---
title: Plunk
slug: plunk
url: "https://toolweight.com/options/plunk"
homepage: "https://useplunk.com"
categories: email-sending-apis
last_verified: 2026-07-23
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# Plunk

> Open-source email console you self-host on top of your own AWS SES account.

Plunk is not a sender: it is a UI, contact store, event system and campaign builder that sits on top of Amazon SES. Self-hosted, you get a dashboard, templates and automation at SES's $0.10 per thousand, with your data in your own Postgres and your own region. The trade is that you own the deployment, and you inherit SES's sandbox exit before anything works at all.

## Identity

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Name | Plunk |
| Company | Plunk |
| One-liner | Open-source email console you self-host on top of your own AWS SES account. |
| Site | https://useplunk.com |
| Docs | https://docs.useplunk.com |
| Repo | https://github.com/useplunk/plunk |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Funding | Bootstrapped |
| Open source | Yes |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 |
| Compared in | 1 |

## Where it is compared

### [Email APIs](https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis)
Ranked **#12 of 13** on default weights.
| Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Time to first send | 30 min | Inferred | - | - | Cloud signup is quick. Self-hosted Plunk inherits your own SES sandbox exit, which realistically makes it days. |
| Product scope | both | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Inbound parsing | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Event webhooks | delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, unsubscribed | Inferred | - | - | Plunk's model is its own event and trigger system rather than raw SMTP webhooks. |
| Hosted templates | code-editor | Inferred | - | - | - |
| React Email / MJML | - | Inferred | - | - | Plunk sends HTML; render React Email or MJML yourself before posting. |
| Log retention | - | Inferred | - | - | Self-hosted: retention is whatever your Postgres keeps. |
| Throughput ceiling | 50,400 emails/hr | Inferred | - | - | Whatever your underlying SES quota is. |
| Multi-domain sending | ● | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Data residency | us, eu, au | Inferred | - | - | Self-hosted, so wherever you deploy it and whichever SES region you point it at. Plunk Cloud is US-only. |
| Shared pool quality | 3 | Inferred | - | - | Inherits SES's pool, or your own dedicated IP if you buy one from AWS. |
| IP warmup | ○ | Inferred | - | - | Delegated entirely to SES. |
| DKIM/DMARC friction | 3 | Inferred | - | - | You are doing SES's DNS setup, plus deploying Plunk. |
| BIMI | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Suppression list | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Contact-level unsubscribes exist; suppression is thinner than a managed provider's. |
| Bounce handling | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | You wire SES's bounce and complaint notifications yourself. |
| Price / 1k emails | $1 /1k | Inferred | - | - | Approximate for Plunk Cloud. Self-hosted, your only cost is SES at $0.10/1k plus a small server. |
| Free tier | - | Inferred | - | - | Self-hosting is free; the cloud free allowance was not verified. |
| Dedicated IP | - | Inferred | - | - | Not sold by Plunk, buy one from AWS if you need it. |
| Pricing model | pay-as-you-go | Inferred | - | - | - |
| MCP server | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| llms.txt docs | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Funding | bootstrapped | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Positioning | "The open-source email platform." Sells ownership: your data, your infrastructure, SES's price. | Inferred | - | - | - |
| GA year | 2023 | Inferred | - | - | - |

**Verdict.** The cheapest honest way to get a dashboard, contacts and campaigns on top of SES pricing, and the only option here that puts message data in your own database. You take on the deployment and SES's onboarding at the same time.

## Alternatives

- [AhaSend](https://toolweight.com/options/ahasend), Small indie transactional API competing on price and instant signup.
- [Amazon SES](https://toolweight.com/options/amazon-ses), The cheapest way to send email at scale, and the least finished product.
- [Brevo](https://toolweight.com/options/brevo), EU-hosted marketing platform with a competent transactional API attached.
- [Loops](https://toolweight.com/options/loops), Lifecycle and marketing email for SaaS, priced on contacts rather than sends.
- [MailerSend](https://toolweight.com/options/mailersend), Transactional sibling of MailerLite, bootstrapped and cheap at mid volume.
- [Mailgun](https://toolweight.com/options/mailgun), Long-running transactional API with strong routing and inbound handling.
- [Mailtrap](https://toolweight.com/options/mailtrap), Email testing sandbox that grew a production sending product.
- [Postmark](https://toolweight.com/options/postmark), Transactional-only sender with the best-policed shared IP pool in the category.
- [Resend](https://toolweight.com/options/resend), Developer-first email API built around React Email components.
- [Scaleway TEM](https://toolweight.com/options/scaleway-tem), EU-sovereign transactional email from Scaleway, deliberately minimal.
- [SendGrid](https://toolweight.com/options/sendgrid), The incumbent: enormous scale, enormous shared pool, everything bolted on.
- [SparkPost](https://toolweight.com/options/sparkpost), High-volume sender with deep analytics, now folded into Bird's platform.

## Licence and attribution

Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0.

- Licence: [CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Canonical HTML: https://toolweight.com/options/plunk
- Machine-readable: https://toolweight.com/options/plunk.md · https://toolweight.com/api/v1 · https://toolweight.com/mcp
- toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements. Corrections: https://toolweight.com/suggest