’s public pricing page, checked in September 2026. Prices change and may differ by region, promotion, or volume discount.

That is roughly $160 to $600 every month, on top of your mail merge subscription. BetterMerge’s built-in check costs nothing extra on Pro, and in exchange it cannot give a verdict on every address.

Which One Should You Use?

• Your list comes from your own sign-ups, customers, or contacts you already email: the built-in check is usually enough.
• Your list is old, bought, scraped, or from an unknown source: clean it with a standalone service before importing it, then keep Email Verification on as a safety net.
• You send to many Outlook, Microsoft 365, or Yahoo addresses and need a verdict for each: a standalone service will cover those recipients better.

Whichever you choose, follow the list hygiene practices in the deliverability guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Email Verification guarantee that my emails won’t bounce?

No. It skips addresses it can confirm as invalid and sends everything else, so some bounces can still happen.

Will it skip real customers by mistake?

It is designed to avoid that. Only the cases listed under How It Decides What to Send are skipped. When the result is uncertain, the email is sent.

Does it slow down my campaign?

Each check adds a short pause before a recipient is sent. Campaigns are already paced by your delivery settings, so most users will not notice a difference.

Should I enable it globally or per campaign?

If you are on Pro, turning it on for your whole account is the simplest choice: every campaign gets the same protection automatically. Use the per-campaign switch if you only want it for specific lists.

Is my recipients’ data shared with anyone?

No. BetterMerge runs the checks itself and does not send your recipient list to a third-party verification company.