Seamless.AI Emails Bouncing? What Credit Back Protection Covers and What It Doesn't

Seamless.AI checks an email when you research the contact, and if the receiving server confirms the address doesn't exist, is disabled or can't receive mail, it refunds the credit automatically. The same article says that check "is only true at that moment" and that Seamless.AI doesn't guarantee deliverability. So the refund protects your credits, not your sending domain. If an export has sat for a while, check it again before it goes into a sequence.

Everything quoted here is from Seamless.AI's Credit Back Protection article, read 2 November 2026.

What Credit Back covers

Case	Refunded?
Server confirms the address does not exist	Yes
Address is disabled	Yes
Address cannot receive mail	Yes
Temporary bounce, such as a full inbox	No
Role address such as info@ or sales@	No
Phone numbers, company data, other non-email data	No

Refunds are automatic: "There's nothing you need to do." The article also says Seamless.AI "reserves the right to investigate and limit refunds in cases of abuse or unusual activity." It doesn't state a time window.

What it doesn't cover

• A bounce later. The refund follows Seamless.AI's own check at research time. The article doesn't describe refunds for a bounce weeks later in Instantly, Smartlead or Outlook.
• The damage to your domain. A bounce counts against your sender reputation whether or not someone refunds the credit. Our bounce rate thresholds by platform post shows where sequencers pause you.
• Catch-all domains. A server that accepts every address can pass the check for an address that will never be read. See should you send to catch-all emails.

Why researched emails still bounce

The article is plain about it: "the email check is only true at that moment." People leave jobs and companies close mailboxes after the check. If you researched a list in August and send in November, the file is three months old. Our B2B contact data decay post covers how to estimate the drift.

Before a Seamless.AI export goes into a sequence

1. Export the list from Seamless.AI as CSV.
2. Clean it. The Seamless.AI export tool keeps one email per row and removes duplicates in your browser.
3. Remove role addresses you don't want to cold email. They aren't refunded anyway.
4. Verify the file at /verify if it's more than a few weeks old or has many catch-all domains. Valid, risky and invalid download separately.
5. Send valid addresses first. Put risky ones in a smaller batch, or leave them out.
6. Watch the first 200 sends. If bounces climb, stop and look at which domains they come from.

The Seamless.AI export guide has the column-by-column steps, and our Lusha and Seamless.AI cleaning post covers the file itself.

Where SimpleVerifier fits

SimpleVerifier checks the emails in your export on the day you plan to send and labels each valid, risky (with the reason) or invalid. The first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in on the verify page. Pro is $39 a month with the first 100,000 checks a month at full speed, then slower, never cut off. One-time packs of 10,000 checks for $15 never expire (CSV only). See pricing.