Amazon SES Popularsince 2010
A cloud email service for sending and receiving email at scale
What It Does
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is a cloud email service for sending and receiving transactional emails, marketing emails, and notification emails at scale. It includes sending reputation management, bounce handling, and complaint processing to maintain high deliverability.
Use Cases
Registration confirmation emails, password reset notifications, order confirmation emails, newsletter delivery, and alert notification emails - covering all application email sending needs.
Everyday Analogy
Think of a corporate mailroom. It efficiently dispatches large volumes of letters (emails) while managing undeliverable mail (bounces) and refusals (complaints).
What Is SES?
Amazon SES lets you send large volumes of email at just $0.0001 per message (as of August 2026). It supports both SMTP and API interfaces, making migration from existing email sending code straightforward. It also handles incoming email processing (saving to S3, processing with Lambda).
Sending Reputation and Deliverability
Email deliverability heavily depends on your sending reputation. SES monitors bounce and complaint rates, viewable on the reputation dashboard. Dedicated IP addresses let you manage your own reputation without being affected by other senders. DKIM, SPF, and DMARC authentication protects your sending domain against spoofing.
Getting Started
Verify a domain or email address in the SES console. In sandbox mode, you can only send to verified addresses. Moving to production requires a sandbox removal request. Send emails using the AWS SDK's SendEmail API or the SMTP interface. The free tier includes 62,000 emails per month when sending from EC2.
Things to Watch Out For
- Initially in sandbox mode, sending only to verified addresses. A sandbox removal request is required for production use
- Sending may be throttled if bounce rate exceeds 5% or complaint rate exceeds 0.1%
- 62,000 emails/month are free when sending from EC2. Otherwise, $0.10 per 1,000 emails (as of August 2026)
References (Official AWS Resources)
The primary sources for this page are the official AWS website and documentation. Check the official pages below for the latest specifications and pricing.
If this page and the official documentation disagree, treat the official documentation as authoritative.
