Cold outreach in 2026: How do you keep bounce rates low? 📧
Bounce rates are getting worse every year, especially with the rise of disposable and fake emails. I noticed that many validation tools only check the syntax (valid/invalid) but don’t really tell you the true quality of an email.
Out of frustration, I spent the last few months building a lightweight Email Validation & Scoring API that goes deeper:
– disposable detection
– MX & DNS checks
– suspicious patterns
– role-based filtering
– and a scoring model from 0 to 10
I shared the tool on Product Hunt if anyone wants to see how it works or give feedback:
https://www.producthunt.com/products/email-validation-scoring-api
Question for everyone:
How do you validate your lists before running a campaign? Do you rely on syntax checks or deeper scoring?
Replies
Hello, thanks for sharing, we are thinking about cold B2B email. But the list validation should be the job of the sending service ? Is there the need to double-validate a list ?
@listandfuse Great question! It's a common misconception. Sending services (like Mailchimp or Lemlist) are designed to deliver emails, not clean them.
If you upload a raw list to a sending service:
They check syntax only: They won't catch disposable emails, 'spam trap' patterns, or role-based accounts (like admin@ or support@) which kill your conversion rates.
The 'Ban' Risk: If your bounce rate hits ~3-5%, they don't clean your list—they simply block your account to protect their own servers.
My tool goes deeper than simple syntax. We run MX record checks, detect disposable domains, filter low-converting role-based emails, and use a scoring model (0-10) to flag suspicious patterns (like gibberish usernames) before you ever risk your domain reputation