ZeroBounce platform help — email validation, email finder, AI scoring, activity data, inbox placement testing, blacklist monitoring, DMARC, warmup. Use when your email list has too many bounces, catch-all addresses are hurting deliverability, you need to check if your IP is blacklisted, DMARC reports show unauthorized senders, or the ZeroBounce API isn't returning expected validation results. Do NOT use for general deliverability strategy (use /sales-deliverability), enrichment strategy (use /sales-enrich), or prospect list building strategy (use /sales-prospect-list).
Help the user with ZeroBounce platform questions — from email validation and list cleaning through AI scoring, activity data, inbox placement testing, blacklist monitoring, DMARC monitoring, email warmup, API integration, and email finder.
ZeroBounce is an email validation and deliverability platform with 99.6% accuracy across 30+ email status types. SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO-27001 certified, GDPR/HIPAA/CCPA compliant. Core strengths: bulk and real-time email validation, AI-powered catch-all scoring, activity data for engagement tracking, inbox placement testing, blacklist monitoring, DMARC monitoring, and email warmup.
If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.
Ask the user:
What area of ZeroBounce do you need help with?
What's your role?
What are you trying to accomplish? (describe your specific goal — e.g., "clean 100K contacts before a HubSpot campaign", "set up blacklist monitoring for 5 sending IPs", "validate catch-all addresses with AI scoring")
If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end — don't gate your response behind gathering complete context.
If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:
/sales-deliverability/sales-enrich/sales-prospect-list/sales-integrationOtherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge using the reference below.
Read references/platform-guide.md for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.
You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.
Based on the user's specific question, provide step-by-step instructions:
POST /v2/sendfile via the API.GET /v2/filestatus.GET /v2/getfile. Review the breakdown by status (Valid, Invalid, Catch-All, Spam Trap, Abuse, Disposable, Unknown, Do Not Mail).api.zerobounce.net), US (api-us.zerobounce.net), or EU (api-eu.zerobounce.net).GET /v2/validate?api_key=YOUR_KEY&[email protected] for single validation, or POST /v2/validatebatch for up to 200 at once.status field — route Valid emails to your system, reject Invalid/Spam Trap/Abuse/Disposable, and flag Catch-All for AI Scoring.GET /v2/getcredits and usage with GET /v2/getusage.v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]. ZeroBounce provides the correct record to publish.Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about pricing, credit costs, and API behavior that may have changed.
Don't treat Catch-All as Valid or Invalid. Catch-all domains accept all emails at the SMTP level, so ZeroBounce cannot confirm individual mailbox existence through standard validation alone. Don't blindly include them (risking bounces) or blindly exclude them (losing valid prospects). Use AI Scoring to evaluate catch-all addresses individually — it's what the feature was designed for.
Don't underestimate Email Finder credit cost. At 20 credits per successful find, a batch of 500 lookups can cost up to 10,000 credits — equivalent to validating 10,000 emails. Budget Email Finder usage separately from validation credits. If you need high-volume email discovery, compare the per-find cost against dedicated email finder tools.
Don't forget about regional API endpoints. ZeroBounce offers US and EU regional endpoints in addition to the default. If you have data residency requirements (GDPR), use the EU endpoint (api-eu.zerobounce.net). If latency matters, use the regional endpoint closest to your infrastructure. The default endpoint works globally but may not satisfy compliance requirements.
Don't ignore the 80K/hour rate limit on credit endpoints. At 80,000 requests per hour, you can process ~22 emails per second via real-time validation. For large lists, use bulk upload (POST /v2/sendfile) instead of hammering the real-time endpoint — bulk is async and handles scale better. Use batch validation (POST /v2/validatebatch for up to 200 at a time) as a middle ground.
Don't warm up and campaign simultaneously from the same account. Email warmup builds reputation through controlled engagement patterns. Sending live campaigns during warmup disrupts these patterns and can hurt rather than help. Finish warmup first (2-4 weeks), then transition to live sending gradually.
Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.
/sales-deliverability — Email deliverability strategy across tools (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, warmup planning, inbox placement, bounce management)/sales-enrich — Enrichment strategy across tools (waterfall enrichment, CRM hygiene, credit optimization)/sales-prospect-list — Build targeted prospect lists with ICP definition and segmentation/sales-integration — Connect ZeroBounce to CRM and other tools via Zapier or direct integrations/sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-doUser says: "I have 50,000 contacts in HubSpot and want to verify them before sending a product launch email." Skill does:
User says: "We send from 3 IPs and 2 domains — I want to know immediately if we get blacklisted." Skill does:
User says: "I want to add email validation to our signup form so fake emails don't enter our database." Skill does:
GET /v2/validate or batch endpoint for form submissionsapi_key parameterSymptom: A large portion of your list comes back as Catch-All, making it hard to judge list quality. Cause: Many corporate domains configure catch-all mail servers that accept all addresses — standard validation cannot confirm individual mailbox existence on these domains. Solution: Run AI Scoring on all Catch-All results. Set a threshold score (7+ recommended) for inclusion in campaigns. Monitor bounce rates for scored addresses and adjust your threshold over time. If most of your list is catch-all, it likely skews toward large enterprises — this is normal.
Symptom: Uploaded a CSV for bulk validation but the job status shows "processing" for an extended period.
Cause: Large lists take longer to process. Network issues during upload can cause incomplete file transfers. Malformed CSV formatting can slow processing.
Solution: Check job status via the dashboard or GET /v2/filestatus. For large lists (100K+), processing can take hours — this is normal. If stuck for more than 24 hours, delete the file with GET /v2/deletefile and re-upload. Ensure your CSV is properly formatted with one email per row and no special characters in the email column.
Symptom: Real-time validation returns "Unknown" status for a significant percentage of emails. Cause: The receiving mail server timed out or returned an ambiguous response. Greylisting by the recipient server can cause temporary Unknown results. Network issues between ZeroBounce and the recipient server. Solution: Retry Unknown emails after a few hours — greylisting typically resolves on subsequent attempts. If Unknown rates remain high for a specific domain, that domain's mail server may be aggressively blocking verification attempts. Do not treat Unknown as Valid — exclude from campaigns or retry before sending.