Alternatives

An Amazon SES alternative with the dashboard already built.

Amazon SES is the cheapest way to send email that exists: $0.10 per 1,000 à la carte, with an API and an SMTP interface and nothing else. Notix is what most teams end up building on top of it, packaged: a dashboard, a suppression list shared across transactional and marketing mail, signed webhooks, templates, domain onboarding with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, plus OTP and deliverability APIs, on a free plan with no card and Pro at $15 a month. AWS-native teams with the time to build that layer, or very high volume, should stay on SES. If you are still deciding whether to use SES at all, read SES directly or a service on top of it first.

Why switch

Why people look for an Amazon SES alternative.

There is no dashboard.

SES reports delivery, bounces and complaints as events you route through SNS to a queue or a function and then store yourself. The product page describes a sending service, not an engagement view. The first week on SES is usually spent building the screen that shows whether yesterday's mail arrived.

The sandbox and production access.

A new SES account can only send to addresses it has verified until you request production access and explain your use case to AWS. That is a sound abuse control, but it means a weekend project cannot send its first real email on the same day it was started.

The price is the start, not the total.

The pricing page lists $0.10 per 1,000 à la carte or $0.16 on Essentials, $0.12 per GB of attachments, and managed dedicated IPs at $15 a month per account plus per-email fees. None of that is the cost that matters: the suppression store, the webhook consumer, the template renderer and the reporting are engineering hours that do not appear on the AWS bill.

Side by side

Amazon SES and Notix, criterion by criterion.

Every SES figure was read from AWS's own pages on 2026-09-13; the date sits under the table. If a number has changed since, the page is wrong and we would like to know.

Figures read from aws.amazon.com on 2026-09-13; Notix figures come from its own pricing page.
Criterion	Amazon SES	Notix
Free tier	$200 in AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts, valid for 6 months; new accounts start in a sandbox	5,000 emails a month, 200 a day, no card, no end date
Entry paid plan	Pay as you go, $0.10 per 1,000 emails à la carte	Pro $15 a month
Included on that plan	None: $0.16 per 1,000 on the Essentials plan, $0.12 per GB of attachments	50,000 emails, usage past that metered on the same invoice
SMTP relay	Yes, an SMTP interface and an API	Yes, on every plan
SDKs	Every AWS SDK language	TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP
Webhooks	Through SNS event destinations, which you wire yourself	Yes, signed, for email, contact and domain events
OTP / verification API	No	Yes, email and SMS codes
Deliverability check before sending	No	Yes, a pre-send check API
Billing outside USD	USD, on the AWS bill	USD by card; naira and shillings from a prepaid wallet
SLA	AWS SES service level agreement	99.9% on Pro, credits on the pricing page
Prices and limits read from the vendors' own pages: aws.amazon.com on 2026-09-13. Notix figures are from its own pricing page.

Where Amazon SES is better.

On price per email, nothing here competes: a million emails a month is about $100 on SES à la carte, and Notix does not try to match that. If your team already lives in AWS, SES slots into IAM, CloudWatch, SNS and Lambda you have, and the mail leaves from your own account under your own reputation, which some compliance teams require. SES also offers every AWS SDK language, dedicated IP pools you manage yourself, and the Virtual Deliverability Manager for teams that want to tune reputation by hand. If you have the engineers to build the layer above it and the volume to make the per-1,000 rate the deciding number, stay on SES.

Where the two agree.

Both take a JSON send and an SMTP submission, both verify a sending domain with DNS records, both report bounces and complaints, and both require you to stop mailing addresses that reject you. The difference is who keeps that state and who draws the chart. The migration below shows how little of your sending code changes.

What you get

What Notix adds on top of a sending primitive.

A dashboard.

Delivery, bounce and complaint analytics per domain and per message, searchable, without an SNS topic or a database of your own.

One suppression list.

Bounces, complaints and unsubscribes suppress across transactional and marketing mail automatically, and you can import the list you already have.

Signed webhooks.

Email, contact and domain events posted to your URL with a signature you verify, instead of an SNS subscription you confirm and parse.

Templates and domain onboarding.

A template editor, contact books with double opt-in, and domain verification that tells you which SPF, DKIM and DMARC records to add and checks them for you.

OTP and deliverability APIs.

One call sends a code by email or SMS and one checks it; a separate call scores a message before you send it. See the transactional email API.

Migration

Moving from SES: swap the client, keep the domain.

The send has the same four fields. Replace the AWS SDK call or the SMTP endpoint, verify your domain with Notix, bring your suppression list, and delete the code that used to consume SNS.

