Skip to main content

AWS Glossary

Amazon SES

Amazon Simple Email Service — AWS outbound and inbound email infrastructure with a-la-carte $0.10/1k send and Essentials/Pro/Enterprise plans (Jul 2026).

Last reviewed: July 2026
Amazon SES Developer GuideAmazon SES Pricing

Definition

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is AWS’s email sending and receiving service. Applications call the SES API (or SMTP interface) to deliver transactional and bulk mail. Deliverability controls include domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), configuration sets, Virtual Deliverability Manager, dedicated/managed IP pools, and (for platforms) tenant management. As of July 21, 2026, SES offers hierarchical Essentials / Pro / Enterprise pricing plans alongside a-la-carte outbound at $0.10 per 1,000 emails.

When to use it

  • High-volume transactional or promotional email when you already run on AWS
  • Cost-sensitive sending where ESP per-message fees dominate the bill
  • Event-driven mail from Lambda, ECS, or Step Functions with SNS/EventBridge feedback
  • Multi-brand or ISV platforms that need configuration sets and optionally tenants

When not to use it

  • Teams that need a marketer drag-and-drop journey builder with no engineering ownership — pair SES with Customer.io/Loops or stay on a full ESP
  • Senders unwilling to operate bounce/complaint suppression and warm-up
  • Regions or use cases blocked by SES sandbox / Trust & Safety approval

Tips

  • Isolate transactional vs marketing with separate configuration sets (and IP pools when volume warrants)
  • Model Pro when you need managed DIPs + Global VDM; stay a-la-carte for send-only
  • Implement RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe on marketing streams yourself — SES does not add it automatically
  • Monitor SES complaint (~0.1%) separately from Gmail Postmaster spam rate (under 0.10%)

Gotchas

Serious

  • Assuming SES is still send-only metering with free dedicated IPs after July 2026 — hierarchical plans exist, and DIPs remain billable unless included on Pro/Enterprise
  • Sharing promo and transactional IPs so a list problem pauses password resets

Regular

  • Staying in the sandbox while building production volume assumptions
  • Forgetting Microsoft’s May 2025 Outlook consumer bulk-sender authentication bar

Related FactualMinds content

Related Services

Amazon SES Email Deliverability Consulting | FactualMinds

Amazon SES email consulting from an AWS Select Tier Partner. SPF/DKIM/DMARC setup, inbox placement optimization, sender reputation, and scalable email infrastructure.

View service

SES Migration & Email Delivery Services | FactualMinds

SES migration consulting — move from SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, or SparkPost to Amazon SES. Deliverability, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, monitoring, compliance.

View service

Related Articles

Amazon SES Pricing Plans (Jul 2026): Essentials vs Pro vs Enterprise — When to Switch

On Jul 21, 2026 AWS shipped SES Essentials, Pro ($105/region), and Enterprise ($500/region). At 2M emails/mo a Pro-like a-la-carte stack runs ~$1,793 vs Pro plan ~$553. Switch only when you need the bundled stack.

Read article

Amazon SES for eCommerce: Scaling Promotional and Transactional Email That Actually Reaches the Inbox

Amazon SES is the most cost-effective email infrastructure for high-volume retail sending, but inbox placement requires dedicated IPs, proper authentication, and automated bounce handling.

Read article

How to Migrate from SendGrid to Amazon SES (Step-by-Step)

Migrating from SendGrid to SES is mostly cheap, until your warm-up plan is wrong and deliverability falls off a cliff. This covers DNS cutover, IP warming, API surface differences, and the deliverability checkpoints that keep email landing in inboxes through the switch.

Read article

Amazon SES Cold Email for B2B: Compliance and Deliverability Setup (2026)

Legitimate B2B outbound on SES in 2026: sandbox exit, SPF/DKIM/DMARC, RFC 8058, Microsoft May 2025 bars, warm-up, and when Pro DIPs beat shared pools, with a first-party compliance checklist.

Read article

AWS SES Marketing Automation with EventBridge and Step Functions (2026)

When to keep Customer.io/Loops vs build journeys with EventBridge + Step Functions + SES: stream isolation, RFC 8058, Pro for DIPs, and a first-party journey architecture checklist.

Read article

Need help with this topic?

Our AWS-certified team implements, audits, and optimizes these services in production — from Bedrock RAG pipelines to multi-account landing zones.

Talk to AWS Experts