Who this is for: self-serve plans (Free, Starter, Pro, Scale). If you bought a Cleanlist AppSumo lifetime deal, your features, limits, and pricing are different — see the AppSumo documentation instead. Support agent: confirm whether the user is self-serve or AppSumo before giving plan-specific advice.
TL;DR: Upload a CSV with names and companies (or just emails — reverse lookup is supported), map columns, select email and/or phone enrichment, and let Cleanlist's waterfall system find contact data. 1 credit per email, 10 per phone, 0 for failed lookups. You can also bulk-enrich companies (1 credit per company) and find personal emails in bulk (1.5 credits per fresh lookup, free on a cache hit). Phone validation (carrier, line type) is a separate on-demand column at 0.5 credits/row.
Bulk Enrichment Guide
Bulk enrichment allows you to upload a CSV file with your leads and enrich hundreds or thousands of contacts at once. This guide walks through the entire process.
Overview
Best for:
Enriching large lead lists (100+ contacts)
Importing data from other tools
One-time data enrichment projects
Migrating from other enrichment services
Credits:
Email: 1 credit per successful enrichment
Phone: 10 credits per successful enrichment
No charge for failed enrichments
Other Bulk Actions
Beyond CSV-based contact enrichment, you can run more bulk actions on any lead list directly from the bulk-actions menu.
Bulk Enrich Company
Add firmographics to every company on a list in one pass — industry, headcount, founded year, domain, social links, and more.
Cost: 1 credit per company
No charge for companies that can't be enriched
See Company Enrichment for what's returned
Find Personal Email (bulk)
Find personal (non-work) email addresses for your leads. The lookup runs a cascade — it checks the cache first, then Wiza, then LeadMagic as a fallback.
Cost: 1.5 credits per billable attempt — charged whenever providers actually run, hit or miss. A cache hit is free, and a total provider outage isn't charged
Stored separately: personal emails are saved in their own field, distinct from work emails, so they never overwrite verified business addresses
See Find Personal Email for details
Phone Number Validation
Validate the phone numbers already on a lead list and get carrier, line type, and status for each number. This is an on-demand column powered by ClearoutPhone — run it after enrichment when you need that detail.
Where: add the Phone Validation column to your lead list
Cost: 0.5 credits per phone validated
What it returns: status, line type (mobile / landline / VOIP), carrier
Phone enrichment returns the phone number only. Carrier and line-type information require running the Phone Validation column separately.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Prepare Your CSV File
Reverse email lookup is supported. If all you have is email addresses, you can still upload them — map the email column and Cleanlist will reverse-lookup each contact's identity (name, company, and other available fields) from the email alone. Adding a name and company improves match rates and lets you fill in missing emails or phone numbers, but they're not required when you're starting from emails. Reverse lookup costs 2 credits per email (a flat bundle covering the lookup and the enrichment), and it is charged whether or not the email resolves.
Your CSV should include as much information as possible for best results:
Required Fields (at least one identifier):
First Name + Last Name + Company Name
Email (for reverse lookup)
LinkedIn URL
Recommended Fields (improve match rates):
Job Title
Location (City, State, Country)
Company Domain
Adding more than one identifier (for example, a name and an email) raises match rates and lets Cleanlist fill in whatever's missing in either direction.
Example CSV:
first_name,last_name,company,title,location John,Doe,Acme Corp,VP Sales,San Francisco Jane,Smith,Tech Inc,CEO,New York
2. Upload Your File
Navigate to Bulk Enrichment in the portal
Click Upload CSV or drag and drop your file
Wait for file validation
Review the file preview (first 5 rows shown)
File Requirements:
Format: CSV (.csv)
Max size: 10MB per file
Max rows: 10,000 per upload
Encoding: UTF-8 recommended
3. Map Your Columns
Match your CSV columns to Cleanlist fields:
Auto-mapping: System suggests mappings automatically
Manual adjustment: Override any incorrect mappings
Skip columns: Leave unmapped if not needed
Preview: See how data will be imported
Mapping Tips:
Use dropdown to select target field for each CSV column
Green checkmark = successfully mapped
Red warning = potential issue (review carefully)
You can skip columns you don't need
4. Configure Enrichment Options
Select what to enrich:
☐ Email: Add 1 credit per lead to your estimate
☐ Phone: Add 10 credits per lead to your estimate
☐ Both: Most comprehensive option
Email deliverability status is returned automatically. Every email Cleanlist finds comes back with a status — verified, likely_valid, risky, invalid, or unknown — from the finding provider's own signals. For independent verification via Emailable, run the Email Validation column (0.5 credits/row) on the list after enrichment.
Additional options:
Skip duplicates: Automatically skip leads already in your lists
Update existing: Update leads if already enriched
5. Choose or Create Lead List
Save enriched leads to:
Option A: Existing List
Select from dropdown (sorted by recently created)
Leads will be added to selected list
Duplicate handling based on settings
Option B: Create New List
Enter list name
Optionally add description
New list created with enriched leads
6. Review and Confirm
Enrichment summary:
Total Leads: 500 Email Enrichment: 500 leads × 1 credit = 500 credits (max; 0 for misses) Phone Enrichment: 500 leads × 10 credits = 5,000 credits (max; 0 for misses) Estimated Total: up to 5,500 credits
Before clicking "Start Enrichment":
✓ Verify row count is correct
✓ Check credit estimate fits your budget
✓ Confirm enrichment options
✓ Review selected/created lead list
7. Monitor Progress
Once started:
Real-time progress bar: Shows overall completion
Status updates: Queued → Processing → Completed
Live results: See enriched data appear in real-time
Notifications: Get notified when batch completes
You can:
Navigate away (enrichment continues in background)
View the lead list while processing
Download partial results anytime
8. Review Results
After completion:
Success metrics:
Total leads processed
Successful email enrichments
Successful phone enrichments
Failed enrichments (no charge)
Credits used
Access your data:
View in the lead list
Export as CSV
Push to CRM integration
Advanced Features
Duplicate Detection
Automatic deduplication:
Checks email, phone, and LinkedIn URL
Finds duplicates within the upload
Finds duplicates in existing lists
Options: Skip, Update, or Create anyway
How it works:
System hashes unique identifiers
Compares against existing leads
Presents duplicate resolution options
You choose how to handle each duplicate
Batch Processing
For very large files (5,000+ rows):
Automatic batching: System splits into manageable chunks
Priority queue: Your batches processed in order
Partial results: Access completed rows while others process
Column Validation
Before enrichment starts:
Email format check: Validates email structure
Phone format check: Validates phone numbers
Required field check: Ensures minimum data present
Warning system: Alerts you to potential issues
Best Practices
Data Preparation
Clean your data first:
Remove obvious duplicates
Standardize company names
Fix formatting issues
Remove test/invalid entries
Include LinkedIn URLs when possible:
Dramatically improves match rates
Enables AI Agent analysis
Provides additional context
Standardize location data:
Use "San Francisco, CA, USA" format
Full state names or abbreviations (consistent)
Include country for international leads
Cost Optimization
Start with a test batch:
Upload 10–50 leads first
Review match rates
Adjust data quality if needed
Scale up once satisfied
Enrich strategically:
Only enrich fields you need
Email-only enrichment is more cost-effective
Run Phone Validation only on leads where you need carrier/line-type detail
Leverage existing data:
If you have emails, just enrich phones
Use AI Agents selectively
Quality Assurance
Review mapping carefully:
Wrong mappings = poor results
Check preview rows
Verify required fields mapped
Monitor initial results:
Watch first 10–20 completions
Check data quality
Pause if something looks wrong
Export and verify:
Download results
Spot-check accuracy
Validate critical fields
Troubleshooting
Low Match Rates
Problem: Only 30–40% of leads enriched successfully
Solutions:
Add more input data (LinkedIn URLs, job titles)
Check company name accuracy
Verify name spelling
Include location information
Try with smaller, high-quality sample
Upload Errors
Problem: CSV file won't upload
Common causes:
File too large (>10MB) — split into multiple files
Invalid encoding — save as UTF-8
Formatting issues — check for special characters
Too many columns — limit to necessary fields
Mapping Issues
Problem: Columns won't map correctly
Solutions:
Check for extra spaces in headers
Rename CSV headers to match expected format
Use consistent data types
Remove special characters from headers
Duplicate Warnings
Problem: System shows many duplicates
Solutions:
Review duplicate resolution options
Choose "Skip duplicates" if intentional
Use "Update existing" to refresh data
Clean source file before upload
Example Workflows
Workflow 1: Conference Attendee List
Scenario: Enriching 500 conference attendees
1. Export attendee list from event platform 2. Clean data: standardize company names, fix typos 3. Upload to Cleanlist bulk enrichment 4. Map: First Name, Last Name, Company, Title 5. Select: Email only (1 credit × 500 = up to 500 credits) 6. Create new list: "TechConf 2024 Attendees" 7. Monitor enrichment progress 8. Export enriched list 9. Import to email marketing platform
Workflow 2: Account-Based Marketing
Scenario: Enriching contacts from target accounts
1. Export contacts from Sales Navigator 2. Include LinkedIn URLs in export 3. Upload to Cleanlist 4. Map: LinkedIn URL, Name, Company, Title 5. Select: Email + Phone (up to 11 credits × 200 = up to 2,200 credits) 6. Add to existing list: "Q4 ABM Campaign" 7. Use AI Agents for qualification 8. Export qualified leads 9. Push to CRM via integration
Workflow 3: Data Migration
Scenario: Migrating from another enrichment tool
1. Export all data from previous tool 2. Filter for incomplete records (missing email or phone) 3. Upload incomplete records to Cleanlist 4. Map all available fields 5. Select: Only enrich missing fields 6. Update existing lead list 7. Validate results 8. Compare costs vs. previous tool
Learn More
Full documentation: docs.cleanlist.ai/guides/bulk-enrichment