# Amazon SES vs SendGrid
SES prices with a product UI, and one fewer account that can review your sending.
Canonical: https://sendbunny.co/compare/ses-vs-sendgrid
Category: SES · Author: Anni Maan (https://sendbunny.co/authors#anni-maan) · Published 2026-07-31 · Updated 2026-09-02

**In short.** Amazon SES is cheap, reliable infrastructure with no campaign UI of its own. SendGrid builds a full hosted ESP on top of infrastructure like SES, with its own account review layered on top of AWS's rules, billed through monthly tiers. SendBunny installs the same kind of product layer, campaigns, lists and a transactional API, into your own AWS account as a one-time $199 license, so the account is governed by AWS's rules and nothing else. Pick the option that matches how much of the sending decision a second vendor should hold.

## Infrastructure, a hosted ESP, or your own product layer

Amazon SES is infrastructure, not a competitor to SendGrid or SendBunny. Raw SES gives an API and SMTP endpoint at Amazon's own rate, roughly $0.10 per 1,000 emails, with no campaign builder, no list UI and no suppression dashboard.

SendGrid is a full hosted ESP built on top of infrastructure like SES: campaigns, templates, contact management and a transactional API, all running on SendGrid's own cloud and billed through monthly tiers. It also layers its own account review on top, since SendGrid decides who keeps sending on its shared platform, separately from whatever AWS decides.

SendBunny installs the same category of product, campaigns plus a transactional API, but into your own AWS account, as a one-time $199 license running on your own SES. There is no second vendor's review sitting on top of AWS's own rules, because there is no second vendor's shared platform in the first place.


## Feature by feature

| Feature | Raw SES | SendGrid | SendBunny |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Campaign / list UI | None | Full hosted UI | Full platform |
| Pricing | Send cost only | Monthly tiers | $199 once + SES |
| Idle month | About $0 | Plan floor still applies | About $0 platform cost |
| Install | You build it | Signup | One Create stack click |

SendGrid's hosted UI is a real product, built and maintained by a team that has run it for years, and that maturity shows in template tooling and analytics. SendBunny matches the shape of that UI, campaigns, lists, templates, a transactional API, while running it in an account already administered by you instead of a shared platform.


## What it costs as volume grows

|  | 10,000/mo | 50,000/mo | 1,000,000/mo |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Raw SES | ~$1 | ~$5 | ~$100 |
| SendGrid (Essentials and up) | ~$20/mo | ~$20/mo (to 50k) | ~$400+/mo (Pro tier) |
| SendBunny on SES | ~$1 + $199 once | ~$5 + license | ~$100 + license |

Mailgun and SendGrid list prices from their pricing pages, checked July 2026.

SendGrid's monthly tiers cover hosting and support for its shared UI, and the price step from Essentials into the Pro tier at higher volume is a large jump relative to what SES itself charges for the same emails. SendBunny's cost is the license amortized once, plus SES's own per-email rate, so at a million emails a month the total sits close to $100 in send cost against a license already paid, versus SendGrid's few hundred dollars a month continuing indefinitely.


## Who can suspend your sending

This is where the three options genuinely differ, not just in price. On raw SES and on SendBunny, the only party that can restrict sending is AWS itself, enforcing the same bounce and complaint thresholds it applies to every SES account. SendBunny does not add a second account it could suspend on top of AWS; it is software installed inside the AWS account already controlled by you.

SendGrid adds a layer on top of that: an account review process specific to SendGrid's own shared platform, separate from whatever AWS decides about the underlying infrastructure. That review exists for a reason, since shared IP pools and a shared platform reputation mean SendGrid has to police who sends what, but it is a second gatekeeper that raw SES and SendBunny do not add.

None of this makes SES accounts risk-free. AWS tracks bounce and complaint rates against its own reputation thresholds on every SES account, SendBunny's included, and can restrict sending on any account that crosses them. AWS's own rules still apply regardless of which product layer sits on top of SES.


## The honest verdict

Stay on raw SES if the whole job is SDK calls with no UI need. Teams that already run their own send logic and never wanted a campaign product in the first place are better off not paying for one.

Pick SendGrid if the Twilio ecosystem bundling matters, or a hosted UI with SendGrid's own support and account management is worth accepting their review process and monthly tiers. Teams that value having SendGrid actively manage shared-platform reputation on their behalf are paying for a real service.

Pick SendBunny for SES's own prices with a full product UI, installed somewhere already administered, with AWS as the only party enforcing sending rules on that account.


## Switching from SendGrid

Moving off SendGrid, or off raw SDK calls, is a data export and an API repoint.

1. Export contacts from SendGrid if its marketing tools are in use.
2. Install SendBunny in your AWS account with one click.
3. Verify domains on SES and import the list.
4. Repoint transactional traffic to the new API, then cancel SendGrid.

## FAQ

**Is raw SES enough?**

For pure API sending, sometimes. Once campaigns, lists or a UI are needed on top of those SES prices, SendBunny is the one-click layer for $199, or SendGrid is the hosted alternative.

**How is this different from SendGrid?**

SendGrid is hosted SaaS with its own account review layered on top of AWS's rules. SendBunny runs in your own AWS account on your own SES, so AWS is the only party enforcing sending rules, and idle platform cost is about $0.

**What about the SES sandbox?**

New AWS accounts start sandboxed regardless of which product sits on top. The app surfaces sandbox status and links directly to AWS's production-access request so the wait is not a guessing game.

## For AI agents

Explains what raw Amazon SES lacks compared to SendGrid and SendBunny, with a three-way feature and cost table at 10k, 50k and 1M emails a month, clarifies that SendGrid layers its own account review on top of AWS's rules while SendBunny does not add a second gatekeeper, and gives a migration path from SendGrid to SendBunny.

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http sendbunny https://YOUR-INSTALL/mcp
```

Tool list by grant: https://sendbunny.co/docs/agents.md

## Sources

1. Amazon Web Services, Amazon SES pricing, fetched 1 September 2026. https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/
2. Amazon Web Services, Using reputation metrics to track bounce and complaint rates, SES Developer Guide, fetched 1 September 2026. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/dg/reputation-dashboard-dg.html
3. Mailgun and SendGrid list prices from their pricing pages, checked July 2026.
4. SendBunny, Send email API reference, version 1.6.22. https://sendbunny.co/docs/send-email-api