email-verify ✉️

Find out if an email address is real and deliverable — before you send.

email-verify is a live email-verification service shipped two ways:

• an MCP server (npx -y mailbox-verify-mcp) you plug into Claude, Cursor or any MCP agent, and
• a pay-per-call HTTP API gated by x402 (USDC on Base) for autonomous agents — no sign-up, no API key.

It returns a VALID / RISKY / INVALID verdict with a 0–100 deliverability score and explained reasons.

What it checks

Check	What it does
✉️ Syntax	RFC-shaped local@domain, length limits, and common typos (gmial.com, hotmial.com, gmail.con).
📮 MX (live)	Live DNS lookup of the domain's mail servers — can it receive mail at all? Falls back to the A record (implicit MX) per RFC 5321.
🗑️ Disposable	Embedded catalog of hundreds of throwaway / temp-mail providers (Mailinator, 10minutemail, temp-mail, Guerrilla Mail, 1secMail …), including wildcard subdomains.
👥 Role-based	Shared function mailboxes (info@, admin@, support@, postmaster@) that hurt deliverability and don't map to a person.
🌐 Free provider	Flags consumer webmail (gmail/outlook/yahoo…) vs a business domain.
🎯 SMTP mailbox (deep)	Opens a live SMTP conversation to the real mail server up to RCPT TO: and quits — never sends DATA, so no email is ever delivered — to confirm the specific inbox exists. Plus catch-all detection (a domain that accepts every address).

Everything is read-only. No email is ever sent.

Use it as an MCP server (free)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email-verify": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "mailbox-verify-mcp"] }
  }
}

Tools:

• verify_email — verify one address (deep: true runs the live SMTP mailbox probe).
• verify_many — verify a batch (clean a list before a campaign).

Or connect over HTTP at POST /mcp.

Free HTTP API

GET https://email-verify-seven.vercel.app/verify?email=jane@example.com
GET https://email-verify-seven.vercel.app/verify?email=foo@mailinator.com   # → RISKY (disposable)
GET https://email-verify-seven.vercel.app/verify?email=jane@gmial.com       # → RISKY (domain typo)
GET https://email-verify-seven.vercel.app/verify_many?emails=a@x.com,b@y.com

Free tier is rate-limited (30 / hour / IP) and runs every check except the live SMTP probe.

Pay-per-call (x402) — the deep tier

The /pro/* routes are gated by x402. Your agent pays $0.05 USDC per call automatically (Base); the paid tier runs the live SMTP RCPT-TO mailbox probe and lifts the batch cap to 50.

GET /pro/verify?email=<addr>          # 402 → pay → deep result
GET /pro/verify_many?emails=a,b,c     # up to 50 addresses

Settlement goes on-chain straight to the operator wallet — the server holds no key.

A note on honesty about the SMTP probe

Many networks (including serverless egress) block outbound port 25. When the live SMTP probe can't connect, email-verify says so in the output (smtp_blocked) and degrades to MX + syntax + disposable + role signals rather than inventing a mailbox-exists result. The verdict reflects exactly what could and couldn't be confirmed.

Example output

{
  "email": "jane@example.com",
  "verdict": "VALID",
  "score": 90,
  "deliverable": true,
  "reasons": [
    { "code": "has_mx", "severity": "info", "message": "Domain has 2 MX host(s); top: aspmx.example.com." },
    { "code": "smtp_accept", "severity": "info", "message": "Mailbox accepted by aspmx.example.com (SMTP 250). The inbox exists." }
  ],
  "checks": { "syntaxValid": true, "hasMx": true, "disposable": false, "roleBased": false, "smtp": { "status": "deliverable" } }
}

Why this exists

List cleaning and signup-fraud prevention are things businesses pay real money for. An LLM agent can't open a TCP socket to a mail server or carry a maintained disposable-domain catalog on its own — email-verify gives it that as one tool call.

Development

npm install
npm run dev:http       # local HTTP server on :8080 (payments default ON; set X402_ENABLED=false to disable)
npm run dev:mcp        # local stdio MCP server
npm run test:engine    # deterministic offline tests

License

MIT