Comparison
Publish Now Email Validation vs Clearout
Clearout sells an API for teams wiring verification into a CRM. Publish Now is what you reach for when you have a CSV and don't want to read API docs. Drop it in, get a clean list, move on.
Side by side
Pricing from Clearout's public page. Accuracy figures from the LeadMagic 2026 benchmark and vendor claims.
| Feature | Publish Now | Clearout |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $0.004/email pay-as-you-go. Subscriptions from $21/mo for 3K verifications. |
| Free tier | Unlimited (rate-limited) | 100 free verifications after signup. |
| Accuracy | 70–90% (MX + DoH) | 98% (their claim). |
| Signup required | ||
| API available | — (roadmap) | |
| SMTP probing | ||
| Catch-all handling | Limited | Limited |
| Best for | Free first-pass list cleanup before send | Engineering teams piping verification into HubSpot, Salesforce, or a custom CRM via API. |
Pick Clearout if…
- ▸You need a stable API to verify addresses at signup or on every CRM contact write.
- ▸You want webhook callbacks and batch endpoints to fit a programmatic workflow.
- ▸You're standing up a deliverability pipeline that needs to run on autopilot.
Pick Publish Now if…
- ▸You have a CSV in your downloads folder right now and don't want to write code.
- ▸You don't need an integration, you need a clean file in the next two minutes.
- ▸You'd rather not skim API docs and read auth setup to clean 4,000 rows.
Frequently asked
Is Publish Now as accurate as Clearout?
Clearout layers SMTP probing on top of MX and DoH, so on edge cases they catch a few more. For the bulk-bad-address case - typos, dead domains, broken MX records - our results land within a couple of points of theirs.
Why is Publish Now free when Clearout charges per email?
Clearout sells an API, infrastructure, dashboards, team seats, and integrations. We sell nothing - the validator is a free utility we ship alongside our social posting product. No billing dashboard to fund.
Can I use Publish Now from my code or CRM?
Not today. The free validator is a browser CSV tool. If your workflow needs API integration into a CRM or signup form, Clearout is the better fit. If you just need a clean file once a month, we're easier.
What's the largest CSV I can clean with Publish Now?
The tool is sized for the typical newsletter or cold-email list - a few thousand rows up to mid-five-figures. Beyond that, a paid API like Clearout with batch endpoints is the right call.
Does Publish Now handle role-based addresses like info@ and support@?
We flag them in the export so you can decide whether to keep them. Clearout does the same with a slightly more granular classifier, but the decision still lands on you.