Comparison
Programmable vs Hunter
Both help you reach the right person at a company by email. Hunter is a cold email tool: find and verify addresses, keep your leads, and send sequences. Programmable is an agent you describe in a sentence, which finds the companies, researches them and waits for you before anything goes out. Here is what each is built for, where each is stronger, and how to bring a list over if you want to.
Hunter's side describes how Hunter works as a product, as of October 2026. Hunter changes often; check its own site for prices and limits.
Built for
What each is built for
Hunter
A cold outreach tool built around public web data. You find companies that fit, find and verify their email addresses, keep contacts in a simple CRM called Leads, and send email sequences with automated follow-ups. It's direct and easy to pick up: type in a company or a name and get an address.
Programmable
A prospecting agent you supervise. You describe who you sell to in a sentence; it finds new companies each run, the right people, researches each company, drafts the outreach and asks before it sends. Finding the email is one step of that, and your own sending tool does the sending.
An example
The same job, both ways
Each week, find new dental groups in Texas that are hiring, reach the owner, and add them to a campaign with an opener about why now.
Working in Hunter
- In Discover, filter companies by location, industry and headcount.
- Check for job openings with Hunter's signals.
- Run a Bulk Domain Search to find the email addresses at those companies.
- Verify the addresses and save the people you want to a Leads list.
- Write a sequence with follow-ups, with Hunter's AI writing help if you want it.
- Add the list as recipients and launch. Emails go out on your sending schedule.
- Do it again next week for the new companies.
Describing an agent
“Find dental groups in Texas with five or more locations that are hiring. Reach the owner, write an opener about why now, and add them to Instantly every Monday.”
- It's read into a plan: who it finds, what it researches, who it reaches, where results go and when. Anything unclear gets a question, not a guess.
- You confirm the plan, with the cost of each lookup and its source.
- Each Monday it runs the stored plan on companies it hasn't covered, and the leads wait paused for you.
Compared
Side by side
| Programmable | Hunter | |
|---|---|---|
| How you start | Write one sentence: who you sell to, what to find out, who to reach, where leads go and when it runs. It's read into a plan you confirm once. | Type a company or a name to get addresses, or filter companies in Discover, then verify, save to Leads and build a sequence. |
| What runs each time | The stored plan. Later runs don't re-plan, take only companies the agent hasn't covered, and behave the same way every time. | Your active sequences, on your sending schedule. Hunter also suggests new prospects each week for you to look at. |
| Finding emails | Email pattern checks are included, and you can connect Hunter, Apollo, Findymail or People Data Labs as well. Set the order they're tried in. | This is its core: Domain Search, Email Finder and Email Verifier, with addresses shown with a confidence score or a recent check, and their public sources. |
| Company research | Up to 486 columns a row, 468 of them from 56 included sources with no keys of your own; 23 public sources to find companies from. | Discover filters companies by location, industry, headcount, keywords and technology. Enrichment fills in missing company details, and signals flag funding, job openings and company changes. |
| Your own keys | Bring keys for 20 providers (Apollo, Hunter, People Data Labs and more) and your own AI. Set the order they're tried in. Your keys add no credits here. | Runs on Hunter's own credits. Your Hunter key also works inside Programmable, for finding and verifying addresses. |
| Pricing model | Credits per researched row: one a row, plus one for each heavier group asked for. AI questions on included AI add credits; your own AI key doesn't. 500 included to start; Starter $19/month with 20,000 credits, Growth $49/month with 75,000 credits, Scale $149/month with 300,000 credits. Unused plan credits lapse at renewal; credits from a pack never expire. | Plans with a monthly credit allowance that doesn't roll over. Finding and verifying addresses spend credits, and repeats in the same period count once. See Hunter's pricing page for today's prices. |
| What's stored | Your lists and results aren't stored. Only receipts, agent settings and which companies an agent has covered are kept. | Contacts you find or import stay in Hunter Leads, a simple CRM, where you can enrich them and export them. |
| Sending | Asks before it sends by default: leads land paused in Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Woodpecker, Reply.io or Apollo, with an optional AI reviewer and one Approvals screen. You need one of those tools to send from. | Its own Sequences, from your connected email accounts, with automated follow-ups, inbox warm-up and A/B tests. Once a sequence is active, new recipients' emails go out on your schedule. |
| From other tools | Every agent has a link: one HTTP step in Zapier, n8n or Make, a Google Sheets formula, or the API. | CRM options such as HubSpot, Zoho, Salesforce and Pipedrive, Chrome and Google Sheets extensions, and an API. |
Trade-offs
Where each is stronger
Hunter is stronger when
- All you need is an email address, right now, for one person or one company.
- You want finding, verifying and sending in one simple tool. Programmable needs a separate sending tool.
- You want to see an address found while you browse: its Chrome extension lists the addresses for the site you're on, with their public sources.
- You want your contacts kept in one place for the team. Programmable deliberately doesn't keep them.
- You write your own emails and don't need company research.
- You sell to people in the EU, the EEA or the UK. Programmable skips people there altogether, while Hunter's service is set up for GDPR, with its main servers in Belgium.
Programmable is stronger when
- You'd rather describe who you sell to once than work through the steps each week.
- You want to know more than an address: 468 columns about each company are included with no keys of your own.
- You want companies found from 23 public sources, such as government contracts and company filings.
- You want an agent to run on a schedule and take only companies it hasn't covered.
- You already send from Instantly, Smartlead, Lemlist, Woodpecker, Reply.io or Apollo, and want leads to wait there for you.
- You don't want your lists and results stored by the tool that built them.
- You sell to online stores: platform, apps, payments, shipping and returns, and speed measured during the run.
Questions
Can I bring my Hunter leads?
Yes. Export your leads from Hunter as a CSV and upload it under Data, or start an agent from Your list. The website, email or LinkedIn column is found on its own, every column you brought is kept in order, and the research is added alongside. The file isn't stored. Sequences and their history don't come across.
Can I use my Hunter key here?
Yes. Connect it and agents use Hunter to find and verify addresses, in the order you set among your providers. Your key adds no credits here; what Hunter charges for its lookups stays on your Hunter plan.
Can Programmable send leads into Hunter Sequences?
Not directly: Hunter isn't one of the tools an agent sends to. You can download a run as a CSV and import it into a Hunter sequence yourself, as long as each row has an email address.
Does Programmable send the emails itself?
No. Your sending tool sends, from your mailboxes. If you don't have one yet, you'll need one to run campaigns, or you can download the results and use them however you like.
Is Programmable a cheaper Hunter?
It's a different shape of tool. If you want addresses and a simple way to email them, Hunter is built for that. If you'd rather describe who you sell to and review what an agent found and researched each week, that's what Programmable is built for.
Is Programmable SOC 2 certified?
No. We don't hold SOC 2 or another certification. What we keep and don't, how keys are encrypted and which services are involved is all on the security page.