Instantly's Lead Finder is now called SuperSearch: Instantly's help center says SuperSearch has fully replaced it. The workflow that holds up is filter in SuperSearch, spot-check the results, enrich only the rows you plan to email, then move them into a campaign with your blocklist and duplicate check already in place. Instantly's documentation attaches credit costs to enrichment and a few optional company-data sources, not to running filters, and those credits come from an Instantly Credits subscription billed separately from the Outreach plan you send with.
Evidence and disclosure: We checked Instantly's help articles on SuperSearch, Data Credits, waterfall enrichment, the Lead Finder Agent, catch-all verification, moving leads, upload limits and the Global Blocklist, plus the pricing page, on October 16, 2026. We did not run searches or enrichments in a private account, so labels are as Instantly documents them; its own guides sometimes name the same button differently. OutboundXYZ earns affiliate commission from Instantly. That relationship did not decide these steps or caveats.
What each name means now
| Name you'll see | What it is in October 2026 | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Lead Finder | The retired original tool; its old help articles now return a 404 | Older tutorials and reviews |
| SuperSearch | Search, enrichment and verification on Instantly's B2B database | SuperSearch, or Find leads in a campaign |
| Lead Finder Agent | An automation that tops up one campaign from a saved audience | Agents → Create New, or from SuperSearch |
| Instantly Credits / Data Credits | The balance that pays for enrichment, verification and AI agents | Pricing page; Data Credits tab in Billing |
Before you start
- Credits. The 14-day free trial includes 100 credits with limited SuperSearch results. Monthly credit plans are Nano at $9 for 150 credits, Growth Credits at $47 for 1,500, Supersonic at $97 for 5,000 and Hyper Credits from $197 for 10,000.
- An Outreach plan with free upload capacity. This is a separate subscription. Growth ($47/month) allows 1,000 uploaded contacts, Hypergrowth ($97/month) 25,000 and Light Speed ($358/month) 100,000. That limit is a fixed total across every campaign, including paused and draft campaigns, and does not reset monthly. Without an Outbound plan, the plans overview caps campaign uploads at 250 leads. Our Instantly pricing guide covers the sending-plan side.
- A campaign to receive the leads, created but not launched.
- A written ICP: titles, seniority, company size, geography and exclusions.
- Suppression data: customers, open deals, competitors and past opt-outs.
Step 1: Load the blocklist before you pull leads
Open Settings → Blocklist, click + Import, and add customer domains, competitor domains and addresses that must never be contacted. Enter domains without the @ sign. Instantly says the Blocklist tab is checked at upload and across ongoing campaigns. A Google Sheets blocklist is checked only when leads are imported, so it won't stop sends to leads already in a campaign.
Under Blocklist → AI Blocklist Triggers, the Unsubscribed leads toggle adds future opt-outs automatically. Our Instantly unsubscribe link guide covers the opt-out path and how to test it.
Step 2: Build the search
Open SuperSearch directly, or start inside the campaign: Engage → your campaign → Leads → Find leads (an older Instantly article calls it Previous SuperSearch). Starting from the campaign adds enriched leads straight to it; SuperSearch on its own saves them to a lead list first.
Describe the buyer in a sentence and click AI Search, then check which filters it generated. Or use the manual filters on the left: job titles (with management level and department), location, industry and keywords, employee size, revenue, Lookalike domain, uploaded domain lists, job listings, technologies, Signals (recent events such as funding or product launches), news and funding type.
Turn on two options for most outbound lists:
- Skip already owned excludes leads your workspace has already acquired, which saves credits and avoids repeat contact.
- One lead per company returns a single contact per account.
Save the search so the next batch uses identical filters. Note that some Start from Companies sources charge per company returned (Store Leads 5 credits, TheirStack 2).
Step 3: Spot-check before you spend credits
Open about 20 results and check them against the ICP: title, company, size and location. That number is our rule of thumb, not an Instantly requirement. If more than a few are wrong, fix the filters now; a verified email for the wrong person is still the wrong lead.
Jan made the same point in a December 2022 campaign-troubleshooting video: data tools contain faulty records, sources differ in quality, and someone should check that a list matches the target audience. That was general list-building advice from his agency work, not a test of SuperSearch.
Step 4: Enrich only the rows you will email
Click Enrich & AI at the top right of the results and choose what to add:
| Option | Documented cost | When it's worth it |
|---|---|---|
| Work Email | 1 credit if Instantly finds a verified email; 2+ if a data partner does; nothing if none is found. Instantly cites about 1.5 credits on average. | Always, for an email campaign |
| Fully Enriched Profile | 0.5 credits per row | When copy or routing needs fields such as company description or headcount |
| Job Listings, Technologies, News, Funding Type | 0.5 credits per row each | Only if a sequence uses the field |
| AI enrichment (email, opening line, company research) | About 0.5 credits per row | After the list is final, on a small test batch first |
| Engagement Score | 1 credit per row | Optional domain-level score from Instantly's engagement data |
Click Continue and choose how many leads to enrich, for example the first 25. Start small and check the results before enriching the rest.
Work Email runs a waterfall: if one source has no verified result, SuperSearch tries the next. Instantly's waterfall guide prices partners such as Findymail, LeadMagic and Prospeo at 2 credits per row and ContactOut at 4, with no provider account needed. With bring-your-own-key integrations you pay the provider directly, plus a 1-credit Instantly platform fee per enrichment.
Step 5: Check verification status instead of redoing it
Instantly says SuperSearch runs verification, including catch-all verification, automatically, and its FAQ says these leads don't need verifying again. Two things still need your attention:
- Invalid and Risky leads are not contacted by default. The Allow risky emails option sits under the campaign's Settings → Advanced settings → Sending rules. Leave it off unless you have a deliberate reason and a small, monitored test.
- Verification describes the mailbox at that moment. It doesn't confirm the person still holds the role or fits your ICP.
For lists from other sources, Instantly verification costs 0.25 credits per lead (1,000 leads = 250 credits) and can run at upload via the Verify leads checkbox. Our email verification tools guide explains how to handle unknown and catch-all results if you prefer an independent verifier.
For context: in a July 2023 video, Jan's recommended stack split this work three ways: Apollo for leads, a separate verifier, and Instantly for sending (he disclosed his Instantly affiliate link in that video). SuperSearch now folds finding and verifying into Instantly. That shortens the workflow; it doesn't prove the data is better.
Step 6: Move the leads into the campaign
If you enriched into a list, open it in the Leads tab, select the leads, click Row Actions, and choose the destination campaign. Set the move options before confirming:
- Copy Leads is unchecked by default, which moves leads out of the list. Check it to keep the list as a record.
- Reset lead interest status and opportunities matters for reused leads: Instantly notes a Completed lead becomes sendable again.
- Check for duplicates across all campaigns stops a lead already in another campaign from being added again. Instantly's move-and-copy guide says this option appears only in some views, so confirm it's on screen. If it isn't, rely on Skip already owned and check the destination campaign before launch.
Only leads with a work email can move into a campaign. Every moved lead counts against the uploaded-contact limit, and the same address in two campaigns counts twice.
SuperSearch can also export to HubSpot, Apollo and lemlist, or download selected leads as CSV. Current docs list no download charge; older guides citing a credit per downloaded contact describe the retired Lead Finder. If it matters, export a small test file and compare usage history before and after.
Optional: let the Lead Finder Agent top up a campaign
Create it from Agents → Create New → Lead Finder Agent, pick the campaign, and choose one of three suggested audiences (Same Profile, Broader Search, Peer Companies) or describe your own. Set Minimum active leads (10–10,000), optionally One lead per company, and use Preview on 10 leads, which Instantly says is free.
Each added lead costs the same work-email and profile credits as manual enrichment, plus 2 credits if the agent writes a personalized opening line or email. When the audience runs out, the agent can Switch to a similar broader audience or Pause and notify me. If precision matters more than volume, we'd pick Pause and notify me: a broader audience is further from the one you checked. Added leads also count toward upload capacity.
