What is the experience of email marketers using Amazon SES for bulk sending?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 16 Jul 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
6 min read
Email marketers often evaluate various platforms for bulk sending, and Amazon SES (Simple Email Service) frequently comes up in discussions. My experience, and that of many I've spoken with, suggests a nuanced picture when it comes to leveraging SES for high-volume marketing campaigns. While it offers undeniable benefits, it also presents specific challenges that marketers need to understand.
Many initially consider SES due to its reputation for scalability and cost-effectiveness. It's a cloud-based email service designed to handle massive sending volumes, making it attractive for businesses with large email lists. However, the raw power of SES needs to be paired with a clear strategy for marketing-specific needs.
The key takeaway for marketers is that while Amazon SES provides a robust and affordable infrastructure for sending, it's not a ready-to-use email marketing platform in itself. It's more of a building block, requiring additional tools and expertise for campaign management, list segmentation, and detailed reporting.
The value proposition of Amazon SES
One of the most appealing aspects of Amazon SES is its pricing model, particularly for high-volume senders. It's often significantly cheaper than traditional email service providers (ESPs) if you're sending millions of emails. This cost efficiency is a major driver for businesses looking to reduce their email marketing overhead.
I've seen clients successfully send anywhere from 30,000 emails a day to even 100 million emails on a Saturday using SES, demonstrating its robust scalability. This flexibility allows businesses to adapt their sending volume to peak periods without worrying about infrastructure limitations.
However, this affordability comes with the expectation that you, or your technical team, will handle the integration and management. Unlike a full-service ESP, SES doesn't offer the same out-of-the-box marketing features, which means marketers need to either build custom solutions or integrate with third-party tools for a complete marketing workflow.
Cost effectiveness
High volume savings: SES offers a significantly lower cost per email for bulk sending compared to many traditional marketing ESPs.
Pay-as-you-go: You only pay for what you send, which can be highly efficient for variable sending volumes.
Scalability and flexibility
Elastic sending: Can handle anything from a few emails to millions per day, adapting to your business needs.
Global infrastructure: Leverages Amazon's vast cloud infrastructure for reliable delivery worldwide.
Technical setup and configuration
For marketers, setting up Amazon SES involves more technical steps than a typical ESP. You need to configure sender identities, verify domains, and set up proper email authentication records like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These are critical for deliverability, especially for bulk sending.
A key decision point is whether to use shared or dedicated IPs. While shared IPs are common for smaller volumes, dedicated IPs provide more control over your sender reputation, which is crucial for high-volume marketing. If you opt for dedicated IPs, ensuring reverse DNS (rDNS) is set up is important for establishing trust with mailbox providers.
Many marketers find the initial setup daunting because it deviates from the user-friendly interfaces of dedicated marketing platforms. However, once configured correctly, the underlying infrastructure is robust and reliable, providing a solid foundation for your email program.
Example SPF record for Amazon SESDNS
v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all
Deliverability and reputation management
Deliverability is a major concern for any bulk sender. With Amazon SES, your sender reputation largely depends on your sending practices, not solely on AWS itself. This means actively managing your lists, promptly handling bounces, and minimizing complaints are paramount. Amazon has strict policies regarding complaint rates, and failing to adhere can lead to sending pauses or account restrictions.
Email marketers need to be diligent about list hygiene and engagement. Sending to unengaged or old lists is a recipe for high complaint rates and getting blocklisted (or blacklisted). I always emphasize the importance of warming up new IPs or sender domains gradually to build a positive reputation.
While SES doesn't have a built-in bulk email verification feature, it's crucial to use a third-party email verification service to clean your lists before sending. This proactively reduces bounces and spam trap hits, safeguarding your sender score. Regularly monitoring your blocklist status is also a must.
Shared IP addresses
You share IP reputation with other senders using SES, which can be affected by their practices.
Less control: Your deliverability can be impacted by the sending habits of others on the same shared IP.
No warm-up needed: Ideal for small, sporadic sends where building a dedicated reputation isn't feasible.
Dedicated IP addresses
You control your own IP reputation, directly influencing your inbox placement.
Full control: Your deliverability depends entirely on your sending quality and practices.
Warm-up required: You must gradually increase sending volume to establish a positive reputation.
The marketer's workflow and external tools
The core challenge for email marketers using Amazon SES for bulk sending lies in the lack of an integrated marketing interface. SES provides the sending engine, but it doesn't offer features like drag-and-drop email builders, advanced segmentation, A/B testing, or detailed campaign analytics that marketers typically rely on.
This means you'll likely need to integrate SES with a third-party application or build a custom solution on top of it. Many platforms exist that leverage SES as their sending backend, providing the marketing-friendly features while benefiting from SES's infrastructure. This can add complexity and potentially cost, depending on the chosen solution.
Another point to consider is customer support. While Amazon offers support for SES, it's generally more technically focused on infrastructure issues rather than marketing deliverability best practices or campaign-specific advice. This can be a hurdle for marketers without a dedicated technical team. It’s important to understand how mailbox providers categorize bulk senders to anticipate and address potential issues proactively.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always verify your sending domains and set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
Maintain clean email lists and promptly remove bounces and unengaged subscribers.
Gradually warm up dedicated IPs by slowly increasing sending volume over time.
Monitor your reputation metrics (bounces, complaints, blocklists) regularly.
Integrate SES with a marketing platform for campaign management and analytics.
Common pitfalls
Sending to old, uncleaned lists resulting in high bounce and complaint rates.
Neglecting to warm up new dedicated IPs, leading to poor inbox placement.
Expecting SES to be a full-fledged marketing platform out-of-the-box.
Underestimating the technical effort required for initial setup and ongoing management.
Not monitoring blocklists (blacklists) and sender reputation metrics diligently.
Expert tips
Use SES for its infrastructure, and layer a marketing automation platform on top.
Prioritize list hygiene; it's the single most important factor for deliverability.
Set up automated feedback loops with SES to process complaints and bounces instantly.
If using dedicated IPs, ensure reverse DNS (rDNS) is properly configured.
Understand that SES provides sending, but deliverability requires continuous effort from you.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says they found Amazon SES very easy to set up and were happy with it, having switched to it temporarily when experiencing issues with their own hosted MTA.
2024-02-10 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says clients successfully send large volumes through SES, including up to 100 million emails a day on shared IPs, and advises setting up rDNS for dedicated IPs.
2024-03-05 - Email Geeks
Navigating bulk sending with Amazon SES
My take on using Amazon SES for bulk sending is that it's an incredibly powerful and cost-effective tool, but it requires a different mindset and approach compared to traditional ESPs. For marketers, it means a greater emphasis on technical knowledge or a strong partnership with a development team.
If you have the technical resources or are willing to integrate with third-party marketing platforms, SES can be an excellent choice for scaling your email operations and reducing costs. However, without proper setup and continuous attention to deliverability best practices, even the most robust infrastructure like SES can fall short in getting your emails to the inbox.
Ultimately, the experience of using Amazon SES for bulk sending is largely what you make of it. With careful planning, diligent reputation management, and the right complementary tools, it can be a highly successful solution for your email marketing needs.
