Transactional Email · decision tool
Resend vs Amazon SES — convenience vs the price floor
SES is ~9× cheaper per email but ships zero tooling. The crossover depends on your volume and your time — set both and see where you land.
Prices verified 2026-07-15 against official pricing pages · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration
As of Jul 2026, with 20,000 emails/month, a $20 budget for this slot, Amazon SES ranks first for these inputs at 81% fit and a StackSays-estimated $2.00/month (Resend: 75% fit, $20.00/month). Fit weights are our estimates; prices trace to official pages. Change any input below and the verdict recomputes.
Your situation
The verdict updates as you move these.
Narrow pick — the runner-up is close
The price floor: $0.10 per 1,000 emails, bring your own dashboards
vs Resend: fit 81% against 75%, est $2.00 against $20.00 per month
Comparing 2 tools head-to-head. Open the full field (5 options) →
The decision, in plain words
For a solo builder at 20,000 emails/month and a $20.00/mo budget for the email provider slot, Amazon SES leads at 81% fit and $2.00/mo. The two rules doing the work: budget fit (~$2/mo is 10% of your $20/mo budget); ecosystem maturity (established — our estimate from ecosystem age, docs and hiring pool).
Resend runs close (75% fit, $20.00/mo). It takes the lead if ~$20/mo is 100% of your $20/mo budget matters more to you than the current weights assume.
Honest weak spot of the pick: no free tier — paying from day one.
Generated from the calculation above — every number traces to the sourced data; nothing here is written by an AI making things up.
Why Amazon SES scores 81%
How the $2.00/mo estimate is calculated
What could change this verdict
Cost risk
Official prices verified 2026-07-15; calculation is deterministic code over those prices.
At a glance
| Tool | Free tier | Paid entry | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resend | 3,000 emails/month (100/day), 1 domain | Pro 50K $20/mo | 2026-07-15 |
| Amazon SES | No free tier | Pay-as-you-go — Flat $0.10/1K sent. Free tier is 3K/month for the first 12 months only — not permanent. Dedicated IP $24.95/mo optional | 2026-07-15 |
Data sources
| Tool | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| Resend | Resend pricing page | 2026-07-15 |
| Amazon SES | Amazon SES pricing page | 2026-07-15 |
A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.
People also ask
Is Resend free forever?
The free tier is permanent: 3,000 emails/month capped at 100/day, one domain (verified 2026-07-15). It's a real production lane for small apps — the cap you'll hit first is the 100/day on bursty signup days.
Is Amazon SES free?
Not permanently — the 3K/month free allowance lasts only your first 12 months on AWS (verified 2026-07-15). After that it's $0.10 per 1,000 emails, which is still the price floor of the industry: 100K emails ≈ $10 vs $35–90 elsewhere.