Research report, October 2026
The short answer
On a list of 500 US plumbing businesses, LocalPipe returned a verified, sendable email for 51.6% of them (258). The next best provider, Outscraper, reached 12.0% (60). Seamless, Apollo and Hunter reached between 4.5% and 7.0%. LocalPipe also named the owner for 76% of businesses and returned a direct mobile for 16.6%. No other provider named more than 16% of owners.
LocalPipe ran this test, so read it as a vendor benchmark. The sample, definitions, rounding rules and scoring formula are all in the methodology so you can repeat it on your own list.
Executive summary
Plumbers, roofers, HVAC contractors and the thousands of other owner-operated trades that make up Main Street are some of the most valuable buyers in America, and some of the hardest to reach. We wanted to put a number on how hard. We took a list of 500 US plumbing businesses and ran every record through LocalPipe and four widely used alternatives: Apollo, Seamless, Hunter and Outscraper.
This page is for lead generation agencies, cold email teams and outbound sales leaders whose buyers are owner-operated local businesses. Below you will find the full scorecard, analysis of coverage, deliverability and mobile reach, provider notes, campaign math and methodology.
Coverage is the real gap.
Apollo, Seamless and Hunter returned an email for between 6.3% and 8.1% of the plumbing businesses we tested. LocalPipe returned one for 52%. For a team building a campaign around local trades, that is the difference between a usable list and a rounding error.
Volume without verification is a liability.
Outscraper found the second most emails at 28%, but 36% of them were invalid and another 21% were catch-all addresses that cannot be confirmed. Once those are removed, its verified sendable coverage falls to 12.0%. Sent as is, its output would have produced 50 hard bounces from a 500 record list, more than three times the 14 combined from Apollo, Seamless and Hunter.
Knowing the owner changes the conversation.
LocalPipe identified the owner by name for 76% of businesses. No other provider cleared 16%. Without a name, outreach is far more likely to land in a shared inbox read by whoever answers the phone.
Quality held at scale.
LocalPipe delivered the highest volume and the cleanest data at the same time: 99.2% valid, 0.8% catch-all and zero invalid addresses shipped. That produced verified sendable coverage of 51.6%, more than four times the next best provider.
The scorecard
Every provider received the same 500 businesses. Counts are derived from the measured rates and rounded to the nearest whole record. The Benchmark Score combines yield, owner names, validity and mobile coverage in one number, with the best result in the test set to 100.
| Provider | Benchmark Score | Verified sendable coverage | Email find rate | Owner name found | Valid emails | Invalid emails shipped | Catch-all or risky | Direct owner mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LocalPipe | 100.0 | 51.6%258 / 500 | 52%260 emails | 76%380 / 500 | 99.2%258 of 260 | 0%0 emails | 0.8%2 emails | 16.6%83 / 500 |
| Seamless | 30.1 | 7.0%35 / 500 | 8.1%40 emails | 10.1%50 / 500 | 87%35 of 40 | 7%3 emails | 6%2 emails | 3.7%18 / 500 |
| Apollo | 26.4 | 5.2%26 / 500 | 7.2%36 emails | 11.2%56 / 500 | 72%26 of 36 | 18%6 emails | 12%4 emails | 4.1%20 / 500 |
| Hunter | 23.7 | 4.5%22 / 500 | 6.3%32 emails | 8.2%41 / 500 | 71%22 of 32 | 16%5 emails | 13%4 emails | 3.1%16 / 500 |
| Outscraper | 22.2 | 12.0%60 / 500 | 28%140 emails | 16%80 / 500 | 43%60 of 140 | 36%50 emails | 21%29 emails | Not provided |
Benchmark Score weights verified sendable coverage at 40% and owner name rate, email validity and mobile coverage at 20% each. Each metric is scaled against the best result in the test. Outscraper does not provide owner mobiles, so it scores zero on that component. Full definitions are in the methodology section.
Yield and quality
A find rate on its own says little about a campaign. The figure that decides pipeline is verified sendable coverage: the share of the full list that ends up with a verified, deliverable email. It is each provider's email find rate multiplied by its valid rate.
LocalPipe reached 51.6% verified sendable coverage, or 258 sendable emails from 500 businesses. Outscraper, the closest alternative, found emails for 28% of the list but reached only 12.0% once invalid and catch-all addresses were removed. The three traditional B2B databases landed between 4.5% and 7.0%. Put differently, a team using Apollo would need to source roughly 5,000 plumbing businesses to end up with as many sendable contacts as LocalPipe returned from 500.
| Provider | Email find rate | Valid rate | Verified sendable coverage | Sendable per 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LocalPipe | 52% | 99.2% | 51.6% | 258 |
| Outscraper | 28% | 43% | 12.0% | 60 |
| Seamless | 8.1% | 87% | 7.0% | 35 |
| Apollo | 7.2% | 72% | 5.2% | 26 |
| Hunter | 6.3% | 71% | 4.5% | 22 |
Verified sendable coverage equals email find rate multiplied by valid rate. Percentages are shown as measured, so products of the rounded figures can differ from the stated coverage by a fraction of a point.
