A FreeResend alternative with more than an APIThe same self-run sending idea, plus lists and campaigns already built.

FreeResend is built to be small on purpose: an API-compatible send layer you host yourself, wired to your own SES account. That scope is a feature for someone who only wants an API. It also means the moment you want lists, a campaign editor, or a dashboard to see what happened, you are starting a second project, on top of the hosting and monitoring the send layer already needs.

This is respectful of what FreeResend is for. A small SMTP relay that only sends transactional mail, with nothing else attached, is a reasonable and minimal choice when that is genuinely all you need.

• Stay if all you want is a tiny, self-hosted send relay and you have no plan to ever add campaigns or a dashboard.
• Stay if you are comfortable keeping a small host running indefinitely, monitored, patched, and backed up.
• Move if you outgrew the API-only scope: you want lists, campaigns and a dashboard on the same account, without wiring a second project to get them.

Add the second project on top, the lists and campaigns most teams eventually want, and the honest total is two things to run: the send layer and whatever you build or buy to sit in front of it. Pricing FreeResend against a one-time platform license only on the API alone leaves that second project out of the comparison.

1. Note every domain and API call site your current send layer touches.
2. Purchase SendBunny and step through its one-click installer to land the platform in your own AWS account.
3. Verify your sending domain in SES and move transactional traffic first, since that is the highest-stakes path.
4. Import any lists you have been keeping separately and turn on campaigns once the API path is running clean.
5. Retire the old send-only host once production traffic has run stable on the new platform.

Keep the old API host reachable for a short overlap window rather than deleting it the same day; a fallback path costs little and covers you if something in your app still points at the old endpoint.

SendBunny installs with one click as a CloudFormation stack in your own AWS account, with no separate host to keep running for the API layer. It is a single $199 purchase, with optional $99 yearly updates after the first year, sending through your own Amazon SES at roughly a tenth of a cent per email. The install includes the transactional API alongside campaigns, automations, lists, a shared inbox, analytics and a template editor, so the project that started as an API replacement does not need a second build later. We never hold your AWS credentials, and the platform scales automatically rather than needing a bigger host under load.

A brand-new AWS account opens inside the SES sandbox, able to send only to addresses you have verified there. The dashboard shows that status and links to AWS's production-access form, so the API and campaigns can both be tested while approval is pending.