---
title: "Amazon SES alternative"
description: "How Unitpost compares to Amazon SES — pricing, free tier, API design, and where Amazon SES is still the better choice."
url: https://www.unitpost.com/alternatives/amazon-ses
section: Alternatives
updated: 2026-11-02
---
# Amazon SES alternative

## Unitpost vs Amazon SES

> AWS's email sending and receiving service, used through the SES API, SMTP or an AWS SDK, with events published to other AWS services.

**Amazon SES free tier:** No SES free tier; new AWS accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits

**Amazon SES pricing shape:** Per 1,000 emails: à la carte from $0.10, or a plan with a monthly fee per account and region (new accounts start on Essentials at $0.16 per 1,000).

## What Amazon SES does well

- The lowest unit price at high volume
- Proven at very large scale since 2011
- Managed and standard dedicated IPs, and reputation isolation by tenant
- Receipt rules to S3, Lambda or SNS, and Mail Manager with archiving

## Choose Amazon SES if

- You already run on AWS, with IAM and its event services
- You send very high volume and the price per email matters most
- You need multi-region sending or compliance archiving

## Choose Unitpost if

- You want a free plan and a signup that doesn't start in a sandbox
- You want webhooks to your URL, not events through SNS or EventBridge
- You want idempotency keys, campaigns, templates and a dashboard out of the box
- You want a hosted MCP server for agents, with OAuth

## Feature comparison

| Capability | Unitpost | Amazon SES |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free plan | 5,000 emails/month, 200/day, no credit card | No SES free tier; up to $200 in AWS credits for new accounts |
| Getting started | Send after verifying your domain | Each region starts in a sandbox: verified recipients only, 200 messages a day, until production access is granted |
| Price at high volume | Falls with volume, to $0.25 per 1,000 at our top plan | From $0.10 per 1,000 à la carte |
| Delivery events | Signed webhooks to your URL (svix-compatible HMAC-SHA256 with a 24-hour dual-signing rotation grace) | Configuration sets publish to SNS, EventBridge, Firehose or CloudWatch; no direct HTTP webhook |
| Idempotency keys on send | Idempotency-Key on sends, 24-hour dedupe window | No idempotency parameter on SendEmail |
| Marketing email | Campaigns, segments and topics | Contact lists and topics for subscriptions; no campaign builder |
| Dedicated IPs | Not launched yet | Standard at $24.95 a month per IP, or managed IPs |
| MCP server for agents | Hosted, OAuth, every send through the sending gate | No official SES server; a local sample and the general AWS MCP server with IAM credentials |

## How do I switch from Amazon SES?

There is no one-key importer for Amazon SES: export your contacts and suppressions, import them, verify your sending domain, and move one kind of mail at a time.

Replace the SES event destinations with webhook subscriptions, and copy your account-level suppression list across before the first send.

## FAQ

### Is Unitpost an Amazon SES alternative?

Yes, for teams that want sending without building the rest: a free plan, webhooks to your URL, idempotency keys, campaigns and a dashboard. At very high volume SES costs less per email, and it fits teams already deep in AWS.

### Why is SES cheaper per email?

SES sells sending and leaves the rest to you: event routing, suppression handling, templates and the dashboard are AWS services you assemble. The price per email is lower; the work around it is yours.

## Related

- [MailerSend alternative](https://www.unitpost.com/alternatives/mailersend): How Unitpost compares to MailerSend — pricing, free tier, API design, and where MailerSend is still the better choice.
- [AgentMail alternative](https://www.unitpost.com/alternatives/agentmail): How Unitpost compares to AgentMail — pricing, free tier, API design, and where AgentMail is still the better choice.
- [Twilio SMS alternative](https://www.unitpost.com/alternatives/twilio): How Unitpost compares to Twilio for SMS — per-country pricing, sender registration, compliance, and where Twilio is still the better choice.