Analysis: coverage
Apollo, Seamless and Hunter are strong products for the market they were built for. Their data comes largely from professional networks, corporate websites and the email patterns of companies with structured domains and published staff pages. A software company with 200 employees leaves a long, consistent trail. A three truck plumbing company in Ohio usually does not.
The owner of that plumbing company is unlikely to keep an active LinkedIn profile. The business may run from a personal Gmail or Yahoo address, or from a domain a web designer set up once and nobody has touched since. The website, if there is one, tends to list a phone number and a contact form rather than a name and an inbox. A database that depends on professional profiles captures very little of this, which is why the three traditional providers clustered between 6.3% and 8.1% email coverage in our test.
LocalPipe enriches each business live instead of serving records from a static database. It cross references the places where local owners actually leave a footprint: the business website, Facebook and Instagram pages, Better Business Bureau listings and Secretary of State filings, among others. Because the lookup happens on demand and records refresh every seven days, the result reflects who runs the business today and not who ran it when a database was last updated.
The 52% email find rate and 76% owner name rate in this test are in the same range as the averages LocalPipe publishes for local businesses overall, which suggests the plumbing list was not an unusually easy sample. For a head to head on a different axis, see the LocalPipe vs Apollo comparison, which also lists where Apollo is the better tool.
LocalPipe identified a named owner or decision maker for 76% of businesses, almost five times the next best result. Outscraper is worth a closer look here. It found emails for 28% of businesses but names for only 16%, which means a large share of its addresses belong to generic inboxes such as info@ or office@ with no person attached. Those inboxes are often watched by a receptionist or a family member who handles the books, and cold outreach sent there rarely reaches the person who decides.
Analysis: deliverability
An invalid address is not neutral. When a campaign sends to a mailbox that does not exist, the receiving server returns a hard bounce, and mailbox providers such as Google and Microsoft track those bounces against the sending domain. Most deliverability practitioners treat a 2% bounce rate as the ceiling for healthy cold outreach. Above that, inbox placement starts to slip for every message the domain sends, including the ones going to perfectly valid addresses.
| Provider | Emails returned | Valid | Catch-all or risky | Invalid (shipped as valid) | Combined bad or risky |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LocalPipe | 260 | 99.2%258 emails | 0.8%2 emails | 0%0 emails | 0.8% |
| Seamless | 40 | 87%35 emails | 6%2 emails | 7%3 emails | 13% |
| Apollo | 36 | 72%26 emails | 12%4 emails | 18%6 emails | 30% |
| Hunter | 32 | 71%22 emails | 13%4 emails | 16%5 emails | 29% |
| Outscraper | 140 | 43%60 emails | 21%29 emails | 36%50 emails | 57% |
Shares are percentages of the emails each provider returned. Apollo's valid, invalid and catch-all shares as reported total 102% because of rounding, and are shown here exactly as reported. Combined bad or risky share is invalid plus catch-all.
Measured against the 2% threshold, the competitor results are sobering. If a team sent to every address each provider returned, the invalid share alone would produce the bounce rates below. Apollo at 18% and Outscraper at 36% would put a fresh sending domain at serious risk within a single send. Even Seamless, the cleanest of the alternatives at 7%, sits well above what most teams would accept. Every one of those lists would need to pass through a separate verification tool before use, which adds cost, adds a step and shrinks an already small list.
Red marker: 2% bounce rate, the ceiling most senders aim to stay under. Catch-all addresses can fail on top of these figures.
Catch-all domains are configured to accept mail for any address, real or not. A verifier cannot confirm whether a specific mailbox exists, so tools such as MillionVerifier classify the result as risky. Some of those addresses will reach a real owner. Others will disappear silently or bounce later. Teams usually have to choose between discarding them, which loses leads, or sending to them from a separate domain, which adds infrastructure.
Catch-alls made up 12% to 21% of the emails returned by Apollo, Hunter and Outscraper. In LocalPipe's output they made up 0.8%, which is two addresses in the entire test. That reflects how LocalPipe verifies: every address is checked by three independent services (MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce and NeverBounce) before it is returned, and customers are only charged when a result is found.
