Works with Amazon SES

Newsletters on Amazon SES, minus the AWS homework.

Amazon SES is the cheapest serious way to send newsletters, at $0.10 per 1,000 emails on à la carte pricing, with the reliability of AWS underneath. What it does not come with is any way to design a campaign, manage a list, or read the results. GoodPostal is the hosted newsletter tool that fills exactly that gap.

Follow the 2026 Amazon SES newsletter setup steps

What GoodPostal adds on top of Amazon SES

Event tracking without the AWS console

GoodPostal sets up SES event notifications for you, with your consent. Deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints land in your campaign analytics without you touching the AWS notification console.

Automatic pacing at your SES send rate

Large campaigns are paced to your account sending rate so a big send never trips SES throttling.

Bounce and complaint hygiene

Hard bounces and complaints automatically suppress the contact, protecting the SES account reputation you worked to build.

A real editor and contact platform

The drag-and-drop editor with 90 components, contact groups, scheduling, A/B tests, and team seats, on top of the raw sending API.

Amazon SES details, handled

  • New SES accounts start in sandbox mode. Our free SES Access Request tool writes the production-access support case the way AWS wants to read it.
  • On à la carte pricing SES is pure pay-per-email with no monthly plan to overrun. New SES accounts start on Amazon's Essentials plan; one switch on the SES console's Pricing plan page moves you to the $0.10 à la carte rate.

What it costs

Amazon charges $0.10 per 1,000 emails on à la carte pricing, paid to AWS. A weekly newsletter to 10,000 people costs about $4 a month in delivery.

GoodPostal itself is $19 a month plus $0.05 per 1,000 emails sent, with unlimited contacts. Run your numbers on the calculator.

What sending with Amazon SES costs

40,000
1k10k100k1M

Amazon SES delivery

$4/mo

Pay-as-you-go plan, from their published pricing, paid directly to Amazon SES.

GoodPostal

$21/mo

$19 software + $2 sending at $0.05 per 1,000 emails. Unlimited contacts.

Total, all in

$25/mo

Amazon SES rates come from their published pricing and are paid directly to them. GoodPostal never marks delivery up. Unlimited contacts at every volume.

Amazon SES priced at its à la carte rate of $0.10 per 1,000 emails. New SES accounts start on Amazon's Essentials plan at $0.16 per 1,000; switching to à la carte is a one-time change on the SES console's Pricing plan page.

See Amazon SES pricing by volume

Sending a newsletter with Amazon SES in 2026, step by step

  1. 1. Verify your sender and leave the sandbox

    Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) starts new accounts in a restricted sandbox in each region. Verify your sending domain, then open the account dashboard in that region. A public newsletter needs production access before you can send to unverified recipients.

    Amazon’s guide: verify your sender and leave the sandbox
  2. 2. Request production access for your newsletter

    Choose Marketing as your mail type. Describe your opt-in process, website, expected volume, and how you handle bounces, complaints and unsubscribes. Submit the request and wait for approval. Check your sending quota before scheduling the campaign.

    Amazon’s guide: request production access for your newsletter
  3. 3. Connect a notification topic

    Use Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) to pass bounce and complaint events to GoodPostal. Create a topic in the same region as your SES sender, allow SES to publish to it, and subscribe the GoodPostal notification endpoint from your connection setup. Confirm the subscription and test the event flow before your first newsletter.

    Amazon’s guide: connect a notification topic
  4. 4. Check your suppression list

    Enable account-level suppression for bounces and complaints in the sending region. Keep unsubscribed contacts excluded in GoodPostal too. A suppression list protects recipients who should not receive another send; do not clear it to force a campaign through.

    Amazon’s guide: check your suppression list
  5. 5. Check the July 2026 free-tier change

    The SES-specific free tier closed to new customers on July 21, 2026. Existing customers keep their remaining eligibility period. Amazon Web Services (AWS) account credits are separate and depend on your account. New SES accounts start on Essentials; you can switch to à-la-carte pricing. Check your plan rather than assuming delivery is free.

    Amazon’s guide: check the july 2026 free-tier change
  6. 6. Budget for a monthly send to 5,000 contacts

    One newsletter to 5,000 contacts each month is 5,000 emails. At the recorded à-la-carte delivery rate, budget $19 for GoodPostal software, $0.25 for metered sending, and $0.50 for delivery: $19.75 a month all-in. This excludes taxes, attachment data, notification charges, optional add-ons and temporary credits. Essentials and other plans can cost more.

    Amazon’s guide: budget for a monthly send to 5,000 contacts

Common questions

Do I need SES production access before using GoodPostal?

Yes. New SES accounts start in a sandbox that only sends to verified addresses. Request production access from AWS first; our free SES Access Request tool writes the support case the way AWS wants to read it.

How does GoodPostal track opens and clicks with Amazon SES?

GoodPostal sets up SES event tracking for you, with your consent, using SNS notifications. Deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints flow into your campaign analytics automatically.

What does sending through SES cost?

Amazon’s recorded delivery rate is $0.10 per 1,000 emails, paid directly to Amazon Web Services (AWS). GoodPostal adds $19 a month plus $0.05 per 1,000 sends for the campaign platform, and never marks up delivery.

Your Amazon SES account, our campaign platform.

Keep the sending infrastructure you chose. Add the editor, contacts, tracking, and analytics it never came with.

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