AWS Simple Email Service (SES) offers remarkably competitive pricing – you can send 100,000 emails for just $69.7, while MailChimp charges $350 for the same volume. This dramatic price difference makes AWS SES an appealing choice for businesses across all sizes.

Let’s explore the complete AWS email service pricing structure and uncover some lesser-known costs like the $1,250 monthly Deliverability Dashboard. Our practical money-saving strategies will help both startups using the free tier and enterprises managing dedicated IP addresses at $24.95 monthly. We’ll guide you through AWS SES pricing to help you get the best value for your email communications.

How much does AWS work email cost?

AWS offers two main email services with different pricing structures.

Amazon WorkMail costs exactly $4.00 per user per month and has 50GB of mailbox storage per user. The pricing works on a simple flat-rate model based on user count. You can try WorkMail free for 30 days with up to 25 users before making a commitment.

Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) uses a different approach based on usage. The basic cost to send emails is $0.10 per 1,000 emails ($1.00 per 10,000). The actual AWS SES pricing has many more components that can push the total cost up by about 15%:

• Data transfer: $0.12 per GB for email attachments
• S3 storage: $0.02 per GB for stored images or attachments
• S3 data transfer: $0.09 per GB for retrieving stored content
• PUT requests: $0.01 per 1,000 requests when storing images
• GET requests: Free, but worth tracking for a full picture
• SNS notifications: $0.50 per million for tracking email metrics
• SNS data transfer: $0.09 per GB for notification data

AWS reduced the SES free tier from 62,000 to 3,000 emails per month in August 2023. SES still proves affordable compared to competitors. MailChimp charges around $350 for 100,000 emails, while AWS SES costs just $69.70 for the same amount.

The deal gets better for high-volume users. The rates can drop to $0.02 per 1,000 emails once monthly volumes hit 50-100 million emails.

Amazon SES stays cheaper than other email providers by a lot while delivering similar reliability, even after adding all extra charges.

Is Amazon AWS a free email service provider?

AWS SES (Simple Email Service) comes with a generous free tier that changed quite a bit in 2023. The original AWS model let users send 62,000 emails monthly from EC2 instances and receive 1,000 inbound emails at no cost.

AWS rolled out a new and more flexible free tier structure on August 1st, 2023. The current model gives new customers 3,000 message charges free each month during their first year of using SES. This new free tier works with both outbound and inbound emails from any source, making it available to users of all types.

The free tier comes with a few key restrictions:

• Virtual Deliverability Manager (VDM) limits your free tier sending to 1,000 emails
• VDM counts 1,000 sent emails as 2,000 email costs
• The free tier doesn’t cover outgoing mail data, incoming mail chunks, EC2 data transfer fees, or extras like Dedicated IP Addresses

Standard pricing of $0.10 per 1,000 emails kicks in after you use up your free tier or your first year ends. Users who started with SES before August 1st, 2023 can keep their free tier access until August 2024.

AWS SES works more like a “freemium” service than a completely free one. New users get a budget-friendly way to test features without spending money. The service switches to pay-as-you-go pricing once you hit your limits or finish the promotional period.

Organizations wondering if AWS counts as a “free email service” need to look at their volume needs and timeframe. The service gives you some free usage but you’ll end up paying for ongoing or high-volume email sending.

Breakdown of AWS Email Service Pricing Components

Amazon SES structures its pricing into several components that help you calculate costs based on your usage patterns. These components are vital to budget planning and cost optimization.

Email sending cost: $0.10 per 1000 emails

AWS simple email service pricing follows a straightforward approach. You pay $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you send. This pay-as-you-go model doesn’t require minimum fees or mandatory usage. High-volume senders will find this economical – sending 100,000 emails costs just $10, which makes it nowhere near as expensive as competing services.

Free tier: 3,000 emails/month via EC2

AWS changed its free tier offerings in August 2023. The previous allowance was 62,000 free emails monthly from EC2 instances. New customers now get 3,000 free message charges each month in their first year. This benefit applies whatever platform you use to send from – EC2 or others – which gives you flexibility in deployment.

Attachment charges: $0.12 per GB

AWS charges $0.12 per gigabyte for attachments on top of basic sending costs. To cite an instance, sending 100,000 emails with 100KB attachments equals 10GB of data, adding $1.20 to your bill. This covers everything – headers, message content, and attached files.

Incoming email cost: $0.10 per 1000 emails

SES charges $0.10 for every 1,000 emails you receive. AWS used to offer 1,000 free inbound emails monthly. This cost matters especially when your applications keep taking them.

Chunked data charges: $0.09 per 1000 chunks

Data chunking remains the most complex pricing element. Each “chunk” equals 256KB of incoming data. Messages larger than this size cost $0.09 per 1,000 chunks. A 768KB incoming message uses three chunks for billing. This becomes a big deal as it means that organizations receiving many large messages need to plan accordingly.

These pricing elements are the foundations of Amazon’s pay-as-you-go model. The billing separates sending, receiving, data usage, and extra features. AWS offers a Monthly Calculator specifically for SES to help you estimate detailed costs.

Hidden Costs You Might Miss in AWS SES

AWS SES has several hidden costs beyond its simple pricing structure that can affect your budget quite a bit. You should know about these less obvious elements to avoid surprise charges.

Managed IP pricing tiers: $0.08 to $0.02 per 1000 emails

Managed dedicated IPs require a fixed subscription fee of $15.00 per month per account, plus $0.08 per 1000 emails. The cost goes down as your sending volume grows through a tiered structure – $0.08 per 1,000 emails for 0-10M, $0.04 for 10M-50M, and $0.02 for 50M-100M emails monthly.

