# Mailgun vs Amazon SES

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/mailgun-vs-amazon-ses/

Every value below is read from Mailgun's and Amazon SES's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Mailgun | Amazon SES |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $15/month for Basic, described as a starting price. | No monthly plan — SES bills per email. Ten thousand emails, the tier Postmark and Mailgun both price at, costs $1.00 at the published $0.10 per 1,000. Our arithmetic on Amazon's rate, not a price Amazon quotes, and attachments add $0.12 per GB. |
| Pricing model | Monthly plan by volume with per-1,000 overage, and email validations billed separately at around $1.20 per 100. | Pure usage billing with no monthly minimum: $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails plus $0.12 per GB of attachments, with dedicated IPs, deliverability tooling and address validation each metered separately on top. |
| Emails included | 10,000 a month on Basic; 50,000 on Foundation at $35. The free plan is capped at 100 a day rather than a monthly figure. | None. There is no included allowance on the pay-as-you-go rate; every email is billed from the first one. |
| Price per 1,000 over | From $1.80 per 1,000 on Basic and from $1.30 on Foundation. Mailgun writes "from", so these are floors rather than fixed rates. | $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails, charged per recipient. Mail Manager tiers run $0.16 to $0.23 per 1,000 depending on feature set, and a multi-region endpoint adds $0.03 per 1,000. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Mailgun: $15/month for Basic, described as a starting price. ([source](https://www.mailgun.com/pricing))
- Amazon SES: No monthly plan — SES bills per email. Ten thousand emails, the tier Postmark and Mailgun both price at, costs $1.00 at the published $0.10 per 1,000. Our arithmetic on Amazon's rate, not a price Amazon quotes, and attachments add $0.12 per GB. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Mailgun: Monthly plan by volume with per-1,000 overage, and email validations billed separately at around $1.20 per 100. ([source](https://www.mailgun.com/pricing))
- Amazon SES: Pure usage billing with no monthly minimum: $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails plus $0.12 per GB of attachments, with dedicated IPs, deliverability tooling and address validation each metered separately on top. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/))

### Emails included

- Mailgun: 10,000 a month on Basic; 50,000 on Foundation at $35. The free plan is capped at 100 a day rather than a monthly figure. ([source](https://www.mailgun.com/pricing))
- Amazon SES: None. There is no included allowance on the pay-as-you-go rate; every email is billed from the first one. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/))

### Price per 1,000 over

- Mailgun: From $1.80 per 1,000 on Basic and from $1.30 on Foundation. Mailgun writes "from", so these are floors rather than fixed rates. ([source](https://www.mailgun.com/pricing))
- Amazon SES: $0.10 per 1,000 outbound emails, charged per recipient. Mail Manager tiers run $0.16 to $0.23 per 1,000 depending on feature set, and a multi-region endpoint adds $0.03 per 1,000. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Mailgun if Senders who want inbound routing included from the free plan up, and who treat the message log as a debugging tool rather than a record.

Pick Amazon SES if High volume where the per-1,000 rate dominates everything else — at $0.10 per 1,000 it is roughly a twentieth of what the managed services charge in overage.

Consider something else: Mailgun — One day of log retention on the entry plan is the shortest here by a wide margin, and the overage rate is quoted as "from", so the number you plan against is a floor.

Consider something else: Amazon SES — There is no included allowance, no log retention on the pricing page, and deliverability tooling that the others bundle is metered separately here.

## Documented by only one

- Log retention: Mailgun: 1 day on Free and Basic; 5 days of logs and 1 day of message retention on Foundation.
- Dedicated IP: Amazon SES: Supported
- Inbound email: Mailgun: Supported

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Mailgun or Amazon SES?**

Mailgun: $15/month for Basic, described as a starting price.
Amazon SES: No monthly plan — SES bills per email. Ten thousand emails, the tier Postmark and Mailgun both price at, costs $1.00 at the published $0.10 per 1,000. Our arithmetic on Amazon's rate, not a price Amazon quotes, and attachments add $0.12 per GB.

**Should I choose Mailgun or Amazon SES?**

Pick Mailgun if Senders who want inbound routing included from the free plan up, and who treat the message log as a debugging tool rather than a record.
Pick Amazon SES if High volume where the per-1,000 rate dominates everything else — at $0.10 per 1,000 it is roughly a twentieth of what the managed services charge in overage.