Transactional email

Amazon SES vs Resend vs Postmark

Amazon SES, Resend, Postmark side by side: price, free tier, who each one fits and when to skip it.

Item	Amazon SES	Resend	Postmark
What it does	AWS email sending service, billed per thousand emails.	Email API for developers, with SDKs and React Email templates.	Transactional email service built around fast delivery to the inbox.
Best for	Best for a SaaS that already runs on AWS and sends a lot of email, where $0.10 per thousand keeps the bill tiny.	Best for a Next.js SaaS that wants login codes and receipts going out in an afternoon, with templates written in React.	Best for a SaaS where a login code stuck in spam means a lost user, and fast, reliable delivery is worth paying a bit more.
Skip it if	Skip it if you want to ship this week: you have to request production access, and the console and IAM setup slow down a solo founder.	Skip it if you send millions of emails a month and every cent counts: Amazon SES costs a fraction of the price.	Skip it if you are on a tight budget at volume: 50k emails cost more than double what Resend charges.
Setup	Needs a developer. A day of setup, plus up to 4 days waiting for production access before you can email real users.	Needs a developer. An afternoon to send the first email; the domain check usually clears the same day.	Needs a developer. An afternoon of code, plus up to a day for account approval before real users get emails.
Price	$0.10 per 1,000 emails	Free, then from $20/month for 50k emails	From $15/month for 10k emails
What it costs in practice	A SaaS sending 30,000 emails a month: 30 × $0.10 = $3/month, plus a few cents if receipts carry PDF attachments. Rough estimate, before any AWS credits.	A SaaS with 2,000 active users sending around 20,000 emails a month (logins, resets, receipts) is past the free 3,000, so it lands on Pro: $20/month covers up to 50,000. Rough estimate.	A SaaS sending 30,000 emails a month on Basic: $15 for the first 10,000 + 20 × $1.80 = about $51/month. Rough estimate; at 50,000 the next tier is $55.
Free plan	No permanent free tier; new AWS accounts get up to $200 in credits that also cover SES.	3,000 emails a month, capped at 100 a day.	100 emails a month to test, with no overage.
Free tier	None (AWS credits for new accounts)	3,000/month (100/day)	100/month
Price for 50k emails/month	$5/month ($0.10 per 1,000)	$20/month (Pro)	$55/month (Basic, 50k tier)
Setup	AWS API, SMTP and SDKs; leave the sandbox first	REST API, SMTP and SDKs; React Email templates	REST API, SMTP and SDKs; account review
Open source	No: no	No: no	No: no
Before you build	Every new account starts in the sandbox: it can only send to verified addresses, 200 emails per 24 hours, 1 per second. The sandbox is per region, so moving region means asking again. Production access is reviewed by hand: the first answer takes up to 96 hours, and longer if AWS asks for more information. A 5% bounce rate or 0.1% complaint rate puts the account under review; 10% bounces or 0.5% complaints can pause all sending, login codes included. There is no permanent free tier. New AWS accounts get up to $200 in credits, and the AWS free plan itself ends after 6 months. Extras are billed apart: attachments at $0.12/GB and a dedicated IP at $24.95/month.	The free plan stops at 100 emails a day, not just 3,000 a month. On a launch day with 150 sign-ups, the last login codes don't go out until midnight UTC. If you also receive email through Resend, each received email counts against the same daily and monthly quota. Keep bounces under 4% and spam complaints under 0.08%. Above that, Resend may pause your sending, and the policy allows shutting the account down without warning. Never import a bought or old list. Newsletters are a separate plan priced by contacts ($40/month for 5,000), on top of the transactional plan. A dedicated IP only exists on the Scale plan ($90/month and up), costs $30/month extra and requires more than 3,000 emails a day.	Until a person approves the account, you can't email any address outside the domains you verified, and link tracking stays off. Plans include a monthly volume and charge for the extra: on Basic, each 1,000 emails past 10,000 costs $1.80, so a busy month raises the bill. A dedicated IP starts at $50/month and is only offered from the Pro plan up to senders of 300,000 or more emails a month. Message history is kept 45 days by default; longer retention (up to 365 days) needs the Pro plan or higher.
Price checked	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing

Prices are read from each official pricing page on the date shown and can change. Always confirm before signing up.

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Resend vs Amazon SES vs Postmark

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