Amazon SES Alternatives: Which Email Service Is Right for You

Amazon SES is a cloud-based email service from AWS that is known for its reliable performance. But let’s be real—it might not be the best fit for everyone. 

It was designed with big enterprises in mind, which can make it a bit complicated and pricey if you’re a smaller business or just looking for something simpler.

If you’ve ever wished for a reliable email service that is easier to use and won’t break the bank, you’re not alone. There are plenty of great Amazon SES alternatives that offer all the great features, ease of use, and a price.

In this article, we’ve rounded up 7 of the best alternatives to Amazon SES. We’ll walk you through what makes each one special and help you find the perfect fit.

Let’s dive in!

Amazon SES Alternatives: A Quick Overview

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) was launched by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2011, it is known for its reliability, scalability, and integration with other AWS services.

It is built to handle high-volume email delivery, making it a popular choice for businesses that require a large email infrastructure. Its pay-as-you-go pricing model ensures affordability, especially for startups and small businesses.

However, Amazon’s SES has its limitations. Its user interface is not as intuitive as some competitors, making it less user-friendly for non-technical users. 

Additionally, this platform lacks dedicated IP addresses on its basic plan, which can impact deliverability for some users.

Read our full Amazon SES review to get a clear overview of Amazon SES.

So, let’s take a quick overview of some of the best Amazon SES alternatives to consider:

Provider	Free Tier/Trial?	Pricing Plan	Best For	Best Feature
SendGrid	Yes	Pay-as-you-go & Tiers	High-volume transactional emails and robust API integrations	Advanced API & deliverability tools
Brevo	Yes	Freemium / Subscription plans	Marketing & Automation	Integrated automation & real-time analytics
Mailchimp	Yes	Freemium / Tiered pricing	Small Businesses, marketing emails	All-in-one marketing suite
Postmark	No	Pay-as-you-go with monthly plans	Transactional email and reliability	Speed and reliability
Mailgun	Yes	Pay-as-you-go / Subscription tiers	Developer friendly	Powerful API and detailed analytics
MessageBird	No	Pay-as-you-go / Custom enterprise plans	Real-time analytics, advanced API integrations	Scalability with enterprise-level analytics
Elastic Email	Yes	Freemium / Pay-as-you-go or subscription	Marketing email and transactional email	Simple, cost-effective solution for both email types

7 Amazon SES Alternatives You Can Try for Your Business

Check out these Amazon SES alternatives that might offer exactly what you’ve been looking for to make email delivery smooth and more efficient.

SendGrid

SendGrid is renowned for its reliable email delivery, ensuring your messages land straight into inboxes like Outlook and Gmail without delay. Users love SendGrid not only for its dependable performance but also for its exceptional customer support team.

Its marketing campaign feature allows you to create, manage, and analyze your email marketing efforts seamlessly to ensure that your promotional emails are not only beautifully designed but also effectively targeted to your audience.

Plus, SendGrid integrates smoothly with a variety of apps and platforms, making it easy to manage all your email activities from a single platform.

Key Features of SendGrid

• Powerful Email APIs: Seamlessly send, receive, and track emails with APIs
• Marketing Campaigns: Design targeted campaigns using drag-and-drop editors
• Advanced Analytics: Gain insights about performance with advanced analytics
• Customizable Templates: Create professional emails with customizable drag-and-drop responsive templates
• Deliverability Tools: Enhance deliverability via dedicated IPs, DKIM, SPF testing
• Automation Workflows: Automate email sequences to nurture leads, engage audiences
• Scalable Infrastructure: Scale confidently, sending millions with reliable, efficient delivery rates

SendGrid Pros and Cons

SendGrid Pricing

• SendGrid’s free plan for marketers lets you store 2,000 contacts and send 6,000 emails.
• Upgrading costs $15 per month, covering 7,000 contacts and up to 15,000 emails. Meanwhile, the Email API plan starts at $19.95 monthly, allowing up to 50,000 emails for more transactional or API-driven requirements.

Brevo

Brevo is renowned for its user-friendly email marketing platform. It ensures your email campaign reaches inboxes on services like Gmail and Outlook quickly and reliably. 

Its marketing campaign feature allows you to design, schedule, and track newsletters, promotional offers, and transactional emails seamlessly, ensuring that your marketing efforts are both visually appealing and precisely targeted to your audience.

Plus, Brevo integrates smoothly with a variety of apps and platforms—like WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce—making it easy to manage all your email marketing services from one convenient dashboard.

