What do verification verdicts mean?
Exact meanings, costs, freshness rules, and campaign behavior for each verdict.
2 min read
| Verdict | Meaning | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Alive | The mailbox appears able to receive mail | 1 |
| Dead | The mailbox is expected to bounce | 1 |
| Risky | The address may exist, but sending is dangerous or uncertain | 1 |
| No-answer | The checker could not decide | 0 |
The overview, list rows, and run summary use these same verdict names.
Invalid syntax and suppressed addresses are skipped for free. A checker error also costs nothing.
Unknown results appear as No-answer and cost nothing.
What counts as Risky
Section titled “What counts as Risky”Risky includes catch-all, disposable, spam-trap, known complainer, do-not-mail,
and role addresses such as info@ or sales@.
A catch-all result costs one credit. It is a usable Risky answer, even though it does not prove that one mailbox exists.
What happens at campaign review
Section titled “What happens at campaign review”| Verdict | Default action |
|---|---|
| Dead | Skipped |
| Risky | Sent, with a warning |
| No-answer | Sent |
| Not checked | Sent |
At review, Dead results appear as Likely to bounce. Choose Skip likely bounces or Include anyway. Skipping is the default. A check still running does not block launch, so wait for it to finish if you want every Dead result applied.
The same choice applies to contacts added later through Auto-sync.
Verification never suppresses
Section titled “Verification never suppresses”A Dead verdict does not add the address to the suppression list. Verification is a third-party judgment and may be wrong. Only an unsubscribe, permanent bounce, manual suppression, or erasure changes suppression.
Results are reused for 90 days
Section titled “Results are reused for 90 days”A result belongs to the normalized address, so the same fresh result is reused across contacts, lists, imports, and campaigns without another charge.
After 90 days, it becomes stale and can be checked again. Staleness never starts a check or spends a credit automatically.
Where verdicts appear
Section titled “Where verdicts appear”- Verification, then Overview, for the Organization summary.
- Verification, then Verifications, for check history.
- Verification, then Lists, for list health.
- Contact and list tables, in Verified or Health.
- The campaign Check your list step.
No check starts automatically. ColdMerge always shows a quote before spending credits.
Check an address without verification credits
- Open the free basic email address checker and enter one address.
- Leave the optional domain lookup off for a local format and common-typo check. Enable it to send only the domain to Cloudflare's public DNS resolver.
- Choose Check address. Confirm any suggested spelling with your source; the checker does not change it.
Mail records describe a domain, not an individual mailbox. Null MX means the domain declares no mail service. Missing MX can still allow an address-record fallback. Lookup failures are inconclusive. This tool sends no test email, consumes no verification credits and does not set any verification verdict.