Choose SES if your agents already run on AWS and someone on the team can build storage, threading and safety checks. It replaces paying a vendor for an inbox layer. Expect a wait first: new accounts are capped at 200 messages a day to verified addresses until AWS grants production access.
What changed
- · Pricing change New accounts default to the Essentials plan source
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) is the AWS email service that sends mail through an API, SMTP or SDK and receives it through receipt rules that store messages in S3, publish them to SNS or invoke Lambda. Its differentiator is metering both directions per 1,000 messages with no plan fee on a la carte pricing.
About Amazon SES
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is the email service that AWS runs for sending and receiving mail. It is metered rather than sold in plans you outgrow: you pay per message sent, per message received and per gigabyte of attachments, with no contract and no upfront commitment. Every new account starts in a sandbox per AWS Region and must request production access before it can write to anyone outside its verified addresses.
The case for it is cost and control. At a la carte rates, sending and receiving a few thousand messages a month costs pocket change, and the same account can add dedicated IPs, a Virtual Deliverability Manager for inbox-placement insight, address validation, tenant isolation and Mail Manager, which runs inbound mail through traffic policies, security add-ons from vendors such as Trend Micro and Spamhaus, and an archive. In 2026 AWS also introduced bundled Essentials, Pro and Enterprise plans, and from 21 July 2026 accounts with no recent SES activity start on Essentials unless they switch back to a la carte.
The cost is assembly. Receiving works through receipt rules that drop each message into an S3 bucket, publish it to SNS or invoke a Lambda function, and only in Regions that support receiving. Threads, a readable inbox, reply tracking and prompt-injection screening are yours to build. Teams that would rather buy that layer use AgentMail or the Inboxes in Resend, and builders already on Workers can receive mail for free through Cloudflare Email Service.
AWS publishes a sample MCP server for the SES v2 API under its aws-samples organisation, and the README states plainly that it is not intended for production. For agents running inside AWS through Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents or similar stacks, SES is the native outbound channel; for everyone else it is the cheapest pipe with the most plumbing attached.
Every email API Hokai reviews is collected in the email services listing; Postmark and SendGrid are the closest managed alternatives to SES. If your agents run on a framework rather than raw AWS code, our agent builder guide shows which ones can call an email API, and the approval gates piece covers when an agent should wait for a human before it sends.
Plans and pricing
Read on aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing on 6 Nov 2026. A la carte: outbound $0.10 per 1,000 plus $0.12 per GB of attachments; inbound $0.10 per 1,000 plus $0.09 per 1,000 incoming 256 KB chunks; dedicated IP $24.95/mo each, or managed dedicated IPs at $15/mo per account plus a per-email fee; Mail Manager processing $0.15 per 1,000, ingress endpoints $50/mo, archiving $2 per GB ingested plus $0.19 per GB-month. Plans: Essentials $0.16 per 1,000 for the first 10M; Pro $0.22 per 1,000 plus $105/mo per account per Region; Enterprise $0.23 per 1,000 plus $500/mo.
New AWS customers get up to $200 in Free Tier credits usable within 12 months.
Server plans
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Pro Cloud · Adds managed dedicated IPs and reputation protection, plus per-message fee · AWS Regions | $105/mo |
| Enterprise Cloud · Global resilience and reputation isolation, plus per-message fee · AWS Regions | $500/mo |
| A la carte Cloud · Pay per message and per feature, no monthly fee · AWS Regions | — |
| Essentials Cloud · Bundled monitoring and deliverability insight, metered per message · AWS Regions | — |
Key Features
- Receipt rules: Inbound mail can be saved to an S3 bucket, published to an SNS topic or passed to a Lambda function, per recipient address.
- Mail Manager: Routes inbound and outbound mail through traffic policies and rule sets, with optional scanning add-ons and long-term archiving with search.
- Virtual Deliverability Manager: Reports delivery rates, engagement and reputation issues, and the global tier adds inbox placement tests and blocklist monitoring.
- Managed dedicated IPs: SES warms up and scales dedicated addresses automatically, or you can run standard dedicated IPs and bring your own range.
- Tenants: Separate sending identities and reputation per customer, so one tenant's complaints do not sink another tenant's delivery.
Strengths
- The lowest outbound price per message among the email APIs Hokai compared, with inbound metered at the same rate.
- Inbound mail lands directly in S3, SNS or Lambda, which suits agents already running on AWS.
- Everything is metered, so a quiet agent costs cents a month rather than a plan fee.
Weaknesses
- New accounts are sandboxed per Region: 200 messages per 24 hours, one per second, and only to verified addresses until AWS approves production access.
- No inbox, threads or reply tracking: storage, threading and safety checks are your code.
- The 2026 plan change means a new account can default to the pricier Essentials rate unless you switch it to a la carte.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do you pay for Amazon SES?
On a la carte pricing you pay $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent and $0.10 per 1,000 received, plus attachment data out and a small charge for each 256 KB chunk of mail received, according to the AWS pricing page on 6 November 2026. The bundled plans charge $0.16, $0.22 or $0.23 per 1,000 for the first 10 million, and Pro and Enterprise add $105 or $500 a month per account per Region. Accounts with no SES activity since June 2025 start on Essentials from July 2026, so check which pricing yours is on.
How does the Amazon SES sandbox limit new accounts?
Every new account is placed in the sandbox separately in each AWS Region. While there, it can only send to verified addresses and domains, at most 200 messages in 24 hours and one per second. You leave it by filing a production access request describing how you collect addresses and handle bounces.
What should you use instead of Amazon SES?
Resend and Postmark give you a dashboard, templates and support for a monthly fee, with Resend now storing agent inboxes too. AgentMail sells inboxes as the product, which saves building storage and threading. SendGrid suits teams that also want marketing campaigns and already buy from Twilio.
Is Amazon SES better than SendGrid?
On price, yes: metered SES costs a fraction of SendGrid's $19.95 Essentials entry point at small volumes. SendGrid is better when you want marketing tools, subusers and a finished interface, or when Twilio already handles your messaging. For an agent, both leave threading to you.
How do you set up Amazon SES to receive email?
Verify your domain in a Region that supports receiving, add the MX record AWS lists for that Region's receiving endpoint, then create a receipt rule set with rules that save messages to S3, notify SNS or run a Lambda function. Your agent then reads new messages from that bucket or function. Mail Manager offers a more configurable route with ingress endpoints, at an extra monthly cost.
Top Alternatives
- SendGrid: Pick Amazon SES for the lowest metered cost; pick SendGrid for a finished dashboard and marketing tools.
- Cloudflare Email Service: Pick Amazon SES inside AWS; pick Cloudflare if your agents run on Workers and you want unlimited free inbound.
- AgentMail: Pick Amazon SES to own every layer; pick AgentMail to buy stored inboxes instead of building them.
- Resend: Pick Amazon SES for cost; pick Resend for a developer dashboard, templates and inboxes without AWS setup.
Hokai guides that mention Amazon SES
- Best Email APIs for AI Agents in 2026: Inbox or Webhook?: Six email APIs for AI agents compared: which give an agent a real inbox, what 10,000 emails each way cost, free-plan catches, retention and safety controls.