Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) has been used by developers for sending transactional email for over a decade, but in recent years many marketers started sending marketing emails via Amazon SES as well. That is because SES can be very cost-effective for sending high volume campaigns, with the right setup.
Amazon SES UI isn’t designed to be user-friendly for non-technical marketers and lacks basic features that you’d get from a typical email marketing platform. Typically, another platform is used to manage email marketing campaigns, reporting, and assets (templates and images), while Amazon SES is connected to be used for sending email only.
We spent more than 10 hours signing up for trials and reading through customer reviews for the top Amazon SES alternatives. All our picks offer excellent features without costing a fortune.
All the tools on our list are hosted, unlike Sendy or Mautic that are self-hosted and we didn’t include in our list. All our picks allow you to add your own SES connection, so you can get started quickly, skipping set up steps like sender verification.
If you already use Amazon SES but want to move away from it, check out our extended article on Amazon SES alternatives, that includes traditional ESPs like Mailgun and Sendgrid that don’t require connecting your own SES account.
Here are our top 3 picks for Amazon SES Alternatives:
- BigMailer
- Pabbly
- MailBluster
1. Best Value For High-Volume Senders: BigMailer
BigMailer is a hosted email marketing platform that lets you use Amazon SES on the backend with BigMailer’s UI. You also have an option to just use BigMailer without SES and extra setup steps, which comes in handy as a backup if your SES account ever gets suspended.
BigMailer is built for multi-brand (aka subaccount) management and is ideal for marketing agencies, franchises, email consultants, media companies, and large teams. This platform provides the most features for the money out of all the options on this list.
Its built-in email validation helps you weed out invalid emails and typo spam traps to protect your sender reputation and improve your deliverability (one of the only platforms on this list with this feature built-in).
BigMailer’s drag-and-drop email template builder is quicker and more intuitive than most platforms on this list (many of them are clunky).
Email templates can be saved to your library and shared easily with other brands, which is very useful for agency clients in the same industries or franchises. This saves you time on template creation if you manage multiple brands (clients or locations).
Pros
- Affordable pricing based on list size, which makes it especially valuable for high-volume sending
- Multiple brand management and role-based user access controls
- White-label option
- Supports RSS-to-email automation
- No upfront setup fees
- You can use Amazon SES to send with BigMailer
- Support via live chat is available 7 days a week
Cons
- Not ideal for DTC or e-commerce companies due to a lack of direct integrations with e-commerce platforms like Shopify
Pricing
BigMailer offers flexible and affordable pricing based on the number of contacts in your email list.
These are the 4 main pricing plans:
- Startup – Free up to 1,000 contacts and 5 users (Amazon SES required*)
- Business Basic – $5/month per 5,000 contacts (starts at $20/month) with up to 20 users (Amazon SES required*)
- Business Pro – $12.50/month per 5,000 contacts (starts at $50/month) with up to 20 users
- Agency – $5/month per 5,000 contacts, starting at 300,000+ contacts and $300/mo. White label option.
*Amazon SES comes with an added cost of $0.1 per 1,000 emails sent, paid to Amazon SES directly.
Customer reviews
Customers love BigMailer’s ease of use, competitive pricing, range of features, and attentive customer support. There are very few criticisms from customers, but a few wished the template library was more extensive.‘
2. Best for Budget Users: Pabbly
Pabbly is a hosted email marketing platform best suited for small businesses on a budget. You can send emails via Amazon SES or choose to send from Pabbly’s servers.
There are no extra charges for unlimited email sending, which is ideal if you email your list more than 10 times per month.
It has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder that doesn’t require any coding skills.
You can integrate multiple SMTPs (Simple Mail Transfer Protocols) to ensure continuous email delivery, even if one of your SMTP accounts gets suspended. By connecting your email marketing service with a dependable SMTP relay, you can minimize the risk of blacklisting and enhance the delivery rate of your emails.
There’s a 7-day free trial, which some might find limiting for getting good trial of Pabbly before signing up for a paid plan.
Some users complain that the customer support (based in India) isn’t great, the analytics are basic, and the templates are limiting.
Pros
- Easy to design emails
- Cost-effective pricing
- Unlimited email sending without additional costs
- Email throttling – This allows you to limit the number of emails sent per day.
- Can connect to Amazon SES to save on sending cost
- Can connect multiple SMTPs
Cons
- Some customers have complained that customer support isn’t great
- Only a 7-day free trial (no free plan)
- Basic reporting and analytics compared to other tools on this list
- Limited amount of templates
- They don’t natively offer AB testing (so you have to do it manually with segments)
- Doesn’t support managing multiple users & accounts
- No white-label option
Pricing
Pabbly offers 3 pricing plans for email marketing and a 7-day free trial for up to 100 subscribers. Paid plans start at $29/month for up to 5,000 subscribers and go up to $1,599/month for 1,000,000 subscribers.
Here’s how much you can expect to pay based on the size of your email list:
Customer reviews
Pabbly received 4.1 stars out of 5 on G2. Users loved its ease of use and competitive pricing. Many complained about software bug issues. One common complaint amongst users was the not-so-great customer support and basic reporting features compared to other tools.
3. Best for Low-Volume Senders: MailBluster
MailBluster is a hosted platform that allows you to send (only) via SES. MailBluster is a good option if you need to minimize your email marketing costs and send fewer than 10,000 emails per month.
Its pay-per-email pricing structure makes it flexible for businesses that don’t need to send high-volume emails consistently. But it can also get drastically more expensive for consistent high-volume senders.
It’s particularly well-suited for marketers who only need basic automation and aren’t interested in overly complex features.
The platform is easy to use, with a clean dashboard and drag-and-drop email builder, which makes it a great option for non-technical users – after they set up Amazon SES.
One of its unique features is it lets you schedule emails in your recipients’ time zones with TimeWarp Delivery.
While the platform is known for quick customer support, it lacks comprehensive tutorials, making it harder for beginners to get the most out of it.
Pros
- Easy to use, clean dashboard
- Low cost if you send less than 7,500 emails/month
- No limitation on the number of contacts to store
- Unlimited email sends
- Users find the customer support responsive
- Allows scheduling emails in your subscribers’ time zones
Cons
- Free plan only offers 3,000 sends
- Does not support other SMTP servers (Amazon SES policies can be restrictive)
- Not many tutorials to learn how to use its features
- Gets expensive if you send more than 10,000 emails per month
Pricing
MailBluster offers a free plan for up to 3,000 email sends. Its paid plan is $60/year but you’ll need to pay $0.60 per 1,000 emails. In addition, you’ll need to pay $0.0001 per email to Amazon SES.
This is how much you’ll pay for various amounts of contacts if you email them 10 times per month (not counting Amazon SES costs):
Customer reviews
MailBluster received a 4.8-star rating out of 5, according to G2. Users enjoyed the ease of use, simple automations, and user-friendly interface. Some complained about the usage-based pricing and would prefer a month-to-month option.
Final Thoughts
If you’re a marketing agency, email consultant, or have a large team, BigMailer.io has all the features you need to create, distribute, and grow your email marketing program with or without Amazon SES, at an exceptional ROI.
