Amazon SES features: what you get on each plan
Amazon SES covers 25 of the 31 features we test, and almost none are locked behind a plan. SES gates by add-on price, by AWS Region, and by the sandbox. The gap most senders do not expect: no plain HTTP webhook. Events go to SNS, EventBridge, CloudWatch, Firehose or Pinpoint, never to a URL you own.
SES is a sending engine, not a marketing suite, and its feature list reads that way. Templates are JSON you write by hand. The contact list is a single list per account. There is no journey builder, no split test, no landing page. Against that, the transactional plumbing is unusually complete: ten published event types, a suppression list that is on by default, inbound receiving, and per-configuration-set tracking.
New accounts start in a sandbox: 200 messages per 24 hours, 1 per second, verified recipients only. Until production access is granted, most of the table below is theoretical.
Feature matrix
| Feature | Included | From plan | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outbound email API | Yes | A la carte | Billed per 1,000, no allowance |
| Email templates | Yes | A la carte | JSON only, 500 KB each |
| Drag-and-drop email builder | No | — | Templates are hand-written JSON |
| Bulk personalised send | Yes | A la carte | 50 destinations per API call |
| Account suppression list | Yes | A la carte | On by default since 2019 |
| Global suppression list | Yes | A la carte | AWS-wide, you cannot edit |
| Configuration sets | Yes | A la carte | 10,000, and not adjustable |
| Event publishing | Yes | A la carte | Ten event types, all covered |
| HTTP webhooks | No | — | SNS or EventBridge, never HTTP |
| Open and click tracking | Yes | A la carte | Toggled per configuration set |
| Inbound email receiving | Yes | A la carte | Receiving-enabled Regions only |
| Contact lists | Partial | A la carte | Exactly one list per account |
| Subscription topics | Yes | A la carte | Twenty per list, hard ceiling |
| Unsubscribe link injection | Yes | A la carte | List-Unsubscribe added for you |
| Segmentation | No | — | Topics only, no query builder |
| Marketing automation | No | — | No journey or workflow builder |
| A/B testing | No | — | Nothing native, build it yourself |
| Landing pages | No | — | Not an SES capability |
| DKIM, SPF and DMARC | Yes | A la carte | Easy DKIM or your own |
| Dedicated IP, standard | Yes | Add-on | $24.95 per IP monthly |
| Dedicated IP, managed | Yes | Pro | One domain, one IP included |
| Deliverability dashboard | Yes | Essentials | Advisor plus per-ISP breakdown |
| Inbox placement and blocklists | Yes | Pro | Add-on below Pro, $1,250 |
| Email address validation | Yes | Pro | 2,500 checks, 5,000 at Enterprise |
| Mail Manager processing | Yes | A la carte | $0.15 per 1,000 processed |
| Mail Manager archiving | Yes | Add-on | $2 per GB ingested |
| Open ingress endpoint | Yes | Enterprise | One included, add-on below |
| Global endpoints | Yes | Enterprise | Multi-Region sending, add-on below |
| Tenants | Yes | Enterprise | One thousand included per Region |
| Third-party filtering add-ons | Partial | Pro | Trend Micro, Spamhaus at Enterprise |
| Production access | Yes | A la carte | 200 a day until granted |
What the plan column means here
On most platforms this column names the tier that unlocks a capability. On SES it rarely does. Every API feature above works with no tier commitment at all, which is what A la carte means here. The named tiers, Essentials, Pro at $105 per Region and Enterprise at $500, bundle deliverability tooling and add-on allowances rather than unlocking functions.
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This review follows our email infrastructure testing methodology. We disclose affiliate relationships in our editorial independence policy.
