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Email Marketing · head to head

Amazon SES vs Klaviyo

Amazon SES logo

Amazon SES

Email Marketing

Raw transactional email infrastructure priced per thousand messages, with no campaign UI at all

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Klaviyo logo

Klaviyo

Email Marketing

The email and SMS marketing platform for ecommerce

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Klaviyo has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon SES there is no campaign UI, template editor, list management or scheduling interface at all, so any marketer-facing use case requires building or buying a separate application on top of the raw API.; Klaviyo the free plan caps active profiles at 250 and sends at 500 emails a month
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon SES covers Send and receive API, Klaviyo covers Email marketing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon SES and Klaviyo actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon SES and Klaviyo differ
AttributeAmazon SESKlaviyo
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelPer 1,000 emails sent, tiered by volume, no campaign features includedfreemium
Free tierNoYes
FoundedUnknown2012

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Email Marketing).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Amazon SES

  • Send and receive API
  • Deliverability infrastructure
  • Bounce and complaint handling
  • Mail Manager
  • Configuration sets
  • Dedicated IP options

Only in Klaviyo

  • Email marketing
  • SMS marketing
  • Push notifications
  • Marketing automation
  • Segmentation
  • A/B testing
  • Reporting & analytics
  • Ecommerce integrations

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Amazon SES

  • An engineering team sending transactional email (receipts, password resets, alerts) at a volume where per-message cost dominates the decisionnot Klaviyo
  • A company building its own email product or newsletter tool on AWS and wanting to own the campaign layer itselfnot Klaviyo
  • A business already deep in AWS infrastructure wanting to avoid adding a separate marketing-platform vendor for pure transactional sendingnot Klaviyo
  • A high-volume sender for whom SES's per-thousand rate is materially cheaper than a marketing platform's equivalent volume pricingnot Klaviyo

Klaviyo

  • Email and SMS marketing automation for ecommerce storesnot Amazon SES
  • Segmenting customers on purchase and behaviour datanot Amazon SES

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Amazon SES

  • There is no campaign UI, template editor, list management or scheduling interface at all, so any marketer-facing use case requires building or buying a separate application on top of the raw API.
  • Deliverability and sender reputation management are the sender's responsibility to configure correctly; a mistake in DKIM, SPF or DMARC setup has no support layer catching it before it affects deliverability.
  • New accounts start in a sandbox with strict sending limits and must request production access from AWS, adding a manual approval step some competitors do not require.
  • Inbound email processing via Mail Manager is priced and configured separately from outbound sending, so a bidirectional email use case is really two separate services to set up.
  • Comparing its per-message price directly against Campaign Monitor or Zoho Campaigns is misleading, since those prices include a full marketing platform that SES does not provide at any price.

Klaviyo

  • The free plan caps active profiles at 250 and sends at 500 emails a month
  • Pricing scales with stored profile count rather than with messages sent, so an unengaged list costs the same as an active one
  • SMS is metered separately, with only $5 of mobile messages included on the free plan
  • Paid tier prices are not published on the pricing page and depend on profile count

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon SES

On request
  • Essentials$undefined/month
    • $0.16 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million a month
    • $0.14 per 1,000 from 10 to 100 million a month
    • $0.11 per 1,000 above 100 million a month, no fixed monthly fee
  • Pro$undefined/month
    • $0.22 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million a month, scaling down at volume
    • $105 fixed monthly fee per account per region
    • Higher sending limits and support options
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • $0.23 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million a month, scaling down at volume
    • $500 fixed monthly fee per account per region
    • Highest support tier and sending limits

Klaviyo

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Up to 500 contacts
    • Unlimited campaigns
    • Basic automation
  • Pro$20/month
    • Unlimited contacts
    • SMS campaigns
    • Advanced automation

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon SES if

  • You need send and receive api.
  • You also want deliverability infrastructure.
Amazon SES review

Choose Klaviyo if

  • You need email marketing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want sms marketing.
Klaviyo review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon SES or Klaviyo better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon SES starts at On request and Klaviyo at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon SES or Klaviyo?
Klaviyo has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Amazon SES and Free for Klaviyo.
Does Amazon SES or Klaviyo run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Klaviyo for free?
Yes. Klaviyo has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Amazon SES starts at On request.
What is Amazon SES best used for?
Amazon SES is most often used for an engineering team sending transactional email (receipts, password resets, alerts) at a volume where per-message cost dominates the decision, a company building its own email product or newsletter tool on aws and wanting to own the campaign layer itself, a business already deep in aws infrastructure wanting to avoid adding a separate marketing-platform vendor for pure transactional sending, a high-volume sender for whom ses's per-thousand rate is materially cheaper than a marketing platform's equivalent volume pricing. Of those, an engineering team sending transactional email (receipts, password resets, alerts) at a volume where per-message cost dominates the decision and a company building its own email product or newsletter tool on aws and wanting to own the campaign layer itself are not what Klaviyo is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon SES do that Klaviyo cannot?
Amazon SES covers Send and receive API, Deliverability infrastructure, Bounce and complaint handling, Mail Manager. Klaviyo covers Email marketing, SMS marketing, Push notifications, Marketing automation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon SES: Can I use SES for marketing campaigns like Campaign Monitor?

Technically yes via the API, but there is no campaign UI, segmentation tool or template editor; you would need to build or buy that layer separately.

Klaviyo: Is Klaviyo free?

Klaviyo has a free tier covering up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends per month and $5 of mobile messages per month, with 10,000 Composer credits. Email support on the free tier lasts only the first 60 days.

Source
Amazon SES: Is there a free tier?

New AWS customers can access AWS Free Tier credits usable against SES for a limited period, but there is no permanent free sending allowance.

Klaviyo: How much does Klaviyo cost?

Klaviyo does not publish a paid rate card on its pricing page. Paid tiers are priced by active profile count and message volume, and a figure is produced through the plan estimator rather than shown as a list price.

Source
Amazon SES: Why is it so much cheaper per email than a marketing platform?

Because it sells only the sending infrastructure; the price excludes every campaign management feature a marketing platform bundles into its per-email cost.

Klaviyo: What counts as an active profile in Klaviyo?

Klaviyo defines active profiles as the contacts eligible to receive marketing, and the free tier is limited to 250 of them. Profile count is the main input to what a paid plan costs.

Source
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