Playbooks / Recipe
Qualify domains on traffic before you spend on contacts
Run similarweb_scraper_sync over a domain list, cut the ones too small or too far off-category to be worth working, then spend finder and verifier credits only on what survives. At 2 credits per result it is the most expensive per-result call in this chain, and it bills on any 2xx including a domain it knows nothing about.
Pattern: domain list → similarweb_scraper_sync → threshold cut → linkedin_company_employees_search → email_finder → email_verifier
In short: A RichAPI recipe for filtering a domain list before contact enrichment. POST https://api.richapi.ai/api/v1/similarweb_scraper_sync takes a domain and returns fields including domain, category, totalVisits, rankGlobal, engagement and similarSites. It bills 2 credits per result returned and bills on any 2xx response, including a domain with little or no data. Domains that clear the caller's threshold continue to POST /linkedin_company_employees_search, which bills 0.1 credits per result, then POST /email_finder and POST /email_verifier, which are waterfall endpoints returning billed:false and costing zero on a soft miss. Every other endpoint in the chain bills on any 2xx. Website traffic measures audience size, not fit or purchase intent; RichAPI sells no intent data. Authentication is the x-api-key header. New accounts get 100 free credits and require no credit card.
Last updated November 4, 2026
Credit math
Worked example at stated counts: 400 domains at 2 = 800 credits, charged on all 400 including the ones that come back thin. 90 survive the threshold. linkedin_company_employees_search, 90 companies at 15 results = 1,350 results at 0.1 = 135 credits. email_finder on 450 people, 290 hits at 5 = 1,450 credits, misses free. email_verifier on 290 at 2 = 580 credits. Total 2,965 credits. 2 credits per result on similarweb_scraper_sync, 0.1 credits per result on linkedin_company_employees_search, 5 credits per email_finder call, 2 credits per email_verifier call
ROI math
Skipping the filter and running contacts on all 400 domains costs roughly 600 credits of employee search plus about 6,400 of finder and verifier work, and most of it lands on companies you would never have worked. The 800-credit filter pays for itself at roughly a 3:1 cut rate. Below that, skip it. Convert at your tier rate on /pricing.
Owned internally by
The person who has to explain the enrichment line on the monthly bill
Best for
Anyone holding a big unqualified domain list — conference exports, directory scrapes, inbound signups, an inherited CRM
- 01
Sign up at app.richapi.ai and copy your key.
100 free credits, no card.
- 02
Deduplicate and normalise the domain list first.
www prefixes, trailing paths and subdomains each cost you a full 2-credit call to learn nothing new.
- 03
Run similarweb_scraper_sync per domain and store totalVisits, category, rankGlobal and engagement verbatim.
- 04
Set your threshold on a sample of 30 domains you already know are good customers, not on a round number you picked because it looked sensible.
- 05
Run the contact chain — employee search, then email_finder, then email_verifier — only on the domains that clear the cut.
Check traffic for these 50 domains. Drop anything below my threshold or
outside the categories I sell into, and show me what is left with its
total visits and category. Then tell me how many credits the filter cost
and how many it saved me on the domains I dropped.
Why filter first
A domain list you did not build yourself is mostly companies you would never work. Conference exports, directory scrapes and inherited CRMs all have the same shape: a long tail of parked domains, dead brands, agencies, personal sites and companies two orders of magnitude outside your size band.
Running the full contact chain on that list is how enrichment bills get interesting. Five people per company on 400 unfiltered domains is 2,000 finder calls, and the fact that finder misses are free does not help you when the hits are the ones you did not want.
similarweb_scraper_sync gives you audience size and category per domain for a flat 2 credits per result. That is a cheap way to throw away three quarters of a list before you spend anything on people.