What a 500-contact batch costs in credits
This is an illustrative estimate, not a quote. Assumptions: you want 500 contacts with a verified work email; costs follow Instantly's Data Credit System article as of October 16, 2026; profile and AI columns run only on those 500 rows; no agent is involved.
| Scenario | Work email | Profile (0.5/row) | AI opening line (~0.5/row) | Total credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every email found by Instantly | 500 | 0 | 0 | 500 |
| Instantly's stated average (~1.5) | 750 | 0 | 0 | 750 |
| Average plus profile and AI line | 750 | 250 | 250 | 1,250 |
| All partner-sourced at 2 credits, plus both columns | 1,000 | 250 | 250 | 1,500 |
At Instantly's average, Nano's 150 credits cover about 100 verified emails; Growth Credits' 1,500 cover one fully enriched 500-contact batch. The Outreach plan is the other ceiling: Growth's 1,000-contact limit holds two such batches in total. Deleting leads frees upload capacity but, Instantly says, does not refund credits.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Leads won't move into the campaign | No work email, upload limit reached, or duplicates blocked | Work Email column; Billing → Outbound usage; duplicate setting |
| Campaigns accept only 250 leads | Credits plan without an Outbound plan, or the trial | Billing page |
| Credits drain faster than planned | Partner-sourced emails, extra columns, an active agent | Data Credits → See Usage |
| The same people keep appearing | Skip already owned is off | Search options |
| Can't move leads to another list | Requires Hypergrowth or Light Speed | Outreach plan |
| Leads sit in the campaign unsent | Risky or invalid status, blocklist, schedule or limits | Our campaign-not-sending guide |
Confirm it worked
- Data Credits → See Usage shows enrichment charges in line with your estimate.
- The campaign's lead count rose by the number moved (Instantly says counts refresh within about five minutes).
- No unexpected Risky or Invalid rows or blocklisted domains appear.
- After the first sends, review bounces. Rising bounces on a "verified" list are a signal to pause and inspect the source, not to disable safeguards.
Data-quality caveats
- Instantly's own pages disagree on database size: the pricing and product pages say 450M+ contacts, the SuperSearch help article says 610M+. Reviews quoting 160M use an older figure. None of these tells you how well your niche is covered; a small test search does.
- "Verified" is a mailbox check, not proof of role, consent or fit.
- Instantly says catch-all verification can recover 300–400 extra contacts per 1,000 leads. That's the vendor's figure; we haven't measured it.
When a dedicated email finder fits better
SuperSearch suits teams already sending from Instantly. A separate finder makes more sense when prospecting starts from LinkedIn profiles, when you need phone numbers or CRM-first enrichment, or when you want data costs independent of your sender. Our email finder comparison covers credit units and missing-result handling across five tools, and the Clay and Instantly stack shows one way to split enrichment from sending. For the overall verdict on Instantly as a sender, read our Instantly review.
Frequently asked questions
Is Instantly Lead Finder the same as SuperSearch?
Yes. Instantly says SuperSearch replaced Lead Finder and existing subscriptions carried over. The name survives in the Lead Finder Agent, which tops up campaigns automatically.
How much does Instantly Lead Finder cost?
It runs on Instantly Credits, billed separately from sending: from $9/month for 150 credits (Nano) upward. A verified work email costs 1 credit from Instantly or 2+ from a partner. Bundles such as Starter ($94/month) pair the Growth Outreach plan with Growth Credits.
Do Instantly credits roll over?
Partly. Instantly says unused monthly-plan credits expire two months after purchase and annual-plan credits after one year. Older reviews saying credits roll over, or vanish at month-end, don't match that rule.
Do I need to verify SuperSearch leads?
Instantly says no: SuperSearch verifies work emails, including catch-all addresses, before you add them. You still need to check ICP fit and watch bounces after sending.
Can I use SuperSearch without an Outreach plan?
Yes. Credits are a standalone subscription and leads can be exported to HubSpot, Apollo, lemlist or CSV, but without an Outbound plan you can upload only 250 leads to campaigns.
