Amazon SES vs Mailgun for high-volume transactional email on a budget (500,000+/month)
At 500,000 emails a month this is not a fair fight on raw price: SES's published $0.10 per 1,000 works out to about $50/month, while Mailgun's Scale plan works out to about $530/month for the same volume ($90 base for 100k + $1.10/1,000 for the 400k over) — both figures computed below from published rates. What you're really deciding is whether the roughly $480/month gap is worth the AWS tax: SES starts in a sandbox capped at 200 messages per 24 hours until Amazon approves production access, counts an email to 10 recipients as 10 sends against your quota, keeps quotas separate per region, and charges $0.07/1,000 (about $35/month at this volume) for the Virtual Deliverability Manager dashboarding that Mailgun's plans build in. If an engineer owns email at your company, take SES — the ops burden is real but bounded, and the savings compound every month. If nobody owns email and you want phone/chat support, that's Mailgun Scale — or the cheaper middle path in the box below.
Side-by-side
| Amazon SES | Mailgun | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Pure usage: $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails, plus $0.12 per GB of attachment data | Plan + overage: Scale is $90/mo for 100,000 emails (first month free), then $1.10 per 1,000 over |
| Cost at 500,000/mo | ≈ $50/mo (computed: 500 × $0.10) | ≈ $530/mo on Scale (computed: $90 + 400 × $1.10) |
| Deliverability analytics | Virtual Deliverability Manager add-on: $0.07 per 1,000 emails (0–10M), declining to $0.02/1,000 above 100M; first 5,000 queries/month free | Scale includes 30-day log retention, up to 7-day message retention, 5,000 email validations, dedicated IP pool access |
| Support | Not in the pricing data we captured — UNKNOWN (AWS support is a separate product) | Phone and chat support on Scale |
| Dedicated IPs | Standard $24.95/month per IP; managed $15/month per account plus $0.08/1,000 emails (0–10M), declining to $0.02/1,000 (50M–100M) | One included with Foundation (at 100k+) and Scale; additional IPs $59/IP/month |
| Onboarding friction | Sandbox: max 200 messages per 24 hours at 1 message/second until a production-access request is approved | No daily send limit on paid plans (Basic and up) |
| Quota accounting | Counted per recipient, not per message (1 email to 10 recipients = 10); quotas are separate per AWS Region | Not in the pricing data we captured — UNKNOWN |
| Affiliate program | None found as of 2026-07-12 no program | None found as of 2026-07-12 no program |
- SES's headline $0.10/1,000 excludes attachment data ($0.12/GB) and any Virtual Deliverability Manager usage ($0.07/1,000 at this volume tier).
- SES quotas count recipients, not messages — CC/BCC-heavy sending burns quota faster than your message count suggests.
- SES quotas are per AWS Region; multi-region sending means separate production-access requests and separate limits.
- Mailgun's published pricing tops out at the Scale tier ($90/mo for 100k + overage); pricing for custom enterprise volume is not published — UNKNOWN.
Amazon SES: 500 × $0.10 = $50/mo. Add the Virtual Deliverability Manager at $0.07/1,000 (500 × $0.07 = $35) if you want bundled-style analytics → ≈ $85/mo, still before attachment data at $0.12/GB.
Mailgun Scale: $90 base (100,000 included) + 400 × $1.10 overage ($440) = ≈ $530/mo.
SMTP2GO Professional is $75/month for 100,000 emails with a dedicated IP address included and $0.85 per 1,000 overage — at 500,000/month that's ≈ $415/mo (computed: $75 + 400 × $0.85): cheaper than Mailgun Scale, without the AWS ops model. Check SMTP2GO's pricing (affiliate link — we earn 20% of the first year; neither SES nor Mailgun pays us anything).
Where to sign up
Disclosure: neither Amazon SES nor Mailgun has an affiliate program we could find as of 2026-07-12, so the SES-first verdict above earns us $0. The SMTP2GO link in the alternative box is an affiliate link.
FAQ
What does Amazon SES cost at 500,000 emails a month?
About $50/month, computed from the published rate of $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails (500 × $0.10), plus $0.12 per GB of attachment data. Deliverability analytics via Virtual Deliverability Manager add roughly $35/month at this volume ($0.07 per 1,000).
Does the SES free tier matter at this volume?
No. SES's free tier is up to 3,000 message charges free each month for the first 12 months only — a rounding error against 500,000/month, and data transfer fees still apply.
What are the hidden costs of SES?
The sandbox (200 messages per 24 hours at 1/second until production access is approved), per-recipient quota counting, per-region quotas, attachment data at $0.12/GB, Virtual Deliverability Manager at $0.07/1,000 for analytics, and dedicated IPs from $15–$24.95/month.
What does Mailgun charge past 100,000 emails?
On the Scale plan ($90/month for 100,000, first month free), overage is $1.10 per 1,000 emails. On Basic, overage is $1.80 per 1,000; on Foundation it starts at $1.30 per 1,000, declining to $1.10 at higher volumes.
Sources
- https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/ (accessed 2026-07-12)
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/manage-sending-quotas.html (accessed 2026-07-12)
- https://www.mailgun.com/pricing/ (accessed 2026-07-12)
- https://www.smtp2go.com/pricing/ (accessed 2026-07-12)
- https://affiliates.smtp2go.com/ (accessed 2026-07-12)