Glossary
The words that show up in data-vendor pricing pages, each in one paragraph and in plain English.
Catch-all domain
A mail server that accepts every address at the domain, real or not. You can't confirm a mailbox exists by checking, so finders label those addresses risky. Common at companies on older Microsoft setups. Send to them in small batches and watch bounces.
MX record
The DNS entry that says which server receives mail for a domain. No MX record usually means no working email at that domain. Finders check it first because it's cheap and rules out dead domains.
Fill rate
The share of rows in a list that came back with a value for a field. A 78% work-email fill rate on 1,000 rows means 780 addresses. Vendor calculators that assume 100% inflate your bill estimate.
Find rate
Same idea as fill rate, used for single lookups: how often a query returns the field. Coverage is the ceiling; find rate is what you actually get after the lookup-time check.
Direct dial
A phone number that reaches the person, not a switchboard. Usually a desk line or a mobile. Priced higher than email everywhere because it's rarer and costs more to check.
Work email vs personal email
Work email is at the employer's domain and changes when the person moves jobs. Personal email (Gmail, Outlook.com) follows the person. Recruiters want personal; sales teams want work. Personal costs more because it's harder to find and check.
Waterfall enrichment
Querying several data vendors in sequence until one returns a value. More vendors means more finds on paper, but each hop adds latency, the result depends on vendor order, and the reseller pays for data it discards. An owned database is one query.
Data decay
How fast contact data goes stale. Roughly a quarter of B2B contacts change role or company in a year, so a value checked last week is worth more than one checked last year. That's why every value we return carries a check date.
Credit
The unit most vendors bill in. One credit is usually one work email; a mobile costs 5 to 10. The thing to check is whether a credit is charged when nothing is found.
Rollover
Whether unused credits carry into the next month. Ours roll over 3 months on monthly plans and 12 on annual. Several vendors expire them at month end.
Suppression list
A list of people who opted out, stored as hashes so they aren't re-added by accident. When someone removes themselves from HeyEnrich, their hash goes on it and a webhook tells customers who hold a copy.
Email permutation
Guessing an address from a name and domain using common patterns: first.last, flast, first. A permutator makes the guesses; a finder checks them against the company's known pattern and the mail server.
Email verification
Checking whether an address can receive mail: syntax, MX, then mailbox acceptance. Not the same as finding; you need an address first. We verify at 0.5 credit.
Reverse email lookup
Starting from a work email and getting the person and company back: name, title, company, domain, headcount. Useful for inbound signups. Consumer versions of the term are about people search, which we don't do.
Data broker
A company that sells data about people it has no direct relationship with. HeyEnrich is one, which is why we're registered where required and why /opt-out exists.
DROP
California's Delete Request and Opt-out Platform. Residents file one deletion request and every registered data broker has to honour it. We pull the list at least every 45 days.
Sub-key
An API key scoped to one client workspace with its own limits. Agencies hand sub-keys to clients so usage is separated and the agency's main key never leaves the building.
White-label
Running a product under your own brand. On the Custom plan the portal takes your logo and domain and invoices carry your name, so your clients never see HeyEnrich.