Hunter finds and verifies business emails, searches companies by filters in Discover and sends light email campaigns. Ocean uses contextual intelligence to find your next deal, with the reason on every account.
Used by teams at
HunterA trusted, low-cost email finder and verifier with unlimited users. A fit for founders and small sales teams.
Hunter launched in 2015 and says it has more than 7M user accounts and 81M indexed websites. It builds email data from public web sources and returns each address with its origin and a confidence score.
Finding and ranking the companies worth emailing, by fit learned from your won and lost deals, with the reason on each.
Ocean is contextual intelligence for go-to-market. It reads what every company actually does from its own website, learns what good looks like from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and ranks your whole market against it, with the reason behind each score. The ranked accounts arrive in your CRM, your rep queue or your AI agents.
What buyers weigh, grouped by the job each part does. A light blue background marks the stronger side.
| Topic | Ocean | Hunter |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the right accounts | ||
| Lookalikes | Ocean is stronger here. Core of the product. Segments and models learned from your won and lost CRM deals. | Discover finds companies by filters or a plain-English description of your ICP, and suggests new prospects each week. We found no lookalikes of your customers documented. |
| Learns your ICP from won and lost deals | Ocean is stronger here. Learned automatically from your won and lost deals. | You describe or filter the ICP, and signals draw on your existing leads. We found no description of learning fit from your CRM’s won and lost deals. |
| The reason behind each account | Ocean is stronger here. Segment, score, tier and matched signals on every account and every export. | Shows email counts for a domain and a confidence score for each address. It doesn’t explain why a company fits. |
| Coverage | Ocean is stronger here. Segments your whole market and shows win rate, deal size and cycle time for each segment. | Says it indexes 81M websites. Reviewers note emails come from the public web, so small companies with few public addresses return less. |
| Contacts and data | ||
| Contacts | Verified emails and direct phones from a waterfall across 16+ data sources. Charged only when a contact is found, and exports are free. | Email only: 1 credit per email found and 0.5 per verification, with nothing charged for a miss. It doesn’t sell phone numbers. |
| Email finding and verification | Returns contacts for ranked accounts. It isn’t a standalone email finder and verifier you point at any domain. | Core strength: domain search, email finder and verifier with a confidence score and a record of where each address was found. |
| Buying signals | Up-to-date signals built in-house from each company’s own teams, leaders, hiring and website. | Weekly new-lead suggestions and signals on leads you’ve already saved. We found no hiring, funding or technology signals documented. |
| Workflow and pricing | ||
| CRM sync | Two-way with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Attio. Reads your deals to learn, then writes scores, segments and signals back. | Native HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho, plus Close and Copper through Zapier, Clay, Make and Google Sheets. |
| AI agents and MCP | MCP server, public API and a chat agent on the same data and lookalike engine. | A remote MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor over OAuth or an API key, available from the free plan, plus a Discover API. |
| Security and privacy | SOC 2 Type II and GDPR, per Ocean’s own site. | Publishes a security policy with encryption, vendor reviews and hosting on Google Cloud in Belgium, and says it is GDPR and CCPA compliant. We found no SOC 2 report named. |
| Pricing | Two ways to buy: a flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals and credit volume. | Free, then $49, $149 and $299 a month, with unlimited users and 30% off annual billing. |
Hunter prices by credits and mailboxes, not seats. Every plan includes unlimited team members, and annual billing is 30% off.
A found email costs 1 credit and a verification 0.5, so a verified contact costs about 1.5. Monthly credits don’t roll over, and credit packs, inbox protection and extra mailboxes are add-ons. A separate API-only data plan is sold by usage, with reviewers quoting $50 per 1,000 searches and $11 per 1,000 verifications.
A flat-rate plan with credits included, or a custom plan built around your deals.
Contacts are charged only when one is found. Exports are free.
See Ocean pricingHunter finds and verifies the emails. Ocean decides which companies deserve them.
Choose Hunter if Use both ifFive steps. Most teams keep Hunter for emails and add Ocean to choose the companies.
Export the leads you saved in Hunter, then run the companies through Ocean to see how many fit your closed-won pattern.
Find your plan, credit use per month and connected mailboxes, and what an unused month costs you.
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or Attio. Ocean reads your closed-won and closed-lost deals to learn what a good account looks like.
Ocean proposes segments and scores, with the reason on each. Correct anything that doesn’t match how you sell.
Scores, segments and matched signals go back to your CRM, or into Apollo, Instantly or Lemlist sequences.
Expect a quote that grows with seats, credits and add-ons, because the entry price is the smallest line; price your real volume.
Expect a headline database size, because counts come from its own records and not your market; ask for coverage on your list.
Expect an accuracy claim, because vendors measure it on their own samples; test find and bounce rates on your own list.
Expect a trust-center link or a request form, because reports sit behind a sales step; ask for the date and scope.
Ocean is better because it tells it like it is: contextual intelligence to find your next deal, with the reason on every account.
Start using OceanThe right alternative depends on what you use Hunter for. Here’s what each is built for and where Ocean starts.
Apollo
Lusha
ZoomInfo
Snov.io
IcypeasShort answers on what Hunter does, what it costs, how Ocean compares and what to check before you buy.
An email finder and verifier with domain search, a company search called Discover, lead enrichment and light email sequences, plus an API and a remote MCP server. It doesn’t sell phone numbers.
Free with 50 credits a month, then Starter at $49, Growth at $149 and Scale at $299 a month, or $34, $104 and $209 on annual billing, with unlimited users and 30% off annually.
A found email costs 1 credit and a verification 0.5, with nothing charged when it finds or verifies nothing. Monthly credits don’t roll over.
Discover finds companies by filters or a plain-English ICP. We found no lookalikes of your customers. Ocean learns from your won and lost deals and shows the reason on each match.
Yes, a remote server for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor, available from the free plan. Ocean has an MCP server and a public API on the same data and lookalike engine.
No. Ocean returns phone numbers as part of contacts for ranked accounts.
It publishes a security policy and hosts on Google Cloud in Belgium, and says it’s GDPR and CCPA compliant. We found no SOC 2 report named, so ask what documents it can provide.
Ocean reads what each company does from its own website, learns from your closed-won and closed-lost deals, and returns ranked matches with the reason on each one.
Today we can more confidently say we're reaching out to all the companies that could potentially buy from us.
Josh Pudnos,
Director of Commercial Operations, Brandwatch
With Ocean.io we can focus our ad spend on the right companies.
Martin Nørgaard Klausen,
Co-Founder, Lead Motor, Zen Media
Working with a trusted partner saves a ton of engineering time and ongoing AI costs. Speed and quality are higher out of the gate.
Stefan Kollenberg,
Data Partnerships, Clay
Ocean.io reduced our average cost per Marketing Qualified Lead by 23%.
Garrett Butler,
Digital Engagement, CBC
Ocean.io expands the sea into an ocean, and Scalestack is great at fishing in this vast ocean.
Ezequiel,
Head of Product Operations, Scalestack
Ocean.io allows us to identify lookalike companies with incredible accuracy.
Maged,
Head of Product, Surfe