@aws-sdk/client-sesv2 (Node)

import { SESv2Client, SendEmailCommand } from "@aws-sdk/client-sesv2";

const ses = new SESv2Client({ region: "eu-west-1" });

await ses.send(
  new SendEmailCommand({
    FromEmailAddress: "receipts@acme.com",
    Destination: { ToAddresses: ["customer@example.com"] },
    Content: {
      Simple: {
        Subject: { Data: "Your receipt" },
        Body: { Html: { Data: "<p>Thanks for your order.</p>" } },
      },
    },
  }),
);

notix-js (TypeScript)

import { Notix } from "notix-js";

const notix = new Notix(process.env.NOTIX_API_KEY);

const { data, error } = await notix.emails.send({
  from: "receipts@acme.com",
  to: "customer@example.com",
  subject: "Your receipt",
  html: "<p>Thanks for your order.</p>",
});

.env

# Before (SES SMTP interface, region-specific endpoint)
SMTP_HOST=email-smtp.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_USER=<SES SMTP username>
SMTP_PASS=<SES SMTP password>

# After
SMTP_HOST=smtp.usenotix.dev
SMTP_PORT=465
SMTP_USER=notix
SMTP_PASS=<your Notix API key>

1. Verify the domain.

Add the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records Notix gives you. They sit beside the ones SES asked for, so both can send during the switch. The quickstart walks through it, and the dashboard checks the records for you.

2. Swap the client, or the SMTP host.

Replace @aws-sdk/client-sesv2 with notix-js and an API key in your environment, or point your mailer at the SMTP relay: host smtp.usenotix.dev, port 465 or 587, user notix, password your API key.

3. Import your suppression list.

Export the SES account-level suppression list and upload it under Suppressions in the dashboard, one address per line. Then retire the SNS topic, the queue and the function that turned events into rows; Notix keeps that state and posts signed webhooks if you still want it in your own system.

Pricing math

What a month costs at three volumes.

Monthly cost on Amazon SES and Notix at 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000 emails
Emails a month	Amazon SES	Notix
10,000	About $1 à la carte, plus your build and ops time	Pro, $15 (Free stops at 5,000)
50,000	About $5 à la carte, plus your build and ops time	Pro, $15
100,000	About $10 à la carte, plus your build and ops time	Pro, $15 plus the 50,000 above the allowance, metered on the same invoice

SES wins the per-email column at every row, and the gap widens with volume; the figures above use the $0.10 à la carte rate and exclude attachments, dedicated IPs and the six-month credits a new AWS account gets. What SES does not include is the suppression store, the event consumer, the template renderer and the reporting you build and run yourself. Notix charges a flat $15 for those, and meters usage past 50,000 at the per-unit rate on the pricing page. Prices read on 2026-09-13.

Nigeria and Kenya

Paid in naira or shillings, not on an AWS bill.

SES is billed in US dollars on your AWS account. Teams in Nigeria and Kenya can fund a Notix wallet in naira or shillings through local payment methods and have Pro charged from that balance each month, with no dollar card and no AWS account at all. The free plan is the same everywhere; the local price per email is on the pricing page when opened from either country.

FAQ

Questions people ask before switching.

Is Amazon SES cheaper than Notix?

Per email, yes, and by a wide margin: SES lists $0.10 per 1,000 à la carte, so 50,000 emails is about $5 before attachments and dedicated IPs, against Notix Pro at $15 for 50,000. The difference is what you build around it. On SES the suppression list, the event pipeline, the templates and the dashboard are your engineering time; on Notix they are the product. Which is cheaper depends on what that time costs you.

Does Notix have a free plan, and does it expire like AWS credits?

Notix Free is 5,000 emails a month and 200 a day with no card and no end date. AWS gives new accounts $200 in Free Tier credits that are valid for six months, after which SES is pay as you go. A new SES account also starts in a sandbox that can only send to verified addresses until you request production access.

What does Notix add that SES does not have?

A dashboard with delivery, bounce and complaint analytics; a suppression list shared between transactional and marketing mail; signed webhooks for email, contact and domain events without wiring SNS; templates and a template editor; contact books with double opt-in; an OTP and verification API for email and SMS; and a deliverability check you can call before a send. SES gives you the sending primitive and leaves the rest to you.

Who should stay on Amazon SES?

AWS-native teams that already run SNS, Lambda and a data store, and have the engineering time to build and maintain suppression, event handling, templates and reporting on top. Very high-volume senders where per-1,000 pricing dominates every other cost. And anyone whose compliance posture requires mail to leave from their own AWS account. For those teams SES is the right call; this page is for everyone else.

Can I keep my SES suppression list when I move?

Yes. Export the addresses on your SES account-level suppression list, then upload them as a CSV or text file, one address per line, under Suppressions in the Notix dashboard. Do this before the first production send so a receipt never reaches an address that bounced or complained while you were on SES.

Does Notix run on Amazon SES?

Notix does not publish which infrastructure it sends through, and this page makes no claim about it. What it does state is what you get on top of the sending layer, and that the free plan, the Pro price, the suppression behaviour and the APIs described here are what the product does today.

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