All concepts

Email validation semantics

Invalid email validation result

An invalid result is a definitive failed validation: the address should be removed from sends and it never consumes credits as a high-value outcome.

Canonical status

invalid

Status language is backed by the shared validation result contract and product publish gates.

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Quality signals

  • invalid
  • none quality
  • not chargeable

Recommended actions

  • Suppress from all outbound sends
  • Do not retry expecting a different result
  • Track invalid rate as a list-source quality signal

What it means

Invalid is the definitive negative outcome in the public validation contract: validation determined the address is not usable. Unlike unknown, it does not represent uncertainty.

  • Canonical status in the public contract
  • B2B outbound quality is none
  • Definitive result, not temporary uncertainty

Contract behavior

invalid passes through status normalization unchanged and is never classified as high-value regardless of other signals. Validation summaries count invalid in its own bucket, separate from unknown.

  • Normalized as-is, never guessed into another status
  • Never counted toward high_value
  • Own bucket in validation summaries, distinct from unknown

Charging behavior

Credits are reserved before execution and consumed only for chargeable high-value validations. Invalid results are never high-value, so they follow the non-chargeable path and reserved credits are refunded rather than consumed.

Routing guidance

Invalid results are the easiest routing decision in list QA: remove them before sending.

  • Suppress from every campaign segment
  • Feed invalid rates back to the list source or enrichment vendor
  • Do not route to catch-all recovery, which targets risky results

Related resources

Email Validation APIEmail validation credit policyUnknown email validation resultPre-send QA checklist

Common questions

Is invalid the same as unknown?

No. Invalid is a definitive failed result while unknown preserves uncertainty. The contract keeps them as separate canonical statuses with separate summary buckets.

Do invalid results consume credits?

No. Credits are consumed only for chargeable high-value validations, and invalid results are never high-value, so reserved credits follow the refund path.

Should I retry invalid emails?

Generally no. Invalid is a definitive outcome. If an address matters, fix it at the source instead of re-validating the same string.