How to Find Someone's Business Email Address (7 Methods That Work)

To find someone's business email address, start free: check their company site, press releases and social profiles, then work out the company's email pattern and verify your guess before sending. If that fails, or you need dozens of addresses, an enrichment tool like FullEnrich or Lusha will return a verified address from a name and company for roughly a credit each. Whichever route you take, verify before you send, because one bad batch can hurt the domain you send from.

Key Takeaways

Free lookups are real, but limited. Hunter's free plan gives 50 credits a month, and a found email costs 1 credit while a verification costs 0.5 (Hunter pricing, retrieved 2026-10-16).

A "valid" result is not always valid. Hunter labels some results accept_all, meaning the address is "valid but any email address is accepted by the server" (Hunter API docs, retrieved 2026-10-16).

Gmail punishes careless senders. Google asks senders to keep spam rates below 0.10% and "avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.30% or higher" (Google email sender guidelines, retrieved 2026-10-16).

US law covers B2B email too. The FTC states that CAN-SPAM "makes no exception for business-to-business email", with penalties of up to $53,088 per violating email (FTC CAN-SPAM guide, retrieved 2026-10-16).

In the EU, you must tell people where you got their data. GDPR Article 14 requires this "at the latest at the time of the first communication" (GDPR Art. 14, retrieved 2026-10-16).

Method 1: Check the obvious places

Spend five minutes here before paying for anything.

The company website. Look at the team, about, press, contact and careers pages. Search the site with Google: site:company.com "firstname" or site:company.com "@company.com".
Press releases and media kits. Media contacts are listed by name; in a small company that may be the person you want.
Their own content. Conference speaker pages, podcast show notes, guest posts, GitHub commit metadata for engineers, and author bios on industry publications.
Social profiles. Some people list a work email in the "Contact info" section of their LinkedIn profile or in their X bio.
Public filings and directories. Industry association member lists, licensing registries and procurement portals list named contacts.

If you only find a colleague's address, that is the input for method 2.

Method 2: Guess the pattern and verify it

Companies usually give everyone the same email format. If you find two or three real addresses at the domain, you know the format and can apply it to the person you want.

Common formats to try

For a person named Jane Smith at example.com:

Pattern	Example
first.last	jane.smith@example.com
first	jane@example.com
firstlast	janesmith@example.com
first initial + last	jsmith@example.com
first + last initial	janes@example.com
first_last	jane_smith@example.com

Verify the guess

Do not send to a guess. Run it through a verifier first. Hunter's free plan covers this: verifying an address costs 0.5 credits out of 50 a month, and searches that find nothing are not charged (Hunter pricing, retrieved 2026-10-16). NeverBounce is a common dedicated verifier; its pricing page blocked our automated request, so check current per-email rates on neverbounce.com directly.

The catch-all problem

Some company mail servers accept mail for any address at the domain, so a verifier cannot tell jane.smith@ from xyz123@. Hunter marks these accept_all (Hunter API docs, retrieved 2026-10-16). A guess on a catch-all domain stays a guess. Treat it as lower confidence: send to it only if you found the pattern in real addresses, and keep those sends in small batches so a bounce does not drag down a whole campaign.

Method 3: Use LinkedIn ethically

LinkedIn is where you confirm the person's name spelling, current employer and title, which is half the battle. Two rules:

Use what LinkedIn shows you, not what you can scrape. LinkedIn's User Agreement (section 8.2) prohibits using "software, devices, scripts, robots or any other means", explicitly including "crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons", "to scrape or copy the Services, including profiles and other data" (LinkedIn User Agreement, retrieved 2026-10-16). Bulk scrapers put your account at risk.
Ask the direct route first. If you are connected, check their Contact info. If not, a short connection request or InMail that says why you want to reach them sometimes gets you the email outright.

Some enrichment tools offer browser extensions that run alongside LinkedIn. Before installing one, read how the vendor says it collects data (Lusha, for example, states that it does not scrape social networks) and check it against LinkedIn's terms and your company policy.

Method 4: Use an enrichment tool (FullEnrich, Lusha)

When you need more than a handful of addresses, or the free methods fail, an enrichment tool is faster than guessing.

FullEnrich: best when one database keeps missing

FullEnrich queries several data providers in sequence (a "waterfall") until one returns a result. Its pricing page lists "25+ Sources", while its homepage says "20+ premium vendors", so expect a number in that range. A work email costs 1 credit, a personal email 3 and a mobile number 10, and "if we can't find the data, you don't pay". The free trial gives 50 credits without a card; the Pro plan is about $55 a month for 1,000 credits, and credits roll over for 3 months on monthly plans (FullEnrich pricing, retrieved 2026-10-16). For emails, FullEnrich says "three independent engines must agree" before it returns one (vendor claim).

Use it if you have a list of names and companies in a spreadsheet and want more hits than a single database gives, without managing several tools. Skip it if you only need one or two addresses a month; the free methods above cost nothing.

Lusha: best for one-off lookups with phone numbers

Lusha is a contact database priced for individuals and small teams. Its free plan includes 40 credits a month; a verified email costs 1 credit and a phone number 5. Paid plans start with Starter at $49.90 a month (400 credits) or $37.45 a month billed annually, and teams larger than 5 users are sent to sales (Lusha pricing, retrieved 2026-10-16). Lusha claims 98% email accuracy in North America and 97% in EMEA, and says it does not scrape social networks (Lusha data, retrieved 2026-10-16). Those are the vendor's own figures, not independent measurements.

