Hunter vs Linkody in 2026: Email finder and outreach automation vs dedicated 24/7 backlink monitoring
Hunter finds and verifies contact emails and automates the outreach that gets links built, starting free. Linkody doesn't touch outreach at all, it watches the links you already have and alerts you the moment one breaks, starting at €13.90 a month.
Hunter
Linkody- Hunter finds, verifies, and emails contacts through Sequences. Linkody has no contact-finding, email, or outreach feature of any kind; it only watches links you already have.
- Linkody checks every backlink every 24 hours and alerts you when a link is lost or switches to nofollow. Hunter has no backlink tracking feature since it is a contact and outreach tool, not a monitoring one.
- Hunter has a permanent free plan with 600 credits per month and no credit card required. Linkody has no permanent free plan, only a 30-day trial that disables CSV and PDF export until you subscribe.
- Linkody enriches every backlink with Moz Domain Authority, Page Authority, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, and Spam Score, and includes white-label PDF reports on every plan starting at €13.90/month. Hunter has no equivalent link-quality metrics.
- Linkody includes unlimited competitor backlink tracking on every plan and those links never count against your monitored-link quota. Hunter has no competitor tracking feature.
- Hunter offers a documented REST API and native CRM integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Zoho. Linkody does not list an API; CSV export is restricted to its Pro plan and above.
Hunter and Linkody get grouped together in the link building toolbox, but they sit on opposite sides of the same campaign. Hunter is what you use before a link exists: find the editor's or webmaster's email, verify it, and run a Sequences campaign to pitch them, all with a free plan to start. Linkody is what you use after the link goes live: it checks every backlink in your profile every 24 hours, tells you the moment one disappears or a dofollow link quietly switches to nofollow, and hands agencies a white-label PDF report to send clients. Neither tool tries to do the other's job. Hunter has no way to tell you if a link is still live, and Linkody has no way to find or contact anyone. The real question isn't which one wins, it's whether you need contact-finding, monitoring, or both.
The tools at a glance
Hunter
Find and connect with the people that matter to your business.
Hunter handles the part of link building that happens before a link exists. Domain Search takes a company website and returns verified professional emails with a confidence score for each, which for link builders usually means finding the editor or webmaster fast without guessing at email formats. The Email Verifier checks deliverability before you send, with bulk verification for cleaning a large list ahead of a campaign.
Sequences then automates the pitch itself: multi-step campaigns, scheduled follow-ups, subject line A/B testing, and open/click/reply tracking, sent from your own connected Gmail or Outlook account rather than a shared sending pool. The free plan gives 600 credits a month with no credit card required, and every tier from Free through Scale allows unlimited team members.
None of this touches what happens to a link once it is placed. Hunter has no way to check whether an editor kept your link live, whether a page later went noindex, or whether a dofollow link quietly became nofollow months after the campaign ended.
| Feature | Free €0/month | Starter €34/month | Growth €104/month | Scale €209/month | Enterprise Custom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credits per year | 600 | 24,000 | 120,000 | 300,000 | Custom |
| Recipients per sequence | 500 | 2,500 | 5,000 | 15,000 | Custom |
| CRM integrations | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Team members | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Linkody
The easiest way to track your link building campaigns
Linkody does exactly one job: it watches the backlinks you already have. Every link in your profile is checked every 24 hours, and Linkody sends a daily or weekly email report the moment something changes, a link disappears, a linked page returns a 404, or a dofollow link switches to nofollow. There is no prospecting screen and no email sender anywhere in the product.
Competitor monitoring runs alongside your own links at no cost to your quota, and every backlink, yours or a competitor's, is enriched with Moz Domain Authority and Page Authority, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, and Spam Score. The disavow tool filters by those same risk signals and generates a file in Google's required format, ready to upload to Search Console.