Key Features of Brevo

• Powerful Email APIs: Seamlessly send, receive, and track emails through developer-friendly APIs
• Marketing Campaigns: Create and manage campaigns using a drag-and-drop editor
• Advanced Analytics: Gain detailed insights into open rates, click-throughs, and performance metrics
• Customizable Templates: Design professional emails with a variety of adaptable, pre-built templates
• Deliverability Tools: Optimize sending reputation with features like dedicated IPs and authentication
• Automation Workflows: Set up multi-step automation journeys for lead nurturing and customer engagement
• Scalable Infrastructure: Confidently handle higher volumes as your business and email lists grow

Brevo Pros and Cons

Brevo Pricing

• Brevo’s free plan allows you to send up to 300 emails per day and the Starter plan begins at $8 per month, providing 5,000 monthly emails. 
• With advanced features like A/B testing and email marketing automation, the Premium plan starts at $62 per month and includes up to 20,000 emails per month with unlimited contacts.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a highly popular marketing platform known for its intuitive interface and powerful email automation features. It serves as an excellent alternative to Amazon SES if your core focus is on sophisticated email marketing campaigns rather than just sending transactional emails.

With Mailchimp, you can design polished, branded email templates and run segmented email campaigns effortlessly using its user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.

Instead of sending generic follow-up emails, you can create targeted workflows that automatically adapt to subscriber behavior. For example, if someone clicks on a specific link, you can trigger a personalized follow-up sequence tailored to their interests.

Key Features of Mailchimp

• Drag-and-Drop Email Builder: Design visually appealing campaigns with AI assistance
• Deliverability Tools: Manage authentication settings (SPF, DKIM) and monitor list health to keep emails landing in your inbox
• Advanced Segmentation: Target subscribers based on behavior, demographics, or purchase history
• Email Marketing Automation: Automate email sequences for personalized customer journeys
• Analytics and Reporting: Gain insight into campaign performance with real-time data
• Integrations: Connect with various third-party platforms and services

Mailchimp Pros and Cons

Mailchimp Pricing

• Mailchimp offers a Free plan that lets you send up to 1,000 monthly emails to a limited number of contacts, along with dynamic templates and reporting tools. 
• Paid plans start at $13 per month, offering higher email sending limits, more advanced segmentation, and in-depth analytics.

Postmark

If your top priority is making sure transactional emails reach inboxes fast, Postmark might be your perfect match. While Amazon SES is known for its reliability and affordability, it can feel a bit bare-bones when you want deeper insights and more control over delivery.

It’s built for developers and marketers who need to ensure that essential messages never get lost in the shuffle.

Postmark provides more granular visibility and separates transactional emails from marketing traffic, ensuring that vital messages reach inboxes as quickly as possible. 

This distinction is especially useful for businesses that prioritize real-time engagement over just sending out large volumes of email.

Key Features of Postmark

• Fast Delivery: Ensures that time-sensitive messages arrive almost instantly
• API & SMTP Compatibility: Integrates smoothly with apps or websites, whether you prefer SMTP or a robust API
• Transactional Email Focus: Optimize crucial messages for timely delivery
• Segregated Sending: Keep transactional emails separate from marketing emails for safer inbox placement
• Separate Sending Streams: Keep transactional email services separate from marketing sends, protecting your sender reputation
• Real-time tracking: Offers detailed event history so you can monitor opens, clicks, and bounces at a glance

Postmark Pros and Cons

Postmark Pricing

• With transparent pricing Send up to 100 emails per month, with SMTP server and API capabilities, and keep messages for 45 days—all at no cost.
• Paid plan begins at $15/month for 10,000 emails, granting full access to advanced features like in-depth analytics, premium support, and extended message retention.

Mailgun

Mailgun is a developer-friendly email solution that streamlines transactional emails, bulk sending, and email validation. It was founded in 2010 and offers features like inbound email routing, detailed analytics, and smooth integrations with frameworks such as Django, Laravel, and Ruby on Rails.

Its user-friendly dashboard and comprehensive docs make it ideal for both startups and larger enterprises.

As an alternative to Amazon SES, Mailgun stands out with its advanced testing tools and flexible API endpoints. Plus, its robust deliverability features help ensure your emails hit the inbox every time. In short, Mailgun gives you better control and deeper insights into your email performance.