The arithmetic, because it decides whether to bother
This endpoint is the most expensive per-result call in the chain, so the filter is only worth running when it cuts hard enough to pay for itself.
| Step | Count | Rate | Bills regardless? | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
similarweb_scraper_sync |
400 domains | 2 / result | Yes, every 2xx | 800 |
linkedin_company_employees_search |
90 × 15 = 1,350 results | 0.1 / result | Yes | 135 |
email_finder |
450 calls, 290 hits | 5 / call | No, waterfall | 1,450 |
email_verifier |
290 calls | 2 / call | No, waterfall | 580 |
Rates used above: 2 credits per result on similarweb_scraper_sync, 0.1 credits per result on linkedin_company_employees_search, 5 credits per email_finder call, 2 credits per email_verifier call.
2,965 credits with the filter. Without it, the same 400 domains at five people each run to roughly 600 credits of employee search and about 6,400 of finder and verifier work, and most of that lands on companies nobody was going to call.
The break-even is the cut rate. Throwing away three of every four domains makes the 800-credit filter obviously worth it. Throwing away one in ten does not — you paid 800 credits to remove 40 domains you could have removed with a regex. Run the filter on a sample of 50 first and measure your actual cut rate before you commit the list. Per-credit rates vary by tier, so convert on the pricing page or model the chain in the waterfall cost calculator.
Setting a threshold you can defend
totalVisits is the obvious lever and the easiest one to set badly. Pick it from your own closed-won list: pull 30 customers you are happy to have, run them through the endpoint, and look at where the bottom of that distribution sits. Your threshold is somewhere below that, not at a round number that felt right in a planning meeting.
category is the second cut and often the sharper one. A domain with healthy traffic in a category you have never sold into is a worse prospect than a quiet domain in your core market.
engagement and rankGlobal are tiebreakers. similarSites is the field people forget, and it quietly expands your list — the sites similar to your best customers are a better source of new domains than the directory you started from.
Where traffic qualification goes wrong
Low traffic is not the same as a bad customer. A 30-person industrial supplier with a brochure site and nine million in revenue will fail almost any traffic threshold. If you sell into markets where the website is not the business, this filter will quietly delete your best accounts. Know that before you run it on the whole list.
Traffic is not intent. It tells you how many people visit a site. It tells you nothing about whether that company is evaluating anything, and we sell no intent feed.
Sloppy domain strings. www.acme.com, acme.com/pricing and shop.acme.com are three calls and six credits for one company. Normalise before you spend.
Domains with no data. Small and new sites come back thin. The call still returns 2xx and still bills 2 credits. Only email_finder, email_verifier and phone_finder give you a free miss, and none of them is this step.
Re-running the filter monthly. Traffic does not move fast enough to justify it. Cache the result against the domain and re-check quarterly at most.
When to run traffic qualification instead
If your qualifier is technology rather than audience, tech stack qualification is a flat call per domain and usually cheaper. To generate the domain list in the first place, Meta ads to an account list and Google Ads Transparency to outbound both produce domains this filter is well suited to. Once a domain clears, the cheapest first-pass ICP screen is ICP filter with AI enrich. Endpoint detail for the last steps sits on the email finder page, and the rest on the use-case index.
Traffic qualification FAQ
What exactly bills here?
similarweb_scraper_sync bills 2 credits per result on any 2xx, including a domain it has almost nothing on. Employee search bills 0.1 per result. email_finder and email_verifier are waterfall endpoints endpoints, so their soft misses return billed: false and cost zero. Non-2xx never bills anywhere.
Can I bulk-submit domains?
One domain per call. Run them concurrently from your side if you want the batch to finish faster; the billing is per result either way.
Is the traffic figure exact?
It is a third-party estimate of a website's audience, with all the caveats that implies. Use it to rank and to cut, not to quote a number back to a prospect.
Should I re-check traffic before every campaign?
No. Cache it per domain. Quarterly is plenty for a metric that moves this slowly, and each re-check is another 2 credits.
Do I need a credit card?
No. 100 free credits on signup.
Try traffic qualification: 100 free credits, no card
Run 30 of your current customers through the endpoint and look at where the bottom of that distribution sits. That number is your threshold. Get 100 free credits
FAQ