Comparison · Prices checked November 6, 2026
Amazon SES vs Postmark. Lowest cost, or the transactional specialist.
Amazon SES vs Postmark: SES is the cheaper sender, and Postmark is built around transactional email. At 125,000 emails a month, SES costs $12.50 at the à la carte rate and Postmark Basic costs $115. Postmark keeps transactional and broadcast email on separate infrastructure and stores 45 days of message history.
Verdict: Amazon SES
Pick Amazon SES if price per email matters most, or if you send a lot of marketing email.
Verdict: Postmark
Pick Postmark if your product depends on password resets and receipts that arrive fast, and you want message history and templates without building them.
Amazon SES vs Postmark pricing
Monthly cost in USD, from the official pricing pages. Prices checked .
| Emails per month | Amazon SES (à la carte) | Amazon SES (Essentials plan) | Postmark Basic | Postmark Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $1.00 | $1.60 | $15.00 | $16.50 |
| 50,000 | $5.00 | $8.00 | $55.00 | $60.50 |
| 125,000 | $12.50 | $20.00 | $115.00 | $126.50 |
| 300,000 | $30.00 | $48.00 | $245.00 | $269.50 |
| 700,000 | $70.00 | $112.00 | $455.00 | $500.50 |
- Amazon SES à la carte: $0.10 per 1,000 emails, plus $0.12 per GB of attachments. No monthly fee.
- Amazon SES Essentials plan: $0.16 per 1,000 emails, with Virtual Deliverability Manager included. New SES accounts start on this plan since July 21, 2026, and can switch to à la carte at any time.
- Postmark prices are monthly USD prices. Postmark counts the emails you send and receive.
- Postmark Free includes 100 emails a month. The Platform plan costs more and adds unlimited domains, servers and users.
- Dedicated IPs start at $50 a month per IP, on Pro or higher, for senders of 300,000 or more emails a month. DMARC monitoring starts at $14 a month per domain.
- SES prices cover sending only. BYOMailer adds the marketing layer from $29 a month, flat, and your first 25,000 emails are free.
Sources: Amazon SES pricing, Postmark pricing. Checked November 6, 2026.
Features compared
| Area | Amazon SES | Postmark |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing basis | Per email sent | Monthly plan by email volume, from $15 |
| Transactional and bulk separation | Configuration sets and dedicated IP pools that you set up | Message Streams: separate transactional and broadcast infrastructure |
| Templates | Stored templates through the API | Responsive templates, a template editor and an import tool |
| Message history | You store events yourself, or use the VDM dashboards | 45 days by default. Up to 365 days as an add-on on Pro and up |
| Inbound email | Inbound receiving, $0.10 per 1,000 emails | Inbound processing to a webhook on Pro and Platform |
| Dedicated IP | $24.95 per IP per month, on any account | From $50 a month per IP, 300,000+ emails, Pro and up |
| Users | AWS IAM users | 4 on Basic, 6 on Pro, unlimited on Platform |
| Newsletter tool | No | No. A Bulk API and broadcast streams for developers |
| Free start | Sandbox: 200 emails per 24 hours, to verified addresses only | Free plan: 100 emails a month |
Deliverability and sender reputation
Amazon SES
On SES, the reputation is yours. You send from your own domain with DKIM, SPF and DMARC, on shared AWS IPs or on dedicated IPs that you rent. AWS watches two rates. At a 5% bounce rate or a 0.1% complaint rate, AWS puts the account under review. At 10% bounces or 0.5% complaints, AWS can pause your sending. You must process bounces and complaints yourself, or use a tool that does it for you.
Postmark
Postmark sends from vetted shared IPs and keeps transactional and broadcast mail on separate streams, so a newsletter cannot slow down a password reset. It publishes its delivery statistics on its status page. Dedicated IPs are an add-on for senders of 300,000 or more emails a month.
Setup effort
Amazon SES
- Verify your domain and publish the DKIM records
- Create an IAM user and access keys
- Request production access. The sandbox allows 200 emails per 24 hours, 1 per second, to verified addresses only
- Route bounce and complaint events to SNS and process them
- Build or connect the app that sends your email
Plan for an afternoon of AWS work, plus the wait for the AWS review. Read the SES setup guide.
Postmark
- Sign up and add a sender signature or domain
- Publish the DKIM and Return-Path DNS records
- Send through the API or SMTP from your app
A developer can send the first email in under an hour.
When to pick each
Pick Amazon SES when...
- You send a lot of email and the price per email matters
- Much of your volume is marketing email, not receipts and resets
- Your app already runs on AWS and uses IAM
- You want campaigns on the same sender, with BYOMailer on top
Pick Postmark when...
- Fast password resets and receipts matter more than the price
- You want 45 days of message history without building storage
- You want ready templates for welcome, reset and receipt emails
- You want transactional and broadcast mail separated for you
Get SES prices with the marketing features
Many teams keep receipts on a transactional sender and put newsletters on the cheapest one. With BYOMailer, the cheapest one is your own SES account. BYOMailer adds newsletters, templates, contacts with tags and lists, sequences, automations and A/B tests on top of SES. You pay AWS for sending and BYOMailer a flat plan fee.
- Newsletters with templates and reusable snippets
- Sequences and automations
- A/B tests on subject and content
- Contacts with tags, lists and custom fields
- Open, click and deliverability tracking
- SES bounce and complaint events handled for you
Frequently asked questions
Is Amazon SES cheaper than Postmark?
Yes. 125,000 emails a month cost $12.50 on SES à la carte and $20 on the SES Essentials plan. Postmark Basic costs $115 and Pro costs $126.50 for the same volume.
Is Postmark faster than Amazon SES?
Postmark focuses on transactional email and publishes its delivery statistics on its status page. If time to inbox for resets and receipts is critical, send the same test mail through both and measure it.
Can I send marketing emails with Postmark?
Yes, through broadcast message streams that are separate from transactional mail. Postmark plans list no newsletter editor or contact manager. SES has none either, so BYOMailer adds them to your SES account.
Can I use Postmark and Amazon SES together?
Yes. A common setup keeps receipts and resets on Postmark and sends newsletters and sequences through SES with BYOMailer. Each sender gets its own domain records.
How do I move from Postmark to Amazon SES?
Verify your domain in SES, request production access, and change your API calls or SMTP settings. Set up bounce and complaint handling before you send at volume. We help you move on every plan.
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