Analysis: owners and mobiles
Trades owners spend most of the working day on job sites, not at a desk. A direct mobile number is often the fastest route to a conversation, and it bypasses the dispatcher or answering service that sits on the main business line. LocalPipe returned a direct owner mobile for 16.6% of the list, or 83 numbers. Apollo, Seamless and Hunter returned between 16 and 20 each. Outscraper does not provide owner mobiles. As with any direct dial outreach, teams should follow applicable calling and texting rules.
| Provider | Owner name found | Owner names (count) | Direct owner mobile found | Mobiles (count) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LocalPipe | 76% | 380 | 16.6% | 83 |
| Seamless | 10.1% | 50 | 3.7% | 18 |
| Apollo | 11.2% | 56 | 4.1% | 20 |
| Hunter | 8.2% | 41 | 3.1% | 16 |
| Outscraper | 16% | 80 | Not provided | n/a |
The two measures reinforce each other. A record with an owner's name, a verified email and a mobile number supports a genuinely multichannel sequence: a personalized email, a follow up call and, where permitted, a short text. LocalPipe returned names for 380 of the 500 businesses and mobiles for 83. The best alternatives returned names for 80 and mobiles for 20.
Provider notes
The results follow a clear pattern. Each provider's performance reflects where its data comes from and how closely that source matches the way local businesses actually show up online. Tools designed around corporate data perform like corporate tools when pointed at Main Street. Coverage collapses, and the records that remain are more likely to be stale or unverifiable.
Verified sendable coverage: 51.6%
LocalPipe led every measured metric and shipped the cleanest data in the test. It is built for owner enrichment on local businesses, runs live lookups across the sources where local owners leave a footprint, and verifies each email with three services before delivery. Verified sendable coverage was 51.6%, and a 16.6% mobile rate supports a phone first motion at real scale.
Verified sendable coverage: 12.0%
A capable Google Maps scraper and the only alternative that found emails at real volume (28%). Quality is the issue. 36% of its emails were invalid and 21% were catch-all, which cut verified sendable coverage to 12.0%. Most of its addresses belong to the business, not the owner.
Verified sendable coverage: 7.0%
The cleanest of the traditional databases at 87% valid, but with only 8.1% email coverage. It fits a mid-market company with a professional footprint and runs thin when the target is an owner-operator.
Verified sendable coverage: 5.2%
The most widely used platform in the group and the weakest on data quality in this test. Of the 36 emails it returned, 18% were invalid and 12% were catch-all. Apollo remains useful for corporate prospecting. This test shows the limits of its local coverage.
Verified sendable coverage: 4.5%
Hunter's domain search works best where a company publishes addresses on its own domain. Small trades businesses rarely do, which shows in the lowest email find rate of the group (6.3%) and a 16% invalid rate on what it did return.
| Provider | Sendable coverage | Best fit | Main watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| LocalPipe | 51.6% | Local owner-operators | Mobiles reach about 1 in 6 owners |
| Outscraper | 12.0% | Raw Google Maps data at volume | 57% of returned emails invalid or risky |
| Seamless | 7.0% | Mid-market companies | 8.1% email find rate |
| Apollo | 5.2% | Corporate and tech prospecting | 30% of returned emails invalid or risky |
| Hunter | 4.5% | Firms with domain emails | Lowest email find rate (6.3%) |
What it means for a campaign
To make the results concrete, we scaled each provider's measured rates to a list of 1,000 businesses, a typical starting point for an agency running outbound for a client that sells to the trades.
With LocalPipe's 51.6% verified sendable coverage, a team starts the campaign with more than 500 verified contacts, a named owner for three quarters of the list and 166 direct mobile numbers for follow up. With any of the traditional databases, the same team has between 45 and 70 sendable addresses and has to verify and clean the list before it is safe to use. Outscraper sits in between on volume but would deliver around 100 hard bounces if sent unfiltered, enough to damage a sending domain on the first day.
| Per 1,000 plumbing businesses | LocalPipe | Seamless | Apollo | Hunter | Outscraper |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emails returned | 520 | 81 | 72 | 63 | 280 |
| Sendable (verified valid) | 516 | 70 | 52 | 45 | 120 |
| Verified sendable coverage | 51.6% | 7.0% | 5.2% | 4.5% | 12.0% |
| Hard bounces waiting in the list | 0 | 6 | 13 | 10 | 101 |
| Catch-all addresses to triage | 4 | 5 | 9 | 8 | 59 |
| Owners identified by name | 760 | 101 | 112 | 82 | 160 |
| Owner mobiles to call | 166 | 37 | 41 | 31 | n/a |
| LocalPipe advantage, sendable emails | Baseline | 7.3x | 10.0x | 11.5x | 4.3x |
Projections scale each provider's measured rates from the 500 record test to 1,000 businesses. Hard bounces counts invalid addresses only. Catch-all addresses need triage and may bounce later.
