SES

Amazon SES

Cheap, powerful AWS email — at the cost of operational plumbing.

Visit Amazon SES Start free with MailKite

How MailKite fits

Comparing SES? MailKite skips the S3-SNS-Lambda pipeline, the sandbox, and parses inbound to JSON for you.

See the full MailKite vs Amazon SES comparison

Send email from Amazon SES with MailKite

A minimal, copy-paste starter. Swap in your own domain and API key.

send.ts

import { MailKiteClient } from "@mailkite/client";

// One API, your own DKIM-signed domain — no mail server to run
const mailkite = new MailKiteClient({ token: process.env.MK_API_KEY! });

await mailkite.send({
  from: "you@yourdomain.com",        // any address on a verified domain
  to: "user@example.com",
  subject: "Hello from Amazon SES",
  html: "<p>Sent in milliseconds via MailKite.</p>",
});

Read the sending quickstart

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is AWS's email platform, prized for some of the lowest per-message pricing anywhere and solid deliverability on AWS IPs. Receiving email requires wiring receipt rules to S3, SNS, and Lambda and parsing raw MIME yourself, and new accounts start sandboxed until AWS grants production access.

Key features

Very low per-email send pricing at scale
Inbound via receipt rules → S3 → SNS/Lambda
Sandboxed until production access is approved
IAM-driven, region-scoped infrastructure

Pricing model

Pay-as-you-go per message

Questions about Amazon SES

How does Amazon SES receive email?

SES inbound uses receipt rules that write raw MIME to S3 and notify via SNS/Lambda. You fetch and parse the MIME yourself.

SES vs MailKite?

MailKite POSTs parsed JSON straight to your webhook — no receipt rules, S3, SNS, Lambda, or sandbox. SES is cheaper per message at extreme volume. See /alternatives/amazon-ses.

Why is my SES account sandboxed?

New SES accounts are restricted to verified recipients until AWS reviews and grants production access.