Mailgun vs Amazon SES
A comparison of Mailgun and Amazon SES built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
4 sourced criteria separate them:
- Entry paid plan
- 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.
- Pricing model
- Mailgun: Monthly plan by volume with per-1,000 overage, and email validations billed separately at around $1.20 per 100.
- 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.
- 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.
- Amazon SES: 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
- 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.
- 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.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Mailgun 0
Amazon SES 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Mailgun | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Mailgun ↗
“Basic Starting at $15/mo 10,000 emails/mo included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Amazon SES Pricing — AWS ↗
“Outbound email $0.10 / 1,000 emails $0.12 per GB of attachment data sent”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing model
- Mailgun
- Monthly plan by volume with per-1,000 overage, and email validations billed separately at around $1.20 per 100.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Mailgun ↗
“Extra emails & validations from $1.80 / 1,000 emails from $1.20 / 100 validations”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Amazon SES Pricing — AWS ↗
“Outbound email $0.10 / 1,000 emails $0.12 per GB of attachment data sent [...] Email Validation $0.01 per validation [...] Virtual Deliverability Manager – SES deliverability Per-email fee + query fee”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Mailgun ↗
“Basic Starting at $15/mo 10,000 emails/mo included [...] $35/mo 50,000 emails/mo included [...] Free [...] 100 emails/day included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Amazon SES Pricing — AWS ↗
“Outbound email $0.10 / 1,000 emails”
Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Mailgun ↗
“Extra emails & validations from $1.80 / 1,000 emails [...] from $1.30 / 1,000 emails”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Amazon SES Pricing — AWS ↗
“Outbound email $0.10 / 1,000 emails [...] Global Endpoints $0.03 / 1,000 emails [...] 0 – 10M emails / month $0.16 per 1,000 emails $0.22 per 1,000 emails $0.23 per 1,000 emails”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Which should you choose?
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.