Methodology
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Email find rate | Share of the 500 businesses for which the provider returned at least one email address. |
| Owner name find rate | Share of businesses for which the provider identified the owner or primary decision maker by name. |
| Valid emails | Share of returned emails that verified as deliverable. |
| Invalid shipped | Share of returned emails that failed verification despite being returned as valid. |
| Catch-all or risky | Share of returned emails on domains that accept all mail, which MillionVerifier classifies as risky. |
| Mobile coverage | Share of businesses for which a direct owner mobile number was returned. |
| Verified sendable coverage | Email find rate multiplied by valid rate. The share of the full list that ends up with a verified, deliverable email. |
| Benchmark Score | A weighted index: 40% verified sendable coverage, 20% owner name rate, 20% valid rate and 20% mobile coverage. Each component is scaled to the best result in the test, so the leader scores 100. A provider without mobile data scores zero on that component. |
This is a single vertical test of 500 records. Results for other industries and regions may differ, and provider databases change over time. Treat the figures as a strong directional signal and validate them on your own target market. LocalPipe is one of the five providers tested and also the publisher of this report, so we have documented every definition above and encourage you to repeat the test independently.
FAQ
LocalPipe. It returned a verified, sendable email for 258 of 500 plumbing businesses, or 51.6%. The next best provider was Outscraper at 12.0% (60 of 500). Seamless reached 7.0%, Apollo 5.2% and Hunter 4.5%.
About 10 times as many. On the same list of 500 businesses, LocalPipe returned 258 verified sendable emails and Apollo returned 26. Apollo would need to start from roughly 5,000 plumbing businesses to end up with as many sendable contacts.
Yes. Every email LocalPipe returns is verified by three independent services, MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce and NeverBounce, before delivery. The verification is free of charge. You do not need a separate verification tool, and you are only charged when a verified result is found.
It is the share of the full list that ends up with a verified, deliverable email. We calculate it as the email find rate multiplied by the valid rate. It matters more than find rate alone, because an email that bounces adds nothing to a campaign and can hurt the sending domain.
Their data comes largely from professional networks, corporate websites and companies with structured domains and published staff pages. Owners of small trades businesses often have no active professional profile, use a personal Gmail or Yahoo address, or run a website that lists only a phone number and a contact form. In this test the three databases returned an email for between 6.3% and 8.1% of businesses.
36% of the emails Outscraper returned were invalid and another 21% were catch-all addresses that cannot be confirmed. Only 43% verified as deliverable. 28% multiplied by 43% gives 12.0% verified sendable coverage. Sent as is, its output would have produced 50 hard bounces from a 500 record list.
Most deliverability practitioners treat a 2% bounce rate as the ceiling for healthy cold outreach. In this test, the invalid share alone would have produced projected bounce rates of 0% for LocalPipe, 7% for Seamless, 16% for Hunter, 18% for Apollo and 36% for Outscraper if a team sent to every address returned.
Every email returned by every provider was independently verified. Addresses that verified as deliverable were counted as valid. Addresses that failed verification despite being returned as valid were counted as invalid. Addresses on catch-all domains, which MillionVerifier classifies as risky, were counted separately. LocalPipe also verifies each email with MillionVerifier, ZeroBounce and NeverBounce inside the product before delivery.
LocalPipe ran it, so it is a vendor benchmark and not an independent audit. We published the sample, the definitions, the rounding rules and the scoring formula so that you can repeat the test on your own list. We recommend doing that before you buy.
Treat them as a strong directional signal, not a guarantee. This is a single vertical test of 500 US records. Results for other industries and regions may differ, and provider databases change over time. The 52% email find rate and 76% owner name rate are close to the averages LocalPipe publishes for local businesses overall, which suggests the plumbing list was not an unusually easy sample.
It weights verified sendable coverage at 40% and owner name rate, email validity and mobile coverage at 20% each. Each component is scaled against the best result in the test, so the leader scores 100. LocalPipe scored 100.0, Seamless 30.1, Apollo 26.4, Hunter 23.7 and Outscraper 22.2. A provider without mobile data scores zero on the mobile component.
You are welcome to quote the figures on this page with attribution and a link.
LocalPipe. LocalPipe Data Quality and Coverage Benchmark: 5 Providers Compared. October 2026. https://www.localpipe.io/data-comparison
Data quality varies by vertical and region. Upload a few hundred records from your own market and see your find rates before you commit to a plan. LocalPipe plans start at $57 per month and you are only charged when a result is found.