Use it if you prospect one person at a time and also want phone numbers. Skip it if you mostly enrich long lists from many regions; a single database will miss some people, and a waterfall tool that charges nothing on a miss is cheaper to try against a long list.

Hunter: the free baseline

Hunter does both finding and verifying. Its free plan gives 50 credits a month; Starter is $49 a month, or $34 a month billed yearly, for 2,000 credits. A found email costs 1 credit, a verification 0.5, and searches that find nothing are free (Hunter pricing, retrieved 2026-10-16). Hunter's Domain Search is also the quickest way to see which pattern a company uses.

Tool	Free allowance	Cost per email	Paid entry point	Best for
Hunter	50 credits/mo	1 credit (verify 0.5)	$34/mo yearly, $49 monthly	Finding the pattern, verifying guesses
FullEnrich	50 credits once	1 credit (work email)	About $55/mo for 1,000 credits	Bulk lists, several sources
Lusha	40 credits/mo	1 credit	$37.45/mo yearly, $49.90 monthly	One-off lookups with phone numbers

All figures from vendor pricing pages, retrieved 2026-10-16.

Method 5: Verify before you send

This step is the one most guides skip, and it matters more than which finder you used. Hard bounces and spam complaints tell mailbox providers your list is bad.

Run every address through a verifier, even ones a tool marked as verified, if the list is more than a few weeks old.
Remove "invalid" results outright. Hold "accept_all" or "unknown" results for a small test send.
Authenticate your domain. Google requires all senders to set up SPF or DKIM, and senders of 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC plus one-click unsubscribe for marketing mail (Google email sender guidelines, retrieved 2026-10-16).
Start small. Send the first 20 to 30 emails by hand, watch bounces and replies, then scale.
Watch your spam rate. Google's threshold is below 0.10%, and never 0.30% or higher (same source).

Finding an address is legal. What you send to it is regulated. This is not legal advice; it is the minimum checklist from the regulators' own pages.

United States: CAN-SPAM

The FTC's guide lists the core requirements (FTC CAN-SPAM guide, retrieved 2026-10-16):

Accurate "From", "To" and routing information.
A subject line that matches the content.
Identifying the message as an ad when it is one.
Your valid physical postal address.
A clear way to opt out, honored "within 10 business days".
You stay responsible even if another company sends on your behalf.

The ICO says you can email "any corporate body" (companies, LLPs, Scottish partnerships, government bodies) without prior consent, but you "must not disguise or conceal your identity" and "must provide a valid contact address so they can opt out". "Sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals", so they need consent or the soft opt-in (ICO, electronic mail marketing, retrieved 2026-10-16). Data protection law still applies to a named person's work address.

When you got someone's data from somewhere other than them, Article 14 requires you to tell them, including "from which source the personal data originate", at the latest at your first message (GDPR Art. 14, retrieved 2026-10-16). In practice, add a line to your first email saying where you found their address and how to opt out.

Method 7: Use a first email that earns a reply

A verified address is wasted on a generic pitch. Keep it short, specific and compliant.

Subject: Question about [specific thing they own]

Hi [First name],

I read [their post / talk / announcement] about [topic]. [One sentence on
why it is relevant to you.]

I work on [what you do, in one line]. Would a 15-minute call next week be
useful, or is someone else on your team closer to this?

[Your name]
[Title, company, postal address]

I found your address on [source]. If you would rather not hear from me,
reply "no thanks" and I will not email again.

If they do not reply, one or two follow-ups is normal; how to write follow-up emails covers timing and wording. For other situations, such as introductions and check-ins, see these customer email templates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it legal to find someone's business email address?

Looking up a published business address is generally not the problem; what you do with it is regulated. In the US, the FTC says CAN-SPAM applies to business-to-business email and requires an opt-out and a postal address. In the UK and EU, data protection rules require you to have a lawful basis and to tell people where you got their data.

What is the most common business email format?

There is no reliable public dataset we could verify, so do not assume one. In practice, first.last, first and first-initial-plus-last are the formats to try first, but the only way to know a company's format is to find two or three real addresses at its domain and confirm the pattern with a verifier.

Can I find someone's email for free?

Usually, if you are only looking for a few. Check the company website and press pages, search Google with site: operators, guess the pattern and verify it with a free plan such as Hunter's 50 monthly credits. Free plans from enrichment tools are enough for occasional lookups but run out quickly for prospecting.

What does "accept all" or "catch-all" mean in email verification?

It means the company's mail server accepts mail for any address at the domain, so a verifier cannot confirm whether the specific mailbox exists. The address may be correct. Treat it as lower confidence, send in small batches and remove it if it bounces.

How this guide was researched

We read Hunter's pricing and API documentation, Lusha's and FullEnrich's pricing pages, Google's email sender guidelines, the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide, the ICO's guidance on electronic mail marketing, GDPR Article 14 and LinkedIn's User Agreement on 2026-10-16. Tools were described from documentation, pricing pages and vendor materials, not hands-on testing; NeverBounce's pricing page blocked automated access, so no prices are quoted for it. LogicBalls may earn a commission from some links in this article, which does not change the recommendations.