---
title: Amazon SES
slug: amazon-ses
url: "https://toolweight.com/tools/amazon-ses"
homepage: "https://aws.amazon.com/ses/"
categories: email-sending-apis
last_verified: 2026-11-06
dataset_version: 0738be72
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# Amazon SES

> The cheapest way to send email at scale, and the least finished product.

- Email as an AWS primitive: $0.10 per thousand, most regions including Sydney, IAM and CloudWatch wired in
- Almost nothing above the send call: no searchable log, no usable template editor
- Events only via SNS, Kinesis Firehose or EventBridge
- New accounts start in a sandbox mailing only verified addresses; leaving it means a support ticket

## Identity

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Name | Amazon SES |
| Company | Amazon Web Services |
| One-liner | The cheapest way to send email at scale, and the least finished product. |
| Site | https://aws.amazon.com/ses/ |
| Docs | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/ |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Funding | Subsidiary (Amazon) |
| Compared in | 1 |

## Where it is compared

### [Email APIs](https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis)
Ranked **#10 of 13** on default weights.
| Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note | Permalink |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Time to first send | 2d | Community-reported | - | - | AWS targets 24h on sandbox-exit requests, but first attempts are frequently rejected for a vague use-case description, pushing real elapsed time to 2-5 days. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--time_to_first_send |
| Product scope | transactional-only | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--product_scope |
| Inbound parsing | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/receiving-email.html | Receipt rules to S3, Lambda or SNS, but only in a subset of regions. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--inbound_parsing |
| Event webhooks | delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, complained, deferred, unsubscribed, inbound | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/monitor-using-event-publishing.html | Not HTTP webhooks: events go to SNS, EventBridge or Firehose and you build the consumer. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--event_webhooks |
| Hosted templates | api-only | Inferred | - | - | Templates are created over the API; the console editor is minimal. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--hosted_templates |
| React Email / MJML | handlebars | Inferred | - | - | SES templates use Handlebars-style substitution. React Email works fine, you render to HTML yourself. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--react_email_mjml |
| Log retention | 0ms | Inferred | - | - | SES stores no searchable message log. Retention is whatever you build in CloudWatch, S3 or your own database. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--log_retention |
| Throughput ceiling | 50,400 emails/hr | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/manage-sending-quotas.html | Typical post-sandbox quota is 50,000/day at 14 messages/second; raised on request. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--throughput_ceiling |
| Multi-domain sending | ● | Inferred | - | - | Up to 10,000 verified identities per account, per region. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--multi_domain |
| Data residency | us, eu, au, apac, sa, ca | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/ses.html | Available in ap-southeast-2, the only managed provider here with Australian residency. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--data_residency |
| Shared pool quality | 3 | Inferred | - | - | Enormous and mixed, but AWS enforces bounce and complaint thresholds hard and will pause your account. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--shared_pool_quality |
| IP warmup | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/ | Managed Dedicated IPs handle warm-up entirely; standard dedicated IPs have an automatic warm-up mode. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--ip_warmup |
| DKIM/DMARC friction | 4 | Inferred | - | - | Easy DKIM is fine, but identities are per-region, the custom MAIL FROM domain is a separate step, and DMARC is left to you. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--dkim_dmarc_friction |
| BIMI | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | No BIMI feature; nothing blocks it once DMARC is enforced. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--bimi_support |
| Suppression list | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-05-10 | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/sending-email-suppression-list.html | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--suppression_management |
| Bounce handling | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | You get notifications and an account suppression list, but you remain accountable for the rates and can be paused for them. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--bounce_complaint_handling |
| Price / 1k emails | $0.1/1k | Vendor-claimed | 2026-11-06 | https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/ | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--price_per_1k |
| Free tier | 3,000 emails/mo | Inferred | - | - | 12-month allowance only. The old always-free 62,000/month-from-EC2 grant is gone. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--free_tier |
| Dedicated IP | $24.95/mo | Vendor-claimed | 2026-11-06 | https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/ | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--dedicated_ip_cost |
| Pricing model | pay-as-you-go | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--pricing_model |
| MCP server | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | No SES-specific server; AWS's general-purpose API MCP servers cover it. | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--mcp_server |
| llms.txt docs | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--llms_txt_docs |
| Funding | subsidiary | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--funding_stage |
| Positioning | Barely marketed at all, SES is sold as an AWS primitive and the pricing page does the work. | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--positioning |
| GA year | 2011 | Inferred | - | - | - | https://toolweight.com/compare/email-sending-apis#amazon-ses--ga_year |

**Verdict.** An order of magnitude cheaper and half a product, right above a couple of million a month or for Sydney residency.

## Alternatives

- [AhaSend](https://toolweight.com/tools/ahasend), Small indie transactional API competing on price and instant signup.
- [Brevo](https://toolweight.com/tools/brevo), EU-hosted marketing platform with a competent transactional API attached.
- [Loops](https://toolweight.com/tools/loops), Lifecycle and marketing email for SaaS, priced on contacts rather than sends.
- [MailerSend](https://toolweight.com/tools/mailersend), Transactional sibling of MailerLite, bootstrapped and cheap at mid volume.
- [Mailgun](https://toolweight.com/tools/mailgun), Long-running transactional API with strong routing and inbound handling.
- [Mailtrap](https://toolweight.com/tools/mailtrap), Email testing sandbox that grew a production sending product.
- [Plunk](https://toolweight.com/tools/plunk), Open-source email console you self-host on top of your own AWS SES account.
- [Postmark](https://toolweight.com/tools/postmark), Transactional-only sender with the best-policed shared IP pool in the category.
- [Resend](https://toolweight.com/tools/resend), Developer-first email API built around React Email components.
- [Scaleway TEM](https://toolweight.com/tools/scaleway-tem), EU-sovereign transactional email from Scaleway, deliberately minimal.
- [SendGrid](https://toolweight.com/tools/sendgrid), The incumbent: enormous scale, enormous shared pool, everything bolted on.
- [SparkPost](https://toolweight.com/tools/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/tools/amazon-ses
- Machine-readable: https://toolweight.com/tools/amazon-ses.md · https://toolweight.com/api/v1 · https://toolweight.com/mcp
- Toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements.