Amazon SES — Free 62K emails/mo for Startups

Deal Highlights

Amazon SES — Send Email at AWS Scale for Almost Nothing

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is the email sending infrastructure behind Amazon.com itself. It provides transactional and marketing email delivery at $0.10 per 1,000 emails — the cheapest email sending service available. If your startup sends email from EC2 instances, the first 62,000 emails per month are completely free.

Raw Power, Assembly Required

SES is not a marketing platform. There is no drag-and-drop editor, no contact management, no landing pages. SES is email infrastructure — an API that sends email at massive scale with excellent deliverability. You build the rest yourself or use it behind tools like SendGrid, Mailgun, or your own application.

When SES Makes Sense

SES is ideal when you already have email templates in your application code and need reliable, cheap delivery. Transactional emails (password resets, order confirmations, notifications), developer alerts, and high-volume sending where cost matters more than convenience.

Deliverability

SES manages IP reputation, handles bounce processing, and provides complaint tracking. Dedicated IP addresses are available for high-volume senders. Deliverability rates are competitive with premium services because Amazon maintains the underlying infrastructure.

SES vs SendGrid

SendGrid provides a complete email platform with templates, contact management, and analytics. SES provides raw sending infrastructure at 10x lower cost. Use SendGrid if you want convenience. Use SES if you want the lowest possible cost and already handle email logic in your code.

SES vs Resend

Resend offers a modern developer experience with React email templates and excellent DX. SES is cheaper at scale but has a clunky API and console. Resend is better for developer happiness. SES is better for pure cost optimization.

Getting Started

1. Enable SES in your AWS account
2. Verify your sending domain with DNS records
3. Request production access (starts in sandbox mode)
4. Send emails via API, SMTP, or AWS SDK

Pricing

Free 62,000 emails/month from EC2. Otherwise $0.10 per 1,000 emails. Dedicated IPs at $24.95/month each. No monthly minimum.

Who Is This Deal For?

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about this startup deal.