Key Features of Mailgun

• Powerful API: Integrate with various programming languages and frameworks for sending and receiving emails
• Inbound Routing: Automatically parse and route incoming emails for automated workflows.
• Email Validation: Verify email addresses to reduce bounces and maintain a healthy sender reputation.
• Detailed Analytics: Track open rates, clicks, and other key metrics to optimize email performance.
• Deliverability Tools: Access IP reputation monitoring, spam complaint handling, and feedback loops to ensure high inbox placement.
• Scalable Infrastructure: Easily handle both small-scale testing and large-scale production campaigns.

Mailgun Pros and Cons

Mailgun Pricing Plan

• The free plan begins at 100 emails/day and is great for testing and smaller projects.
• The foundation plan starts at $35/month for 50,000 emails and includes improved support and features like email validation.
• The growth plan starts at $80/month for 100,000 emails, with additional features like dedicated IP and advanced analytics.
• The scale plan is for custom pricing for high-volume senders, offering premium support and more robust deliverability tools.

MessageBird (formerly SparkPost)

MessageBird Email, formerly known as SparkPost, is another email delivery service that can serve as a great alternative to Amazon SES. It helps businesses deliver transactional and marketing emails reliably while providing detailed analytics and real-time tracking.

Originally, it was built for high-volume email senders, but now offers a user-friendly interface along with powerful features that simplify email management for businesses of all sizes.

Key Features of MessageBird

• Reliable Email Delivery: Ensures your messages land in the inbox with a strong reputation for high deliverability
• Real-Time Analytics: Monitor all key metrics in real-time, helping you optimize your campaigns
• Template Management: Create and manage email templates easily to maintain brand consistency and save time
• API Integrations: Easily integrate with your existing tech stack to automate their email workflows
• Advanced Segmentation: Target specific audiences based on behavior and demographics to boost engagement

MessageBird Pros and Cons

MessageBird Pricing Plan

• Bird uses a straightforward contact-based pricing model and charges a flat fee of $45 per month to target up to 3,000 contacts
• Bird’s enterprise pricing is available for businesses with more than 50,000 monthly contacts, offering a custom plan on a per-month basis

Elastic Email

Elastic Email delivers transactional emails through its API and offers an accessible email service and marketing platform, each with separate billing. It stands out for its simplicity, perfectly serving users who lack technical skills or don’t need advanced analytics and integrations.

Instead, it provides pre-made layouts, integrated forms, and straightforward email automation. You can easily preview and segment subscribers and add widgets to enhance your emails.

Overall, Elastic Email is an excellent choice for e-commerce sites, startups, and small enterprises.

Key Features of Elastic Email

• Drag-and-Drop Editor: Easily design and customize your emails without needing to code
• Email Automation: Set up automatic email sequences like welcome messages and follow-ups
• Landing Page Builder: Create custom landing pages to capture leads and boost conversions
• Detailed Analytics: Monitor key metrics such as open, click, and bounce rates, along with reasons for unsubscribes
• SMTP Relay & API: Send large volumes of emails reliably and connect your systems through an easy-to-use API
• Deliverability Tools: Improve inbox placement with features like email verification, SPF/DKIM validation, and options for dedicated IP addresses with IP warm-up

Elastic Email Pros and Cons

Elastic Email Pricing Plan

• Free plan with a limited number of emails per month
• Elastic Email API plan starts as low as $19 per month for sending 50,000 emails
• Email Marketing plan starts at $29 per month, allowing you to send 37,500 emails with 2,500 number of contacts
• Custom plans are available for businesses with very high email volumes such as 100M+ emails per month

Start Sending Emails with the Best Amazon SES Alternatives

Choosing the right email service is key for ensuring your emails reach your audience—whether you’re sending transactional updates, marketing campaigns, or automated emails.

The Amazon SES alternatives we’ve covered—each brings something unique to the table. But we believe after giving a read throughout the content, you already know which one is best for you.

But picking an email service is only half of the battle. To ensure smooth delivery —especially from your WordPress site—you need a reliable tool to bridge the gap between your website and your chosen email service provider.

That’s where FluentSMTP comes in. It acts as the missing puzzle to ensure your email deliverability without any cost. With easy setup and compatibility with all these alternatives, FluentSMTP ensures smooth email deliverability.

Check our documentation for easy setup of these alternatives with FluentSMTP.

By combining FluentSMTP with any of these Amazon SES alternatives, you’ll have a powerful, reliable, and easy-to-manage email system that helps your business stay connected with your audience.

So, pick the one that suits your business best and start sending emails with confidence!