Verify your Brevo email list before you send

1. 1
   In Brevo

   Export your contacts from Brevo

   1. Go to CRM then Contacts.
   2. Pick what to export: every contact (no list or segment loaded, no filter), or a single list or segment through Load a list or segment.
   3. Select the checkbox in the CONTACT column, then click Select all contacts.
   4. Click More actions then Export.
   5. Under Attributes, keep EMAIL and untick LAST CHANGED and CREATION DATE, which are selected by default: the file then holds the email column alone.
   6. Pick the comma as the CSV field separator, then click Start export.
   7. Once the export is ready, download the file from the bell icon next to your account name.

   SourceBrevo's official help center

   • Export your contacts from Brevo (opens in a new tab)help.brevo.com
2. 2
   In PricklyMails

   Verify the file in PricklyMails

   1. In the dashboard, open Batches and click New batch.
   2. Drop the file you exported from Brevo: a .csv or .txt with one address per line, no header row and no quotes. A header row would count as an address in the estimate, though it is never billed, and a quoted address would not be verified: the report lists both as malformed. You can also paste the list.
   3. The dashboard counts the addresses and shows the estimated cost in tokens before anything is sent, then you click Submit batch. A batch holds at least 20 addresses, and your plan sets the largest list it can hold.
   4. The list is verified in the background. Once the batch is done, open it and click Download report: you get a CSV with a row for each address of your file, giving its verdict, its reason, its score and its recommendation, with the dashboard's labels.

   Note

   Download the report from the browser that sent the list: that browser is what keeps the addresses, for the 16 most recent batches at most. Our servers, in Germany, only keep a one-way fingerprint of each one.

   What the report says

   Every address gets a recommendation: the action to take. The report writes it with the dashboard's label; the API returns a short form of it.

   Send

   The address is valid, or hosted by a large provider that accepts every address without confirming any. Send as usual.

   Review

   A domain that accepts any address (catch-all), a generic address such as contact@, a full mailbox, or a server that never answered, or refused to. Take a look before you send.

   Remove

   The address does not exist, its domain cannot receive mail, or it is disposable, mistyped or malformed. Take it out.

   Note

   A malformed address is never verified: the batch counts it under "Malformed addresses", and the report still lists it, with the verdict "Invalid", the reason "Malformed address" and the recommendation "Remove", so you take it out of Brevo with the others. A duplicate, counted under "Duplicates removed", appears only once.

   Behind each recommendation sit a verdict (Valid, Risky, Invalid or Not verifiable), a reason and a score from 0 to 100, each in its own column of the report. When a server never answers, the address comes back "Not verifiable" and the checks that got no answer are refunded.

3. 3
   In Brevo

   Bring the result back into Brevo

   Open the report in a spreadsheet and filter the Recommendation column.

   Remove

   They go to the blocklist.

   Brevo asks you to upload a list of invalid contacts curated outside Brevo as a blocklist, which is what your report is.

   1. Copy them into a new CSV file, under an EMAIL header.
   2. In Brevo, go to CRM then Contacts and click Import contacts. Check that the Contacts card is selected, then click Continue.
   3. Choose Upload a file, select your file, then click Confirm your file.
   4. Map the column to the EMAIL attribute, then click Confirm mapping.
   5. Pick a list, or create one, then click Confirm your list.
   6. At the finalize step, turn on Blocklist the imported Email contacts and check I confirm that my new import adheres to these conditions.
   7. Click Confirm your import.

   Review

   They deserve a look before your next campaign. To find them in Brevo, import them the same way into a dedicated list, without the blocklist option.

   Send

   They stay in your lists: nothing to do.

   SourceBrevo's official help center

   • Optimize and clean your contact list to improve email deliverability (opens in a new tab)help.brevo.com
   • Import a list of blocklisted contacts (opens in a new tab)help.brevo.com
   • Import your contacts to Brevo (opens in a new tab)help.brevo.com

Verify each address before it reaches Brevo

Does your signup form or import script create contacts through Brevo's API, with the Create a contact (opens in a new tab) call? Ask PricklyMails first. If the recommendation is remove, don't create the contact.

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "email": "ana.silva@gmail.con" }' \
  | jq '{job_uuid, suggestion}'

{
  "job_uuid": "8f1c2a9e-4b7d-4e2a-9c61-3d5f0b7a2e18",
  "suggestion": "ana.silva@gmail.com"
}

curl -s https://api.pricklymails.com/api/verify/$JOB_UUID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pm_live_9f3a..." \
  | jq '.verifications[0] | {status, reason, score, recommendation}'

{
  "status": "invalid",
  "reason": "no_mx_records",
  "score": 0,
  "recommendation": "remove"
}

Frequently asked questions