SendKernel vs raw AWS SES
This product runs on SES, so the comparison is really about whether you want to build the layer above it. SES is astonishingly cheap and gives you nothing else: no contact storage, no unsubscribe handling, no suppression logic, no templates, no dashboard, no compliance enforcement.
Competitor pricing verified September 2, 2026 from public pages. Check before switching — everyone's pricing moves.
Choose raw AWS SES if
- You have engineers with time, and email is core enough to your product to justify owning it.
- Your volume is high enough that SES infrastructure cost dominates any platform fee.
- You already run infrastructure on AWS and want everything in one bill and one IAM boundary.
- You need something unusual that no platform exposes.
Choose SendKernel if
- You do not want to build bounce and complaint handling, a suppression list, unsubscribe endpoints, and DKIM management before you can send your first campaign.
- You want someone else watching your reputation metrics at 3am.
- You want your non-technical colleagues to be able to send without a deploy.
- You want the CAN-SPAM footer and RFC 8058 headers to be someone else's problem.
Side by side
| raw AWS SES | SendKernel | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per 1,000 transactional emails | $0.10 a-la-carte; new accounts default to $0.16 Essentials | $0.36 at Sending Starter |
| Contact storage | Build it | Included |
| Bounce and complaint handling | Build it (SNS + your code) | Automatic |
| Suppression list | Build it | Automatic and permanent |
| One-click unsubscribe | Build it | Injected on every send |
| CAN-SPAM footer | Build it | Injected on every send |
| Reputation monitoring | CloudWatch alarms you configure | Automatic pause at 0.3% |
| Dashboard for non-engineers | None | Yes |
| Time to first campaign | Days to weeks | Ten minutes |
Questions people actually ask
- Are you just reselling SES?
- No, and that distinction matters legally as well as practically. Reselling would mean passing through raw sending capacity with a markup. What you are paying for is contact storage, compliance enforcement, reputation isolation per customer, delivery event processing, the assistant, and the dashboard. SES is one component underneath.
- At what volume should I move to raw SES?
- Somewhere north of a million emails a month, if you have engineering capacity to spare and email is strategically important to you. Below that, the fully loaded cost of building and maintaining the layer exceeds the platform fee, usually by a lot.
- Can I use my own AWS account?
- Not on the self-serve plans. Every organization gets an isolated SES tenant inside our account, which is what lets us stop one customer's reputation problem from affecting anyone else's delivery.
Try it before you migrate anything
The free plan does not expire. Verify a domain, import a small segment, and send one campaign before you move your list.
Start free