Credits and billing

EmailValidator uses a credit system. Each validated email address costs one credit.

How charging works

Credits are deducted when a validation result is produced — not when the request is submitted. For batch jobs, credits are charged at upload time based on the number of email rows in the CSV. You only pay for processed results.

Checking your balance

GET /api/v1/credits
X-Api-Key: ev_your_key

200 OK:

{
  "credits_remaining": 4817,
  "free_credits": 317,
  "paid_credits": 4500
}

credits_remaining is the sum of free_credits and paid_credits. It is null for system and demo accounts.

Insufficient credits

When a request would exceed your balance, the API returns 402 Payment Required:

{
  "status": 402,
  "error": "Insufficient credits.",
  "details": ["shortfall: 5", "balance: 0", "required: 5"]
}

Top up your balance in the dashboard before retrying.

Test mode

Test-mode keys (beginning with ev_test_) cost zero credits. Use them for integration tests and CI pipelines. See Test mode.