Amazon SES bounce and complaint rate limits

In the SES console, choose Reputation metrics in the navigation pane. AWS says this page shows the same information the SES team sees when it checks an account. The top line is the account status:

Under it, the bounce rate and the complaint rate each have their own status:

The page also shows notices that have nothing to do with bounces, for example spam trap hits, a domain blocklist, or a report from an anti-spam organization. Read them.

AWS always emails the address on your AWS account when it puts you under review. That is often not the inbox you send from, so it gets missed. Step 2 fixes that.

SES publishes Reputation.BounceRate and Reputation.ComplaintRate to CloudWatch. From the reputation metrics page, choose View in CloudWatch on either rate, then the alarm bell icon. AWS suggests these alarm levels:

• Bounce rate: Greater/Equal0.05 (5%).
• Complaint rate: Greater/Equal0.001 (0.1%).
• Missing data treatment: Treat missing data as ignore.
• Action: In alarm, notify an SNS topic that emails or texts you.

If you never sent from the region, the SES metrics may not exist yet. Send one test to the mailbox simulator first.

SES requires a feedback method before you send: SNS notifications, email feedback forwarding, or event publishing. Email forwarding is fine for tiny volume. For a newsletter, use SNS so a program can act on each event.

1. In Amazon SNS, create a topic of type Standard. SES does not support FIFO topics. The topic must be in the same region as SES.
2. Edit the topic access policy so SES can publish to it:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": { "Service": "ses.amazonaws.com" },
    "Action": "sns:Publish",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:sns:<region>:<account-id>:<topic-name>",
    "Condition": {
      "StringEquals": {
        "AWS:SourceAccount": "<account-id>",
        "AWS:SourceArn": "arn:aws:ses:<region>:<account-id>:identity/<your-domain>"
      }
    }
  }]
}

3. Subscribe at least one endpoint to the topic, such as an HTTPS endpoint or a queue that your app reads.
4. In SES, open Configuration → Identities, choose your domain, open the Notifications tab and edit Feedback notifications.
5. Select your topic for Bounce and Complaint, and save.
6. Optional: turn off Email Feedback Forwarding so you do not get every event twice.

Each notification is JSON. The field that decides what you do is bounceType. Permanent is a hard bounce:

"notificationType": "Bounce",
"bounce": {
  "bounceType": "Permanent",
  "bounceSubType": "General",
  "bouncedRecipients": [{ "emailAddress": "[email protected]" }]
}

Watch out: if SES cannot publish to the topic (deleted topic, broken permissions), it removes the topic from the identity and turns email forwarding back on. Standard SNS prices apply to these notifications.

• Permanent (hard) bounce: remove the address from your list now and never send to it again.
• Transient (soft) bounce: a full mailbox, a message too large, rejected content. You may be able to send later, but do not keep retrying forever.
• Complaint: remove the address now. AWS says not to send even a "you have been unsubscribed" message.

Some providers hide the recipient address in complaints. Store the SES message ID next to each contact when you send, so you can still find who complained.

Removing bounces after the fact keeps you alive. Not getting them keeps you healthy. From the AWS list of what to do:

• Do not buy, rent or share lists. Send only to people who asked for your mail.
• Use double opt-in: a confirmation email they must click before they get anything else.
• Do not reward signups before the address is confirmed, or people type fake ones.
• Mailing an old list? Send to only a small part of it at a time, so a burst of bounces does not hit your rate all at once.
• Stop sending to people who never open or click.
• Send only the kind of mail people signed up for.
• Make the unsubscribe link obvious.
• Test with real addresses or the SES mailbox simulator, never with made-up ones.