Amazon SES Review: Is It Right Email Sending Solution for Your Business

Imagine sending a crucial email—whether it’s a password reset, a shipping confirmation, or a promotional offer—that never reaches your customer’s inbox.

It’s every business owner’s nightmare. Missed emails can lead to frustrated customers, lost sales, and a tarnished reputation.

This is why choosing a reliable email-sending service is essential. Here, Amazon Simple Email Service(SES) comes in to ensure your emails reliably land in inboxes.

But is it the right tool for your needs?

Stick around. We will explore everything you need to know about Amazon SES—it’s key features, pricing, pros and cons, and whether it’s the right option for your business.

Let’s get started.

Amazon SES Review

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), launched in 2011 by Amazon Web Services (AWS), is a powerful and budget-friendly email solution built for businesses of all sizes. 

Whether you’re running a small startup or managing a high-traffic website, Amazon SES is built to meet your email needs.

One of Amazon SES’s distinctive features is its pay-as-you-go pricing, making it a budget-friendly option for companies with varying email volumes. It’s flexible infrastructure allows you to send anything from a few thousand to millions of emails effortlessly.

Amazon SES isn’t just about affordability and scalability; it’s also trusted by industry giants like Netflix, Pinterest, Adobe, and Reddit. These companies rely on SES for its reliability and global reach, ensuring their transactional and marketing emails consistently perform at a high level.

With its cost-effectiveness, seamless integration with AWS, and ability to handle massive email volumes, Amazon SES has earned its reputation as a top choice for businesses who are seeking a flexible, reliable email-sending solution.

What is Amazon SES?

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is a cloud-based tool that makes it easy for you to send transactional and bulk emails. Whether you’re sending order confirmations, marketing campaigns, or account notifications, SES helps ensure your messages are delivered reliably.

With SES, you don’t have to worry about your emails being flagged as spam. You can integrate it with SMTP or use its email API to connect seamlessly with your website or applications. 

Additionally, it’s cost-effective, secure, and built to handle the needs of businesses of any size.

What is Amazon SES Used for?

Amazon SES is trusted by businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises, for its reliable email-sending capabilities. It is particularly popular among companies with high email volumes, such as e-commerce platforms, SaaS providers, and marketing agencies.

Let’s take a look, especially at what it can be used for—

Transactional Email: Amazon SES is widely used for sending emails such as order confirmations, password resets, account notifications, and billing receipts.

For example, when someone purchases a product from your online store, they receive an email with:

• Order details (items, price, etc).
• Shipping information.
• Customer support contact details.

Marketing Email: Businesses for sending newsletters, promotional offers, and announcements, running marketing campaigns, Amazon SES is an excellent tool. It’s analytics features help track open rates and engagement to optimize campaigns.

Sending Notifications: For sending timely notifications, including system health reports, application alerts, and workflow status updates.

Bulk Email: Mass emails refer to communications sent in large volumes, typically for marketing purposes. These emails, such as advertisements for a campaign, are created and sent to multiple recipients at once.

Why You Should Choose Amazon SES?

When it comes to email-sending solutions, affordability and transparency are key, and Amazon SES delivers on both fronts.

Here is why it could be a better choice:

• Seamless Integration: Amazon SES can integrate into any application. Whether you need to send transactional emails, marketing campaigns, or newsletters, it will adapt to your needs effortlessly.
• Versatility: It supports various types of IP deployment —including dedicated, shared, or owned IP addresses. This flexibility allows you to meet your business’s unique needs.
• Cost-Effective Pricing: Operates on a pay-as-you-go model, making it one of the most budget-friendly options compared to other email-sending services.
• Advanced Tools and Analytics: It offers sender details statistics and insights to optimize email campaigns. These features will help you to improve engagement and ensure every email reaches your audience’s inbox.
• Simplified Bulk Email Sending: Managing bulk emails can be a daunting task, but SES simplifies it. From IP warming to sender reputation management and network configuration, it handles the technical complexities.
• Proven Reliability: With SES, you can count on consistent performance. It’s designed to handle high-volume email automation efficiently, by leveraging years of expertise in global-scale email management.

Key Features and Benefits of Amazon SES

Amazon SES is packed with a wide range of features to simplify email communication for businesses and developers. Whether you’re a seasoned tech expert or just getting started, SES has standout features and benefits for everyone:

Flexible Sending Options

Amazon SES offers multiple ways to send emails, allowing businesses and developers to integrate it into their existing workflows:

• SES Console: A user-friendly interface for quick email setup and sending. It is ideal for users who need setup without requiring advanced technical knowledge.
• SMTP Interface: If you already use email clients or software that supports SMTP, you can smoothly integrate with it.
• Amazon SES API: Powerful way to manage email operation programmatically via AWS CLI or SDK and perfect for developers and tech-savvy users.

