Amazon SES vs Bird Email
We give Amazon SES a 2.8 GPA and Bird 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
Bird Email
SparkPost's successor: Bird's email API, paid from a prepaid balance
How we grade them
| 2.8GPAAmazon SESGood | 2.6GPABird 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, worked out from the listed rate: Startup charges $0.40 per 1,000, so that's $20 of balance a month, more than its $15 deposit covers. Unused balance carries forward. That's in the cheaper quarter of this category at that volume. |
| 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: 1,000 emails a month, but only 50 a day and 1 sending domain, and sending simply stops at the limit. Enough to try the API, not to run an app on. |
| 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, SMTP, typed SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server, inbound email and mailboxes, signed webhooks, DKIM and DMARC setup, templates and broadcasts, with SMS and WhatsApp on the same API. It covers the whole job; dedicated IPs start at $250. |
| 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: SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go and PHP plus a CLI, once a domain is set up. No rating on record. Coming from SparkPost means a new API, which Bird says to review with its team. |
| 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, SMTP, SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server, plus Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Replit, Lovable, v0 and Bolt. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. |
| Best for | the cheapest sending if you already use AWS | email, SMS and WhatsApp through one API |
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 Bird Email. How we grade
Where they differ
- Bird Email has a free plan. Amazon SES does not, though it has a free trial.
- Amazon SES also covers email verification.
- Bird Email also covers email campaigns.
At a glance
| Amazon SES | Bird Email | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free plan |
| Starts at | Not published | $15 per month, deposited to your Bird balance |
| Free plan | None | 1,000 emails a month, limited to 50 a day, 1 sending domain, 5 mailboxes and 3 webhook endpoints. Sending stops at the limit. |
| 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. | Bird B.V. |
| Price read from | aws.amazon.com | bird.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
Bird Email
- Existing SparkPost customers planning their next integration
- Teams that also send SMS or WhatsApp through one provider
- Developers giving AI agents their own email mailboxes
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.
Bird Email
- Bird Email has its own API: Bird says SparkPost integrations should be reviewed with an account team before moving traffic.
- Paid plans are deposits, not allowances: every email is charged at the plan's rate, and other Bird products draw on the same balance.
- Dedicated IPs and IP pools start with the $250 Growth plan.
- The free plan is limited to 50 emails a day and 1 sending domain.
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.
Bird Email
- Email API, SMTP, SDKs and MCP
- Send through the API or SMTP relay, with typed SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go and PHP, a CLI and a hosted MCP server for AI assistants.
- Mailboxes for agents
- Mailboxes that send, receive and store email for your app or AI agents: 5 on Free, 10 on Startup, 25 on Growth and 100 on Scale.
- Deliverability controls
- DKIM signing, SPF alignment, DMARC setup, suppression lists and managed dedicated IPs warmed over about 30 days, from the Growth plan.
- Analytics and signed webhooks
- Delivery, bounce, complaint, open and click data by domain, inbox provider and IP, plus signed, replay-protected webhooks for every event.
- Templates and campaigns
- Send raw HTML or React Email templates, and run broadcasts to opted-in audiences from the same platform.
- One API for other channels
- The same send call and webhook format cover Bird's SMS, WhatsApp and voice products, so a code can fall back from email to text.
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.
Bird Email
Free$0
1,000 emails a month and 50 a day, 1 sending domain, 5 mailboxes, inbound email and templates.
Startup$15
per month, deposited to your balance; email at $0.40 per 1,000
About 37,500 transactional emails if the whole deposit goes on email. 10 sending domains, 10 mailboxes, no daily limit; unused balance carries forward.
Growth$250
per month, deposited to your balance; email at $0.45 per 1,000
About 555,555 emails from the deposit. 500 sending domains, up to 5 dedicated IPs and IP pools, 25 mailboxes, 10 webhook endpoints.
Scale$1,000
per month and up, deposited to your balance; from $0.35 per 1,000
Deposits of $1,000 to $10,000 a month with rates falling to $0.20 per 1,000. 1,000 domains, up to 10 dedicated IPs, 100 mailboxes.
