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Email Marketing · head to head

Amazon SES vs Moosend

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
Moosend logo

Moosend

Email Marketing

Low-cost email marketing from 9 US dollars a month, owned by Sitecore since 2021

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Moosend there is no free forever plan, only a 30-day trial, so a very small list that would sit inside Mailchimp or MailerLite free tiers has to start paying immediately.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon SES covers Send and receive API, Moosend covers All features at every tier.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Amazon SES and Moosend differ
AttributeAmazon SESMoosend
Pricing modelPer 1,000 emails sent, tiered by volume, no campaign features includedPer month by contact count
PlatformsWebWeb, API

Identical on both: starting price (On request), free tier (No), 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 Moosend

  • All features at every tier
  • Automation workflows
  • Drag-and-drop email builder
  • Landing pages and forms
  • Segmentation
  • SMTP relay
  • Credit model
  • Ecommerce tracking

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 Moosend
  • A company building its own email product or newsletter tool on AWS and wanting to own the campaign layer itselfnot Moosend
  • A business already deep in AWS infrastructure wanting to avoid adding a separate marketing-platform vendor for pure transactional sendingnot Moosend
  • A high-volume sender for whom SES's per-thousand rate is materially cheaper than a marketing platform's equivalent volume pricingnot Moosend

Moosend

  • A small ecommerce store that wants abandoned cart automation without paying for a tier upgrade to unlock itnot Amazon SES
  • A charity or seasonal business that sends heavily twice a year and would waste a monthly subscription, using the credit packs insteadnot Amazon SES
  • An agency managing several small client lists that needs automation on every account without per-account tier jumpsnot Amazon SES
  • A business moving off Mailchimp purely on cost that still needs landing pages and a working automation buildernot 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.

Moosend

  • There is no free forever plan, only a 30-day trial, so a very small list that would sit inside Mailchimp or MailerLite free tiers has to start paying immediately.
  • Sitecore acquired Moosend in 2021 and Moosend is a low-price product inside an enterprise digital experience vendor, so it competes for investment against products with far higher deal values.
  • The prices for higher contact tiers are not shown as a table; you must select your contact count to reveal a figure, which makes comparing the cost curve against competitors tedious.
  • The integration catalogue is small compared with Klaviyo or ActiveCampaign, and deep ecommerce features such as predictive segmentation and advanced product recommendations are shallow by comparison.
  • Deliverability on shared infrastructure at the entry tier is adequate rather than good, and dedicated IP access sits in the quoted Enterprise tier, which matters if you send high volume to cold-ish lists.

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

Moosend

On request
  • Pro$9/month
    • 500 contacts at this price, scaling with list size
    • Unlimited emails
    • Automation workflows
  • Moosend+$undefined/month
    • Pro features plus selected enterprise add-ons
    • Configured per customer
    • Pricing quoted, not published
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Dedicated account management and SLA
    • Custom reporting and priority support
    • Dedicated IP options
  • Email credits$350/month
    • 350,000 credits for 350 US dollars, scaling to 1,000,000 for 1,000
    • No monthly subscription required
    • Suited to businesses that send in bursts rather than continuously

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon SES if

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

Choose Moosend if

  • You need all features at every tier.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want automation workflows.
Moosend review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon SES or Moosend better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon SES starts at On request and Moosend at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon SES or Moosend?
Amazon SES starts at On request and Moosend at On request.
Does Amazon SES or Moosend run on more platforms?
Amazon SES runs on Web. Moosend runs on Web, API.
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 Moosend is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon SES do that Moosend cannot?
Amazon SES covers Send and receive API, Deliverability infrastructure, Bounce and complaint handling, Mail Manager. Moosend covers All features at every tier, Automation workflows, Drag-and-drop email builder, Landing pages and forms.

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.

Moosend: Does Moosend have a free plan?

No. It has a 30-day trial with unlimited sends to 1,000 contacts, then you must move to a paid plan or buy credits.

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.

Moosend: Are features restricted on the cheapest plan?

No, and this is the main reason to choose it. Every Pro feature is available at every contact tier; only list size changes the price.

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.

Moosend: Who owns Moosend?

Sitecore, which acquired it in 2021. The product remains sold under the Moosend name at its own pricing.

Moosend: What are email credits for?

Irregular senders. 350 US dollars buys 350,000 credits with no monthly subscription, which is cheaper than a year of subscription for a business that sends in bursts.

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