Amazon SES vs SMTP.com
We give Amazon SES a 2.8 GPA and SMTP.com a 1.8, out of 4.0. Amazon SES grades higher on value for money, the free plan and features. They get the same grade on 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
SMTP.com
SMTP relay and email API sold in monthly volume plans from 50,000
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAAmazon SESGood | 1.8GPASMTP.comWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | CGraded on 50,000 emails a month: Essential is $25 for exactly that, on a shared IP, which is the middle of this category at that volume. Reputation Defender and Insight Engine add $5 a month each, and a dedicated IP means Starter at $80 for 100,000. |
| 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. | FNothing free: no free plan and no trial. The smallest plan is $25 a month, so you pay before you've sent a single email. |
| 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. | CSMTP relay and an email API, detailed delivery reports, dedicated IPs from the $80 plan, and paid add-ons that weed out bad addresses as you send. It handles the sending, but nothing on record covers templates, webhooks or inbound email. |
| 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: you choose a plan and pay before you get to send, then use SMTP or the API. No rating on record. Managed onboarding and migration help are there if you're moving from another provider. |
| 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 SMTP relay and an email API, plus WordPress, Shopify, Google Forms, Google Docs, Wufoo, Airtable, Trello and Slack. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. |
| Best for | the cheapest sending if you already use AWS | senders already past 50,000 emails a month |
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 SMTP.com. How we grade
Where they differ
- Amazon SES also covers email verification.
At a glance
| Amazon SES | SMTP.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Paid |
| Starts at | Not published | $25 per month for 50,000 emails |
| Free plan | None | None |
| 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. | J2 Global Canada, Inc. |
| Price read from | aws.amazon.com | smtp.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
SMTP.com
- Senders who already need 50,000 emails a month or more
- Businesses that want a dedicated IP at a low monthly volume
- Very high-volume senders wanting their own instance of the platform
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.
SMTP.com
- There is no free plan or free trial; the smallest plan is $25 a month for 50,000 emails.
- Reputation Defender and Insight Engine each cost 20% of the plan price; on Essential that is $5 a month each.
- Essential sends from a shared IP; a dedicated IP starts with the $80 Starter 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.
SMTP.com
- SMTP relay and email API
- Send from an app or another platform through SMTP or the email relay API, with documentation for developers and help with custom API integrations.
- Dedicated IPs
- Every plan from the $80 Starter plan up sends from a dedicated IP address; Essential uses a shared one.
- Reputation Defender add-on
- Checks addresses at the moment of sending and suppresses invalid ones, to cut hard and soft bounces and protect your domain and IP reputation.
- Insight Engine add-on
- A daily report with extra data about the people on your lists, meant for building customer profiles and new segments.
- Migration help
- Managed onboarding and help moving over from providers such as SendGrid and Mailgun, with in-house support on every plan.
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.
SMTP.com
Essential$25
per month for 50,000 emails
Shared IP, email relay API, support and detailed reporting. Overage is $0.000625 per email ($0.63 per 1,000).
Starter$80
per month for 100,000 emails
Adds a dedicated IP address, with the same API, support and reporting.
Growth$300
per month for 500,000 emails
Dedicated IP, email relay API, support and detailed reporting.
Business$500
per month for 1,000,000 emails
Dedicated IP, email relay API, support and detailed reporting.
High Volume SendersCustom
At least 250 million emails a month: a dedicated instance of the platform, its own IP and mail server, and a dedicated account manager.
