Amazon SES - Set It Once, And Then Forget About It! And It's Almost Free!
February 24, 2017
Amazon SES - Set It Once, And Then Forget About It! And It's Almost Free!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Amazon Simple Email Service
Our entire organization uses multiple pairs of SMTP credentials from AWS to send all our transactional, marketing, and system monitoring e-mail messages. It makes life for the developers very easy, because they have a single interface to send an e-mail, regardless of the system originating the message.
In addition to its simplicity, the dirt-cheap pricing is almost negligible. The monthly bill for all of our e-mails is roughly $4 per month, and simply cannot be beat by any other SMTP provider.
In addition to its simplicity, the dirt-cheap pricing is almost negligible. The monthly bill for all of our e-mails is roughly $4 per month, and simply cannot be beat by any other SMTP provider.
- DKIM signing for all messages. This absolutely maximizes the probability of a message reaching a user's inbox, and not the spam folder.
- API *and* SMTP access, making it possible to connect any system to SES. No matter what programming language or what server, there is always a library for sending e-mail messages that is compatible with SES.
- SES makes it trivial to send thousands of e-mails from known mail servers. No longer do you have to worry about your server's IP address being blacklisted because it originated too many e-mails.
- Incredible credential management for increased security. With IAM, you can create API keys (or SMTP credentials) for each individual piece of an infrastructure, making debugging very easy.
- For users that are not used to semi-complex APIs, the AWS SDK can be a little intimidating. That said, with the SMTP credential feature, the API learning curve can be avoided.
- It is frustrating that you have to verify each e-mail address or domain name (wildcard) you wish to use in the From: header of the e-mail messages. I understand this is a security feature, but for long-time verified accounts, it would be nice to use arbitrary e-mail addresses and domains.
- All positive things. The fact that we can send tens of thousands of e-mails per month for less than $5 is incredible. Find a better price for something even remotely as high-quality as SES.
- SES provides a set-and-forget way of handling e-mail. Drop in the credentials, and your developers will never have to mess with it again.
Amazon SES is bare-bones, insofar as it will not "help" you with the contents of your message. You cannot use variables in the e-mail, it will not automatically track whether or not the recipient opened the mail or not, it will not help with unsubscribe links, and it will not generate and manage web-based copies of the e-mail. That said, it gives the developer full control of the messages.
Pricing, again, is the killer feature here. SES is cheaper than every single e-mail delivery provider I have ever encountered.
Pricing, again, is the killer feature here. SES is cheaper than every single e-mail delivery provider I have ever encountered.