Amazon SES vs Elastic Email
We give Amazon SES a 2.8 GPA and Elastic Email a 2.6, out of 4.0. Amazon SES grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on the free plan, features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Amazon SES
AWS email sending and receiving, paid per 1,000 emails
Elastic Email
Low-cost email API and SMTP relay priced by monthly email volume
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAAmazon SESGood | 2.6GPAElastic EmailGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AGraded on 50,000 emails a month, worked out from the listed rates: $0.16 per 1,000 on Essentials is $8 a month, and $0.10 per 1,000 à la carte is $5. That's far under anything else in this category. Attachments, dedicated IPs and other AWS services cost extra. | BGraded on 50,000 emails a month: Starter is $19 for exactly that, in the cheaper quarter of this category at that volume. But webhooks, which tell your app about bounces and complaints, and inbound email need Pro at $49. |
| Free plan and trial | CThere's no free allowance: every email is billed from the first one. New AWS customers do get up to $200 in Free Tier credits that work on SES, which goes a long way at these rates. | CFree for good, no card: 3,000 emails a month, capped at 100 a day, with the API, SMTP, designer and 3 days of logs. Fine for testing, but a busy day on a live app will hit the cap. |
| Features | BAPI, SMTP and AWS SDKs, receiving and routing with Mail Manager, address validation, shared, dedicated or your own IPs, deliverability insights, tenants and two-region sending. It covers the whole job, though alerts and dashboards lean on other AWS services. | BAPI and SMTP with libraries in seven languages, drag-and-drop and AI template design, suppressions, verification, inbound email, webhooks, private IPs and reseller tools. It covers the whole job across its plans, though the developer bits sit on Pro. |
| Ease of use | CJudged on how fast a developer sends a first email: verify a domain in AWS, then you're in a sandbox that only sends to verified addresses until AWS approves a limit increase. No rating on record. It's the slowest start in this category. | CJudged on how fast a developer sends a first email: libraries for most languages and an SMTP relay, once your domain is verified. No rating on record. With 3 days of logs on Free and Starter, chasing a failed email has to be quick. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an API, SMTP and AWS SDKs, and it plugs into Amazon S3, SNS, CloudWatch and EC2. Outside AWS you're wiring it up yourself. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. | BWeb, with an API and SMTP, plus Zapier, WordPress, Cloudways, Lovable, Bolt, v0 and Replit. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. |
| Best for | the cheapest sending if you already use AWS | cheap sending at 50,000 emails and up |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Amazon SES and Elastic Email. How we grade
Where they differ
- Elastic Email has a free plan. Amazon SES does not, though it has a free trial.
- Elastic Email also covers email campaigns.
At a glance
| Amazon SES | Elastic Email | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free plan |
| Starts at | Not published | $19 per month for 50,000 emails |
| Free plan | None | Up to 3,000 emails a month, limited to 100 a day, with the API, SMTP relay, email designer and 3 days of email logs. No credit card needed. |
| Free trial | New AWS customers get up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, usable on SES | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Amazon Web Services, Inc. | Elastic Email Inc. |
| Price read from | aws.amazon.com | elasticemail.com |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Amazon SES
- Developers already running their apps on AWS
- High-volume senders looking for a low price per email
- Teams comfortable setting up email through code and the AWS console
Elastic Email
- Price-conscious senders of 50,000 emails a month or more
- Agencies reselling email under their own brand
- Developers who want a free tier for testing
Worth knowing
Amazon SES
- Every email is billed: $0.10 per 1,000 on à la carte pricing or $0.16 per 1,000 on Essentials, with no free monthly allowance.
- New accounts start in a sandbox that only sends to verified addresses, with daily limits, until AWS approves a limit increase.
- Pro and Enterprise fees are charged per account per region, so sending from two regions doubles the fixed fee.
- Other AWS services used alongside it, such as S3 storage, SNS notifications or CloudWatch dashboards, are billed separately.
Elastic Email
- The free plan is limited to 100 emails a day, and email logs are kept for 3 days on Free and Starter.
- Inbound email processing, webhooks and subaccounts need Pro, which costs $49 a month at 50,000 emails.
- Email Marketing is a separate product with its own account, priced by contacts: $29 a month for 2,500 on Starter, free up to 1,000.
- A private IP is an add-on at $40 or $50 a month, depending on the plan.
Key features
Amazon SES
- API, SMTP and AWS SDKs
- Send transactional and marketing email from any application through the SES API, an SMTP interface or an AWS SDK, after verifying your domain or address.
- Virtual Deliverability Manager
- Delivery and engagement insights with recommendations for reputation problems; the paid plans extend it to inbox placement tests and blocklist monitoring.
- Dedicated, shared or your own IPs
- Send from shared IPs, standard dedicated IPs at $24.95 a month each, managed dedicated IPs that SES warms up for you, or IP ranges you bring.
- Mail Manager for incoming email
- Receive email and route, allow or block it with rule sets, add security scanning from approved vendors, and archive sent and received mail.
- Email validation
- Checks recipient addresses before sending, at $0.01 per address checked through the API, or included up to a monthly allowance on Pro and Enterprise.
- Tenants and global endpoints
- Tenants keep each sender's reputation separate inside one account, and global endpoints spread sending across two AWS regions.
Elastic Email
- HTTP API and SMTP relay
- Send through a REST API with libraries for languages including Go, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby and Rust, or through SMTP, with attachments.
- Email designer
- Drag-and-drop templates with responsive layouts, a raw HTML editor and an AI template designer: 10 prompts a month on Free, 40 on Starter, 100 on Pro.
- Suppressions and verification
- Unsubscribe and bounce handling, suppressed-contact export, and single or bulk email address verification on paid plans.
- Inbound email and webhooks
- Pro processes incoming email and sends webhook notifications for deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces and complaints.
- Reseller and white-label tools
- Pro adds subaccounts, white-label SMTP and HTTP API, and the app on your own domain for agencies reselling email.
- Private IPs
- Dedicated IPs with warm-up and IP pools, at $40 a month on Starter or $50 a month on Pro.
Plans
Amazon SES
À la carte$0
No plan or minimum fee: $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent or received, plus $0.12 per GB of attachments; features such as dedicated IPs are bought separately.
Essentials$0
No fixed fee: $0.16 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million a month, then less. Deliverability insights included; new accounts start on it from July 21, 2026.
Pro$105
per month, plus $0.22 per 1,000 emails
Per account and region. Adds managed dedicated IPs, 2,500 address validations a month, deliverability tracking beyond SES and Trend Micro scanning.
Enterprise$500
per month, plus $0.23 per 1,000 emails
Per account and region. Adds global endpoints across two regions, tenants, an open inbound endpoint, 5,000 validations and Spamhaus scanning.
Elastic Email
Free$0
3,000 emails a month and 100 a day, API and SMTP relay, Starter's basic features, 3 days of logs.
Starter$19
per month for 50,000 emails
API and SMTP relay, email designer, suppressions, single and bulk verification, 3 days of logs. $29 a month at 100,000 emails.
Pro$49
per month for 50,000 emails
Adds inbound email processing, webhooks, subaccounts, user management, reseller features and 7 days of logs. $59 a month at 100,000 emails.