Deliverability Dashboard: $1,250/month

The Deliverability Dashboard costs a fixed price of $1,250.00 per month. This package has:

• Reputation monitoring for up to five domains
• 25 predictive email placement tests
• Options to monitor domains beyond the first five at $25.00 per domain monthly
• Extra predictive tests at $10.00 per test

You’ll need to pay for the remaining days even if you cancel before the billing period ends.

BYOIP minimum cost: $6,387.20/month for 256 IPs

The Bring Your Own IP (BYOIP) feature lets you use your existing IP addresses at $24.95 per month for each IP address. The minimum requirement of 256 addresses brings the starting cost to $6,387.20 monthly. This cost is much higher than standard SES pricing.

Multi-region ID surcharge: $0.03 per 1000 emails

Extra charges apply when you send emails across multiple AWS regions due to cross-region data transfer and management needs.

Virtual Deliverability Manager email multiplier

Virtual Deliverability Manager (VDM) adds $0.07 for every 1,000 emails sent on top of standard SES charges. AWS introduced a tiered pricing structure for VDM that offers lower per-message charges as sending volume increases. This update helps reduce costs for high-volume senders without needing configuration changes.

Real-World Pricing Examples Using AWS SES + CampaignHQ

Here’s a look at pricing scenarios that combine AWS SES with CampaignHQ to show you the actual costs businesses pay for email marketing solutions.

100k emails via shared IP + CampaignHQ

Amazon’s shared IP addresses come at no cost. The math is simple for sending 100,000 emails through SES. You get 3,000 free tier emails, which leaves 97,000 billable emails at $0.10 per 1,000 emails. This adds up to $9.70. The CampaignHQ Pro plan costs $0.60 per 1,000 emails ($5 total), bringing your total cost to $69.70.

SES + CampaignHQ integration cost overview

You can start with CampaignHQ’s Connect plan at just $5 monthly for 500 subscribers. This integration lets you send unlimited emails through your SES account with no volume restrictions. The pricing stays competitive as your subscriber list grows – $135 monthly for 100,000 subscribers. This is a big deal as it means that similar services charge between $400-$860.

CampaignHQ blends naturally with AWS SES and takes minutes to connect. You get advanced tracking, automation, and detailed analytics while keeping the cost benefits of Amazon’s reliable email infrastructure.

Cost Comparison:

The numbers tell a compelling story at the time we compare email service costs. AWS SES delivers exceptional value through its pay-as-you-go model at just $0.10 per thousand emails sent. This simple pricing makes budget planning easier than the tiered systems other providers use.

AWS SES vs CampaignHQ

AWS SES emerges as the clear winner on cost when stacked against other email providers. The combination of SES with CampaignHQ runs about $5 for 100,000 emails, while MailChimp asks for $350 for the same amount. You save over 80% here, which makes great business sense for budget-conscious companies.

CampaignHQ integration with AWS SES gives you the best of both worlds. You get AWS SES’s budget-friendly pricing plus advanced features. This combo gives an explanation about delivery, smart settings that adjust by themselves for better inbox placement, and complete tracking capabilities.

Conclusion

We’ve broken down AWS Simple Email Service’s pricing structure and uncovered both obvious and hidden costs. The base rate of $0.10 per 1,000 emails makes AWS SES an affordable option compared to MailChimp, which costs almost five times more for the same volume. High-volume senders get even better deals, with rates dropping to just $0.02 per 1,000 emails.

AWS SES’s free tier now offers 3,000 free emails monthly instead of 62,000, but it’s still a great deal for businesses of all sizes. You should watch out for some extra costs that can add up. These include the Deliverability Dashboard at $1,250 monthly, dedicated IP addresses at $24.95 each, and various data transfer charges.

Most businesses want to balance cost and features. That’s why combining AWS SES with an email marketing platform works best. CampaignHQ’s AWS SES Connect feature adds advanced tracking, automation, and live analytics while keeping SES’s cost benefits. This combination creates a powerful email system that costs much less than competitors.

FAQ

Is ses service free?

AWS SES has a flexible free tier, but it’s not completely free. New customers get 3,000 message charges free each month during their first year with SES. The free tier covers these service areas:

• Outbound emails
• Inbound emails
• Virtual Deliverability Manager outbound email processing

AWS used to give a much bigger allowance of 62,000 free emails monthly from EC2 instances. After the August 2023 update, customers who started using SES before this date will keep their free tier access until August 2024.

Any Hidden Costs You Might Miss in AWS SES

AWS SES has several costs that aren’t immediately obvious beyond the simple sending charges. These hidden costs typically include:

1. Active Marketplace Subscriptions: AWS Marketplace apps might charge subscription fees whatever your usage levels
2. Stopped vs. Terminated Instances: Stopped EC2 instances won’t charge compute fees, but their attached EBS volumes keep generating storage costs until you terminate them completely
3. Persistent Storage Costs: Data volumes often stay active after instance termination and rack up ongoing storage charges for snapshots and volumes
4. Unattached Elastic IP Addresses: These keep charging even if you don’t need them anymore
5. Email Sending Limits: Going over sending quotas can lead to extra charges

AWS offers a Monthly Calculator to project costs, but it doesn’t factor in SES Free Tier discounts right now. Setting up an AWS budget with alerts helps you avoid surprise bills from unexpected SES costs.