Virtual Deliverability Manager (VDM)

Deliverability is key for making successful your email strategy to ensure your emails land in inboxes, not spam folders. It provides three core components for ensuring email land to inbox:

• Deliverability Insights: Provide clear insights to track performance metrics like bounce rates, opens, and clicks in a single dashboard. Users can view with detailed breakdown by ISP, sender identity, engagement status, and many more.
• Actionable Recommendations: Provide alerts on deliverability issues and actionable recommendations. It ensures improved inbox placement, such as optimizing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configurations.
• Automated Improvements: You can enable SES to automatically optimize email delivery patterns, as soon as it detects an opportunity for improvement.

Global Endpoints

Amazon SES’s global endpoints provide a secondary region for bulk email sending, ensuring uninterrupted service during regional outages.

It allows customers to configure a secondary region, automatically duplicates configuration settings, and balances email traffic evenly across both regions.

If one region experiences an outage, traffic is seamlessly rerouted to the operational region without requiring customer intervention, and normal load distribution resumes once the outage is resolved. 

This feature ensures to send email with confidence, even in high-demand scenarios with:

• Multi-Region Support: You can configure both primary and secondary regions, ensuring seamless email sending by automatically rerouting traffic if one region is affected.
• Load Balancing: Automatically balances traffic between regions to ensure high availability.
• Warmed-up IPs: Both regions develop warmed-up IPs, ensuring they’re ready for high-volume email delivery.

Mail Manager

Mail Manager simplifies managing large-scale email communications by offering comprehensive tools for handling both incoming and outgoing emails. It enhances security and ensures compliance with data protection regulations through:

• Unified Email Management: Consolidates external emails into a centralized system for controlled processing and streamlined routing.
• Centralized Email Relay: Manages all outgoing emails via a virtual infrastructure, enabling efficient routing and authenticated communication.
• Email Archiving: Systematically stores and indexes emails to meet legal and regulatory requirements, supporting audits and compliance.
• Flexible Email Add-Ons: Provides customizable solutions like sensitive data scanning and loss prevention, powered by trusted third-party providers.

Enhanced Security

Amazon SES enhances sender identity and security to help businesses build trust and maintain a strong sender reputation with the following:

• Authentication Standards: It supports authentication supports like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC to prove ownership of your sending domain.
• Private Connections: Use AWS PrivateLink to securely connect to the Amazon SES SMTP endpoint without exposing data to the internet.

Reputation Dashboard

Amazon SES’s reputation dashboard provides strong monitoring features for maintaining strong delivery. It enables users to proactively address issues through key tools:

• Real-Time Metrics: Monitor critical factors such as bounces, complaints, and other factors that impact your sender’s reputation.
• CloudWatch Integration: Set up alarms for important metrics so that you can receive timely alerts and take swift action on potential issues.

Email Receiving

With Amazon SES you have complete control over which emails you accept and what to do with them after receiving them with some key options:

• Filter Options: Accept or reject emails based on the sender’s domain, IP address, or email address.
• Custom Actions: Store emails in S3, trigger AWS Lambda functions or send notifications via Amazon SNS.

Pros and Cons of Amazon SES

Amazon services often have fans and critics but when it comes to Amazon SES, it stands out as a pillar of innovation with its convincing concept and budget-friendly pricing.

However, even every bright stars have their own shadows. So, let’s break down the pros and it’s potential downsides:

Amazon SES Pricing & Plan

Whether you’re managing large-scale campaigns or running smaller email lists, Amazon SES offers a flexible pricing structure that suits businesses of all sizes.

Its pricing structure is designed with flexibility in mind. It is influenced by factors like email volume and whether you use dedicated IPs or not. By knowing the specifics, you’ll have a clear understanding of what to expect and can plan your expenses accordingly.

And the best part?

SES offers a free tier for eligible users, making it an even more attractive option for startups and small businesses.

Amazon SES Pricing for Sending Emails

Amazon SES keeps things simple with a straightforward approach:

Free Tier	Paid Tier
Can send up to 3,000 emails per month for free	Pay just $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent, once you exceed the free limit
Only available for using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) servers users for sending emails	Available for non-EC2 users or all

Amazon SES Pricing for IP Addresses

Amazon SES offers four different IP address possibilities, each with unique features and costs:

Amazon SES Pricing for Receiving Emails

If you want to receive emails using Amazon SES, the pricing is:

• Cost: $0.10 per 1,000 incoming emails.
• Notes: Receiving emails is optional and less common for marketers who focus on sending emails. However, it can be useful for certain workflows or scenarios.

Amazon SES with WordPress

If you are a WordPress user, you’ve probably experienced the annoying problem of emails not being delivered or ending up in spam folders. This is because WordPress uses the default wp_mail() function, which relies on PHP to send emails.

Unfortunately, many web hosting servers aren’t optimized for this method, causing email delivery issues. 

