Recipient validation

Easy and effective email validation

Protect your sending reputation and improve deliverability by validating email addresses before you send. Stop bounces before they impact your revenue.

Validate your email list with confidence.

Comprehensive checks to ensure you only send to genuine, deliverable addresses.

Smart validation process

Check addresses against our permissioned database instead of using SMTP pings. Verify past successful deliveries to ensure better validation accuracy while protecting your IP reputation.

Comprehensive checks

Validate syntax, catch typos, identify disposable emails, and verify domains. Our tool ensures you only send to genuine, active email addresses to maintain high deliverability rates.

Real-time protection

Prevent invalid email submissions on forms. Get smart suggestions for common typos, helping users provide correct email addresses during signup.

Prevent fraud and protect quality

Stop users from creating accounts with temporary email addresses. Maintain data quality by screening submissions and suggesting fixes for mistakes.

Real-time performance insights

Access detailed validation reports and deliverability metrics. Use our analytics to improve your email collection and validation strategies.

Scale your email validation

Handle high-volume validation with robust infrastructure. Access advanced API features and detailed reporting for enterprise-level needs.

Validation that doesn't put your reputation at risk.

Older tools verify an address by pinging the recipient's mail server. Mailbox providers now treat that like a spammer probing for valid addresses, so it gets you rate-limited or blocklisted, and the answers are unreliable anyway. Bird checks each address against real delivery and engagement history instead, so you learn whether an address actually receives mail without ever touching the provider or risking your reputation.

What your validation results tell you.

Every address comes back in one of five buckets, so you know exactly what to do with it.

  1. 01

    Valid.

    Seen accepting mail or engaging in our data. Safe to send.

  2. 02

    Invalid.

    A confirmed hard bounce. Don't send: it will bounce and drag down your sender score.

  3. 03

    Risky.

    Low-quality addresses: disposable inboxes, masked addresses, or role accounts like info@company.com. They may bounce or complain, so most senders exclude them.

  4. 04

    Typo.

    Valid syntax, but the domain looks misspelled, like john@gmsil.com. We suggest the likely fix so you can correct it at signup or drop it from a list.

  5. 05

    Neutral.

    Passes every check and has never hard-bounced, but we have no delivery history for it yet. Low risk: send to it, or wait for engagement proof first.

Where validation fits in your workflow.

Validate in real time on a signup form to catch typos and block disposable addresses before they reach your database. Validate a whole list before a campaign to strip invalid and risky addresses and keep your bounce rate down. And re-check older lists now and then, since addresses that were fine at signup go stale as mailboxes close.

Recipient validation FAQ

Why not just ping the mailbox provider to check an address?+
Providers treat that like address harvesting and will rate-limit or blocklist you for it, and the results are unreliable: a server can accept an address at the handshake that still won't deliver, and greylisting makes real addresses look invalid. Checking against delivery history avoids both the risk and the false answers.
Should I send to Neutral addresses?+
Your call. Neutral means the address is well-formed, has a real mail server, and has never hard-bounced, but we haven't yet seen a delivery or engagement event for it. It's low risk, not suspect. Send to it if you're growth-focused, or hold it until you see engagement if you'd rather play safe.
What should I do with a Typo result?+
On a signup form, show the suggested correction so the person can fix it before submitting, which recovers a lead that would otherwise bounce. In a batch list, separate the typos out and confirm or drop them, but don't send to the misspelled address.

The platform it works alongside.

Recipient Validation keeps your lists clean for whatever you send. The hosted Bird Email API handles the sending, with deliverability, suppression, and analytics built in.

Start with one channel.
Add the others when you're ready.

A test API key is yours immediately. Production unlocks when you add a payment method and verify a sender.

Using Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex? Copy a setup prompt and your agent installs the Bird CLI and skills for you. Pick yours:

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