Amazon SES alternatives
Providers that compete with Amazon SES on at least one of: Transactional
Cheapest at scale, most setup work.
Best AWS SES alternatives: a hand-picked, ranked list with rationale per position.
Switching as growth and lifecycle teams
Growth work lives or dies on targeting and measurement. What matters is whether behavioral triggers can be built without engineering time, whether the event stream supports attribution past the open, and whether deliverability holds when broadcast volume shares a reputation with product email.
Amazon SES does not cover scheduling, operating track record, best published rate per 1,000, and multi-tenant support. MailerSend, Mailgun, and Loops close that gap. The order below weighs this audience's priorities first, so it differs from a general popularity ranking.
ranked for growth and lifecycle teams
- 01
MailerSend
TransactionalModern transactional API with a clean UI.
Adds scheduling and multi-tenant support over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
500/mo permanent · $7/mo for 5,000 emails - 02
Mailgun
TransactionalDeveloper-leaning email infra, owned by Sinch.
Adds scheduling and multi-tenant support over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
100/day permanent free plan · $15/mo for 10,000 emails (Basic) - 03
Loops
Marketing TransactionalModern lifecycle and broadcast email for SaaS.
Adds scheduling over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends/mo on the Free plan · $49/mo for 5,000 contacts - 04
Resend
TransactionalEmail API tightly coupled to React Email.
Adds scheduling over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
3,000/mo permanent, capped at 100/day, one domain · $20/mo for 50,000 emails - 05
Brevo
Transactional MarketingAll-in-one with a generous daily free tier.
Adds scheduling over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
300/day permanent · $9/mo for 5,000 emails - 06
Postmark
TransactionalTransactional-only, fast and well-delivered.
Adds multi-tenant support over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
100/mo developer plan · $15/mo for 10,000 emails - 07
Mailtrap
Transactional TestingOriginally a staging inbox, now a sender too.
Adds multi-tenant support over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
4,000/mo (sending), free testing tier · $15/mo for 10,000 sending - 08
Cloudflare Email Service
Inbound TransactionalFree routing, programmable inbound via Workers, sending in beta.
Adds multi-tenant support over Amazon SES, with nothing given up on these priorities.
Email Routing free; Email Workers on Workers Free plan · Sending: $0.35 per 1,000 messages (Workers Paid required, $5/mo)
Amazon SES and its alternatives, side by side
Columns are the priorities growth and lifecycle teams weigh, in order. Amazon SES is the first row so the trade in each direction is readable at a glance.
| Provider | Scheduling | Event stream | Operating since | Suppressions API | Best published rate per 1,000 | Multi-tenant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon SES | No | Yes | 2011 | Yes | $0.10 | No |
| MailerSend | Yes | Yes | 2020 | Yes | Tiers not published in comparable form | Yes |
| Mailgun | Yes | Yes | 2010 | Yes | $0.70 | Yes |
| Loops | Yes | Yes | 2022 | Yes | Tiers not published in comparable form | No |
| Resend | Yes | Yes | 2023 | Yes | $0.35 | No |
| Brevo | Yes | Yes | 2012 | Yes | Tiers not published in comparable form | No |
| Postmark | No | Yes | 2010 | Yes | $1.50 | Yes |
| Mailtrap | No | Yes | 2014 | Yes | Tiers not published in comparable form | Yes |
| Cloudflare Email Service | No | Yes | Not published | Yes | Tiers not published in comparable form | Yes |
MailerSend, Mailgun, and Loops add capability without giving anything up on these priorities. The rest trade one thing for another.
before you switch
Amazon SES pricing, tier by tier
All 4 paid tiers with effective cost per 1,000 emails. Worth checking whether the cost curve, rather than the feature set, is what is prompting the switch.