Amazon SES vs Plunk (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Amazon SES if

• Fits if your app already runs on AWS and you know your way around its console
• Works for teams that send in volume and also need to receive, route and archive incoming mail

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you need to email customers today, since new accounts start in a sandbox with daily limits
• Not for you if you'd rather not set things up through code and the AWS console
• Watch out: there's no free monthly allowance, so every email is billed once the $200 of credits is gone
• Pricey if you want managed dedicated IPs, as Pro is $105 a month per region and a second region doubles it
• Watch out: attachments, standard dedicated IPs at $24.95 each and AWS services like S3 and CloudWatch bill separately

Pick Plunk if

• Fits if you send a few thousand emails a month and want pay-as-you-go
• Works for developers who might self-host it later

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you send more than 1,000 emails a month on the free plan, which also adds Plunk branding
• Pricey if your volume grows, since it is a flat $0.001 on every email
• Watch out: self-hosting under AGPL-3.0 carries that licence's obligations
• Watch out: the hosted service runs in the EU

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.

Plunk

• The free plan stops at 1,000 emails a month and puts Plunk branding on emails.
• The paid plan has no monthly fee: it is $0.001 per email, so cost scales directly with volume.
• The hosted service is in the EU; self-hosting under AGPL-3.0 carries that license's obligations.

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.

Plunk

Transactional email

Send single emails through a REST API or an SMTP relay, from your own domain with DKIM signing.

Campaigns and newsletters

Broadcasts go to the whole contact list or to a segment, with a visual and an HTML editor and open and click tracking.

Workflows

Event-triggered sequences with delays, conditions and webhook steps, started by something a contact does in your product.

Segments

Dynamic segments are queries that re-run each time they are used, so a campaign reaches the current audience.

Inbound email

Addresses at your domain can receive mail, and replies become contacts that can start workflows.

Self-hosting

The code is open source under AGPL-3.0 and can be deployed with Docker Compose on your own servers.

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.

Plunk

• Free forever$0

  1,000 emails a month and unlimited contacts. Every feature is included, but emails carry Plunk branding.

• Pay as you grow$0.001

  per email sent, no monthly fee

  Removes the Plunk branding and the 1,000-email cap, with a monthly spend cap you can set. The vendor's example shows 10,000 emails costing $10.