Catch-All Results in a Clay Waterfall: What to Do With 'Accepts All Addresses'

A catch-all result means the domain's mail server accepts every address, so no check can confirm the person's mailbox. In SimpleVerifier's API it comes back as status risky, reason "Accepts all addresses", reason_code catch_all and action send_with_care. Handle those rows in a separate lane of your Clay table instead of mixing them with confirmed ones. The Clay integration page shows the column setup, which is Clay's HTTP API enrichment with your own key, not a native action.

Why a waterfall produces so many

Email finders in a waterfall often return an address at a domain they cannot probe. At a catch-all domain the finder cannot tell either, and some report it as found. That is why a found email and a confirmed one are different. Our guide to what a catch-all domain is explains the mechanism.

Step 1: catch the label in its own column

Map reason and reason_code to columns beside action. A formula such as {{SV reason_code}} == "catch_all" gives you a clean flag. Role addresses also get send_with_care, so use the code, not the action alone, when you want catch-all specifically.

Step 2: split the table into lanes

Lane	Filter	Plan
Confirmed	action is send	Main campaign
Catch-all	reason_code is catch_all	Smaller, slower campaign
Role	reason_code is role	Decide per team inbox
Retry	action is retry_later	Re-run later

The status map on the Clay page shows how each code lines up with Clay's valid, catch-all, unknown and invalid results and its two include toggles.

Step 3: test before you scale

Send the catch-all lane in a small batch first and watch the bounce rate. Our guide on how many catch-all emails you can send covers batch sizes, and catch-all leads in sequences covers pacing. Keep these on their own sending inboxes if you can, so a bad segment cannot pause your main campaign.

Step 4: use the other fields as tie-breakers

If a catch-all row also has a company domain that matches the person's company, or the address came from two sources, it is a stronger candidate than a lone pattern guess. likely_invented is true only for placeholder or made-up-looking addresses; treat a true value as invalid.

What this does not solve

• No verifier, including this one, can confirm an individual mailbox at a catch-all domain.
• A catch-all row that bounces tells you only about that address, not the whole domain.
• Settings like include catch-all in Clay's own waterfall are Clay's behaviour. Check Clay's documentation for the current options.

Next step

Read the full list of reasons in the API docs, and see pricing for the API calls included on each plan.