---
title: Amazon SES
description: Amazon Simple Email Service — AWS outbound and inbound email infrastructure with a-la-carte $0.10/1k send and Essentials/Pro/Enterprise plans (Jul 2026).
url: https://www.factualminds.com/glossary/amazon-ses/
publishDate: 2026-07-22
updateDate: 2026-07-22
---

# Amazon SES

> Amazon Simple Email Service — AWS outbound and inbound email infrastructure with a-la-carte $0.10/1k send and Essentials/Pro/Enterprise plans (Jul 2026).

## Definition

**Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)** is AWS’s email sending and receiving service. Applications call the SES API (or SMTP interface) to deliver transactional and bulk mail. Deliverability controls include domain authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), configuration sets, Virtual Deliverability Manager, dedicated/managed IP pools, and (for platforms) tenant management. As of **July 21, 2026**, SES offers hierarchical **Essentials / Pro / Enterprise** pricing plans alongside a-la-carte outbound at **$0.10 per 1,000** emails.

## When to use it

- High-volume transactional or promotional email when you already run on AWS
- Cost-sensitive sending where ESP per-message fees dominate the bill
- Event-driven mail from Lambda, ECS, or Step Functions with SNS/EventBridge feedback
- Multi-brand or ISV platforms that need configuration sets and optionally tenants

## When not to use it

- Teams that need a marketer drag-and-drop journey builder with no engineering ownership — pair SES with Customer.io/Loops or stay on a full ESP
- Senders unwilling to operate bounce/complaint suppression and warm-up
- Regions or use cases blocked by SES sandbox / Trust & Safety approval

## Tips

- Isolate **transactional** vs **marketing** with separate configuration sets (and IP pools when volume warrants)
- Model **Pro** when you need managed DIPs + Global VDM; stay a-la-carte for send-only
- Implement **RFC 8058** one-click unsubscribe on marketing streams yourself — SES does not add it automatically
- Monitor SES complaint (~0.1%) separately from Gmail Postmaster spam rate (under 0.10%)

## Gotchas

### Serious

- Assuming SES is still send-only metering with free dedicated IPs after July 2026 — hierarchical plans exist, and DIPs remain billable unless included on Pro/Enterprise
- Sharing promo and transactional IPs so a list problem pauses password resets

### Regular

- Staying in the sandbox while building production volume assumptions
- Forgetting Microsoft’s May 2025 Outlook consumer bulk-sender authentication bar

## Related FactualMinds content

- [SES pricing plans (Jul 2026)](/blog/amazon-ses-pricing-plans-essentials-pro-enterprise-2026/)
- [Amazon SES consulting](/services/aws-ses/)
- [SES migration](/services/aws-ses-migration/)
- [DMARC](/glossary/dmarc/) · [SPF](/glossary/spf/) · [DKIM](/glossary/dkim/) · [BIMI](/glossary/bimi/)

## Related AWS Services

- aws-ses
- aws-ses-migration

## Related Posts

- amazon-ses-pricing-plans-essentials-pro-enterprise-2026
- aws-ses-ecommerce-email-marketing
- how-to-migrate-from-sendgrid-to-amazon-ses
- amazon-ses-cold-email-b2b-compliance-deliverability-2026
- aws-ses-marketing-automation-eventbridge-step-functions-2026

---

*Source: https://www.factualminds.com/glossary/amazon-ses/*