But don’t worry—there’s a powerful solution!

Integrating Amazon SES with WordPress can be a total game-changer for your email reliability. To make the process seamless, we recommend FluentSMTP, a free WordPress plugin that works effortlessly with Amazon SES.

Choose FluentSMTP for Maximum Delivery

FluentSMTP replaces the unreliable default PHP wp_mail() function with SMTP, ensuring your emails are delivered securely and consistently. Plus, it comes packed with features that smooth your email experience:

• Email Logs: Monitor every email sent from your site to confirm successful delivery.
• Email Failure Alerts: Stay informed with instant notifications via email, Telegram, Discord, or Slack if an email fails to send.
• Smart Routing: Easily manage multiple email connections for different purposes without any hassle.

The Benefits of Combining Amazon SES and FluentSMTP

When you pair Amazon SES with FluentSMTP, your WordPress email gets a significant boost. Here’s why:

• Reliable Delivery: Emails are sent using Amazon SES’s robust and secure infrastructure, minimizing issues with undelivered messages.
• Enhanced Control: FluentSMTP’s detailed logs and failure alerts give you complete visibility and control over your email performance.
• Improved Reputation: Advanced authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC ensure your domain stays reputable and keep your emails out of spam folders.

Check out our step-by-step guide in the FluentSMTP documentation if you’re not sure about how to configure Amazon SES with FluentSMTP

Overall User Experience and Customer’s Review of Amazon SES

Amazon has earned a strong reputation among users for its affordability, scalability, and dependability. Different Tech-giant company such as Netflix, Duolingo, and Reddit uses Amazon SES to increase email success rates, send marketing emails, and drive user engagement.

Different review websites also gained so many positive reviews that you can see in Google because of Google’s ranking algorithm.

Amazon SES user reviewed 4.3 out of 5 in G2, 8.4 out of 10 TrustRadius

However, Amazon SES is loved for being a scalable solution for all-size businesses of all sizes. Users value its ability to deliver both transactional and bulk emails. It’s smooth integration with other AWS services is a bonus for those already using the AWS platform.

Here are some users have said about Amazon SES in G2, and TrustRadius:

Nick K., a frequent user of Amazon SES, finds it to be a solid solution for transactional emails, particularly if you’re already within the AWS ecosystem. He praises its excellent API, great email deliverability, and highly competitive pricing, especially for dedicated IP addresses.

However, John also points out some drawbacks. While SES is a powerful tool, its support is lacking, similar to other AWS services.

Giuseppe N., Founder of FormaFarm, recommends Amazon SES for its ease of use and reliability. He values the intuitive domain validation via DNS and simple setup for sending emails. At FormaFarm, they use SES for all their clients, ensuring efficient email delivery. 

Giuseppe also appreciates the clear documentation and quick customer support, especially when increasing their sending limit.

Top Alternatives of Amazon SES

We have explained to you about everything about Amazon SES from every point of view. After seeing different aspects of Amazon SES if you find Amazon SES is not your go-to solution, no worries! You have to consider some alternatives.

Here are some good options you can consider as an Amazon SES alternatives:

• Sendgrid: SendGrid is a powerful email platform for both marketing and transactional emails. It’s user-friendly interface, reliable deliverability, and sophisticated functionality make it the perfect choice for both developers and marketers.
• Brevo (Sendinblue): Sendinblue is a multipurpose platform that combines with automation, SMS campaigns, and email marketing. It’s ideal for companies looking for a single solution to simplify their communication strategies.
• Postmark: Postmark is a top choice for transactional emails, appreciated for its speed, reliability, and focus on email success rate. Postmark is a reliable choice if you prioritize efficiency because of its clear and simple interface, which makes setting up and managing emails simple.

Final Thought: Is Amazon SES Right for You?

Amazon SES’s reliable infrastructure, flexibility, and integration capabilities make it a top choice for businesses that prioritize deliverability and affordability.

However, Amazon SES may not be the best option for users who are looking for out-of-the-box simplicity or those without technical expertise. The setup process can be intimidating for non-technical users, especially when configuring DNS records or troubleshooting email inbox placement issues.

If you’re a WordPress user, integrating Amazon SES with FluentSMTP is highly recommended. FluentSMTP makes simpler the configuration process and enhances delivery, making it easier to manage emails directly from your WordPress dashboard.

If your email marketing strategy aligns with Amazon SES’s strengths—scalability, cost-effectiveness, and reliability—this service is well worth considering. 

Additionally, if you are looking for easier setup or richer UI-based analytics exploring alternatives like SendGrid or Postmark might be a better fit.

Ultimately, Amazon’s SES is a powerful tool. As a WordPress user’s full potential can be utilized when it is paired with complementary solutions like FluentSMTP, ensuring optimal performance and user-friendly integration.

Frequently Asked Questions