How Email Verifier Credits Work

The Email Verifier runs on a credit system. Every verification consumes one or two credits depending on mode. Each TrekMail plan includes a free monthly allocation; if you need more, credit packs are available from $5 onwards. This guide covers everything about credits — what each verification costs, how the deduction order works, when monthly credits reset, what happens if you run out mid-job, and the volume discount tiers.

How verification costs map to credits

Deep mode costs more because we open an actual SMTP connection to the recipient's mailserver and walk the conversation to the RCPT TO step — this catches mailboxes that look valid by every other metric but actually reject mail.

Use Quick for fast, cheap verification of large lists where confidence isn't critical. Use Deep when you need stronger confidence (cold-outreach lists, pre-launch list cleaning, post-acquisition data verification).

Free monthly allocations

Every TrekMail plan includes a baseline of verifier credits at no extra cost:

These reset every month — see "Monthly reset rules" below.

Unused monthly credits don't roll over. Use them or lose them.

Credit packs (when you need more)

If you've used your monthly allocation or are running large jobs, buy a one-time credit pack:

Buying larger packs is significantly cheaper per email. The $999 / 1M pack costs less than a tenth of a cent per email (Quick mode).

To buy: open the Email Verifier → click Buy Credits → pick a pack size → enter card details via Stripe Payment Element.

The Payment Element shows the same wallet options as your subscription billing — card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, Cash App, plus regional methods (Alipay, WeChat Pay, etc.) where applicable. See Managing Payment Methods for the full list.

Purchased credits never expire — they sit on your account indefinitely until used.

Deduction order — what gets used first

When you run a verification, credits come out in this order:

1. Monthly credits first. Your free monthly allocation is drawn down before any purchased credits.
2. Purchased credits second. Once monthly hits zero, we start drawing from the pool of credits you've bought.

This means buying credits doesn't waste your monthly allocation — your free allocation always burns first.

Example: You're on Pro (300 monthly credits) and bought a 5,000 pack. You verify 600 emails in Quick mode:

• First 300 emails: charged against monthly allocation (now 0/300).
• Next 300 emails: charged against the 5,000 pack (now 4,700/5,000).

Your monthly resets next billing cycle; the 4,700 from the pack stays put indefinitely.

How upfront deduction works

When you click Start Verification in the 3-step wizard:

1. The wizard's Step 1 (Prepare) calculates the credit cost based on the number of emails in your list and the mode you've selected.
2. The "What will happen" summary shows the exact cost — e.g. "Will use 1,000 credits (500 Quick + 250 Deep × 2)".
3. On click of Start, we deduct that full amount from your balance immediately.
4. Verification runs.
5. If everything succeeds, the deduction stands.
6. If something fails (technical error on our side, not a verifier result), we refund the portion that didn't complete.

Why upfront? It guarantees you have the budget before we start a 10-minute job, and prevents partial billing for partial completions.

Low-balance alerts

When your total balance (monthly + purchased) drops below 100 credits, you'll see a warning banner on the Verifier page. The threshold prevents nasty surprises where you start a large verification and run out mid-job.

If you continue and don't have enough credits, the verification refuses to start — error: "Insufficient credits. You have X credits, need Y."

Monthly reset rules

Different reset timing for different plan types:

• Nano accounts — monthly credits reset on the 1st of each month at 00:00 UTC, via a scheduled command (verifier:reset-free-credits).
• Paid accounts (Starter / Pro / Agency) — monthly credits reset on your subscription's invoice renewal date. If you signed up on the 15th, your credits refill on the 15th.

This matters if you're tracking when to expect a top-up. You can see your next reset date on the Verifier page.

When you upgrade or downgrade a plan, the monthly credit allowance changes immediately, but the next reset still happens at your normal cycle date — we don't reset on plan change.

Where to see your balance

• Verifier page — top of the page shows current balance, broken down monthly + purchased.
• Verifier sidebar — a compact credit counter on the side panel.
• API: GET /api/v1/verify/credits — returns JSON with current balance and monthly reset date. See API Reference.

Transaction history

Open the Credits section of your account (or the Billing page → Verifier transactions). You see:

• Purchases — each credit pack you bought, with date, amount, payment receipt link.
• Resets — each monthly free allocation, with date and amount granted.
• Consumption — each verification job, with mode (Quick/Deep), email count, and credit cost.

Useful for accounting and for understanding usage patterns.

What happens to verification results

Independent of credits:

• Results stored for 15 days after the verification job completes. Download CSV or view in dashboard during that window.
• After 15 days the result detail is purged. Aggregate counts (total verified, breakdown by Safe/Valid/Risky/Invalid/Unknown) remain in the job summary indefinitely; per-email detail is gone.
• For long-term records, download CSV before day 15 and store locally.

Common scenarios

"I have a 100k-email list to clean. What's the cheapest path?"

Buy the 100,000 credit pack ($179) and run Quick mode. That's 100k credits exactly = the entire pack. Per-email cost: $0.00179. If you need Deep verification, the same list needs 200,000 credits — two of the 100k packs ($358), or one 250,000 pack ($399 — slightly more but much more headroom for the next job).

"What's the difference between Quick and Deep in practice?"

Quick is good enough for most cases — syntax, MX checks, role-account/disposable detection. False positives (Quick says "valid" but the address actually rejects mail) happen maybe 5-15% of the time, mostly because catch-all domains pass Quick but fail Deep's SMTP probe.

Deep catches catch-alls properly and gives you a much more reliable Safe/Invalid classification. If you're spending money to send to a list, the Deep premium ($0.0050/email difference at the lowest tier) is usually worth it.

"I started a verification but want to cancel mid-flight"

Credits are deducted upfront. Cancelling a running job doesn't refund the credits — you've already paid for the verifications you started. The job stops at the current progress and you get a partial result.

If you need a partial refund (you're 10% in and want to stop), open a support ticket — we may issue a credit-refund equivalent to the remaining work.

"Credits aren't showing after my pack purchase"

Stripe payment cleared but the credits haven't appeared yet:

• Wait 30 seconds — the webhook usually takes that long to update the dashboard.
• Refresh the Verifier page.
• If still missing after 5 minutes, contact support with the Stripe invoice ID.

"I want to give credits to a different account"

Not currently supported — credits are tied to the purchasing account. If you have a corporate-account / sub-account workflow, contact support to discuss.