Credits and finding emails

A credit is one paid lookup. Finder has two kinds, and each plan comes with a number of both.

Your first matches are free. Saving an affiliate is free. The weekly scan is free.

You only pay for a result

An email credit buys an address we found on their site or channel, or through our email finder, with whether it's been checked. It's used only when you get one you can use.

• We find an email address: one email credit.
• We find two or three addresses for the same affiliate: still one credit.
• We find nothing: the credit comes straight back.
• The address we found doesn't accept mail: the credit comes back.
• Our provider fails or takes too long: the credit comes back.
• A search can't start or fails part way: the search credit comes back.

Every refund is said on the screen, in words. You never have to check a balance to find out.

Credits reset each month on a paid plan, and they don't roll over. On the trial you get one set for the whole 14 days. When you run out, nothing is charged and nothing runs. The app tells you, and shows the next plan.

Finding an email

Save an affiliate, then press Find email. The button says what it costs before you press it, for example "uses 1 of your 20 email credits".

We look in the free places first:

1. The contact and about pages on their website.
2. For a YouTube channel, the channel description and the creator's own site if they link to one.
3. A paid email database, only if the free places had nothing.

Then each address is checked. A bounce is an email that comes back undelivered, and too many of them hurt your sending reputation. Every address shows one of four results beside it:

• Verified. The mailbox exists and takes mail.
• Unverified. We found the address but couldn't check the mailbox. It may bounce, so send with care.
• Catch-all, may bounce. Their domain takes mail for every address, so a check can't tell whether this one is read. We never call it verified.
• Invalid. No such mailbox. We never hand you one of these, and if it's all we found, the credit comes back.

A contact page often lists a partnerships address and a general one, so we keep up to three for each affiliate, each with its own result and where we found it. Best first. That's a verified one if there is one.

You also see where the address came from, like "their contact page". If a website lists both a company address and someone's personal Gmail, we pick the company one and tell you why. A personal address on a company site is usually the wrong person.

If we find no public email, the row says so and the credit is back. You can type an address in by hand. We won't charge you to look at the same affiliate again for seven days, because the answer rarely changes that fast.

Find emails for selected

Tick several saved affiliates and press Find emails for selected. The button says the most it can cost. Each row shows its own progress: queued, looking, then the address or the reason there isn't one.

If your credits run out part way, the run stops there. The rows already done keep their results. The rest are left as they were, and you're shown the next plan.

Find new

Find new runs a fresh search when the weekly scan isn't enough. Each search uses one search credit, said on the button. There are three kinds:

• Topic. Who writes or films about a topic, in one country. Type the topic and pick the country.
• Competitor. Who already promotes a competitor. Type their website, or their YouTube handle.
• Lookalike. YouTube channels like one you already rate. Paste a channel link, a handle or a video link.

A search runs in the background, so you can keep working. Recent searches shows each one with how many affiliates it found, and says plainly when it has finished. A search that fails says so and gives the credit back.

Add your own

Already know who you want? Add them yourself.

• Paste one link, or many, one per line.
• Or upload a CSV, which is a spreadsheet saved as plain text. We read the column called link, website or channel, or the first column if none is named.
• Websites and YouTube channels. Up to 200 at a time. For YouTube, use the channel's link, not a video.

Press Check these links first. Nothing is added or charged at that point. You see how many are new, how many you already have, how many are already your affiliates, and any we couldn't read and why.

Then press Add. New affiliates land in Saved, and we look for an email for each one. Adding is free. Each email found uses one email credit, and a lookup that finds nothing uses none. An affiliate you already had is saved, never added twice.

Affiliates you add by hand aren't scored, so they show "Not scored" where a fit score would be.

After the trial

When a trial ends, the account becomes read-only. Everything you found stays, including every email. New email lookups and new searches are off until you pick a plan.