What makes Linkody an easy pitch to agency clients is that white-label PDF reporting comes standard on the cheapest plan, €13.90 a month, rather than gated behind a premium tier. The tradeoff is that it genuinely cannot replace a contact-finding tool: there is no way to search for a new prospect or send an email from inside Linkody at all.
| Feature | Webmaster €13.90/mo | Advanced €22.90/mo | Pro €45.90/mo | Agency €90.90/mo | Agency XL €138.90/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domains tracked | 2 | 5 | 20 | 50 | 100 |
| Monitored links | 500 | 2,000 | 5,000 | 20,000 | 50,000 |
| Competitor monitoring | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| White-label PDF reports | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Head-to-head feature comparison
| Feature | Hunter | Linkody |
|---|---|---|
| Core focus | Finding, verifying, and emailing contacts for outreach campaigns | 24/7 monitoring of backlinks you have already acquired, plus competitor tracking |
| Contact / email finding | Yes, Domain Search and Email Finder with confidence scoring | None; Linkody has no contact-finding or email feature |
| Outreach automation | Yes (Sequences, from your own Gmail/Outlook account) | No |
| Backlink monitoring | None; Hunter has no backlink tracking feature | Yes, every link checked every 24 hours, email alerts on loss or nofollow changes |
| Competitor tracking | No | Yes, unlimited, doesn't count against link quota |
| White-label reporting | No | Yes, on every plan including the cheapest |
| Link-quality metrics | None; Hunter enriches contacts, not backlinks | Yes, Moz DA/PA, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Spam Score, index status |
| Disavow tool | No | Yes, with Spam Score filtering, generates a Google-format file |
| API access | Yes, documented REST API | Not listed as a feature; CSV export from Pro plan up |
| Free tier | Yes, 600 credits/month, no credit card | No permanent free tier; 30-day trial, no credit card, CSV/PDF export disabled during trial |
| Starting price | €0/month (Free) / €34/month (Starter) | €13.90/month |
Which should you choose?
HunterLinkodyLinkodyLinkodyHunterHunterLinkodyThis comparison only feels close because both tools live under the "link building" umbrella; the actual jobs don't overlap. Hunter answers "who do I contact and how do I reach them," which is a discovery and outreach problem, solved with a free tier and Sequences automation. Linkody answers "are the links I already secured still there," which is a monitoring problem, solved with daily checks and white-label reporting starting at €13.90 a month. An active link building program run by an agency will typically need both: Hunter (or a similar contact tool) to keep new placements coming, Linkody to make sure last quarter's links haven't quietly disappeared.
Bottom line
Start with Hunter's free plan if you're actively pitching for new links and need to find and verify contacts, since 600 free credits and unlimited seats cost nothing to try. Add Linkody once you have links live and want to know immediately if one drops, especially if you're an agency that needs white-label reports without paying for a premium tier to get them. Running Hunter alone with no monitoring layer means you won't find out a placement disappeared until you happen to check manually, and running Linkody alone means you have no way to replace the link once you know it's gone.
Frequently asked questions
Can Linkody find new link prospects the way Hunter does?
Linkody has no prospecting, contact-finding, or email feature of any kind; it exclusively monitors links you already have. You'd still need Hunter, or a similar contact-finding tool, to find and reach new sites for future placements.
Does Hunter tell me if a backlink I built gets removed later?
Hunter has no backlink monitoring feature at all, so it will not alert you if a link disappears after your outreach campaign ends. Linkody is built specifically for this, checking every backlink every 24 hours and emailing you when a link is lost or changes to nofollow.
Which tool is cheaper to start, Hunter or Linkody?
Hunter's free plan costs nothing and includes 600 credits a month with no credit card required, making it the cheaper entry point overall. Linkody has no permanent free plan; its 30-day trial requires no card either, but a paid subscription starts at €13.90 a month once the trial ends.
Do I need both Hunter and Linkody for a real link building campaign?
Most active campaigns end up using something like both, since Hunter handles finding and emailing prospects while Linkody tracks whether those placements stay live. Neither tool duplicates the other's core function, so using just one leaves either your pipeline or your existing links unmanaged.
Does Hunter offer link-quality metrics like Trust Flow or Domain Authority?
Hunter does not provide any link-quality or backlink metrics; its confidence scores apply to email deliverability, not link value. Linkody enriches every backlink with Moz Domain Authority, Page Authority, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, and Spam Score automatically on every plan.
Which tool is better for agency client reporting, Hunter or Linkody?
Linkody is the better fit for client-facing reporting, since white-label PDF reports covering link health and competitor comparisons are included on every plan starting at €13.90 a month. Hunter has no reporting feature aimed at client delivery; its output is contact lists and campaign performance data, not link-health reports.