Two transactional email providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
AWS SES wins price and deliverabilityMailgun wins developer experience and sending APIs
Updated August 2026
At a glanceAWS SESMailgun
Entry price$0.10$0.80
Cost per 1k @ 100k$0.1$0.9
Free tier3,000/mo (1st yr)100/day
G2 rating4.24.5
THE VERDICT
AWS SES wins on price and deliverability. Mailgun wins on developer experience and sending APIs.
AWS SES starts at $0.10 versus Mailgun's $0.80. Mailgun rates higher with developers (4.5 vs 4.2 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Which should you choose?
Pick AWS SES
✓It is suitable for developers on the AWS ecosystem who want to integrate a mailing system into their software.
✓It is suitable for firms or brands to send bulk transactional emails.
Winner cells are tinted, green where AWS SES leads, violet where Mailgun does.
capability
AWS SES
Mailgun
Pricing
Starting paid plan
$0/mo
$15/mo
Cost per 1k @ 100k
$0.1
$0.9
Pricing model
Pay-as-you-go
Hybrid
Overage
$0.10 per 1,000 emails (flat Pay-as-you-go)
from $1.10 / 1,000 emails
Deliverability
Dedicated IP
Add-on
Plan-gated
Deliverability tooling
Yes
Yes
Automated IP warmup
Yes
Yes
Suppression management
Yes
Yes
SPF / DKIM / DMARC
Yes
Yes
BIMI
Yes
—
API & sending
Transactional API
Yes
Yes
Marketing campaigns
No
—
SMTP relay
Yes
Yes
Inbound routing
Yes
Yes
Dynamic templates
Yes
Yes
Batch send
Yes
Yes
Scheduled send
—
Yes
Developer experience
Official SDKs
Java, Python, JavaScript/Node.js, .NET, Ruby, Go, PHP, C++
Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, Node.js, Go
Event webhooks
Yes
Yes
Drag-and-drop editor
No
Yes
Custom HTML editor
Yes
Yes
Email validation
Add-on
Add-on
Log retention
—
1-30 days
Sandbox / test mode
Yes
Yes
Analytics
Open / click tracking
Yes
Yes
Analytics dashboard
Yes
Yes
A/B testing
No
Yes
Compliance
EU data residency
Yes
Yes
SOC 2
Yes
Yes
HIPAA
BAA
BAA
GDPR
Yes
Yes
ISO 27001
Yes
Yes
Support
Support channels
Email, Chat, Phone (via AWS Support plans)
Email/ticket, Chat, Phone
24/7 support
Yes
—
Support SLA
Plan-gated
Plan-gated
FAQ
Common questions
AWS SES starts at $0.10 versus Mailgun's $0.80. Because pricing models differ by tier, the cheaper option depends on your monthly volume, so compare the pricing rows in the scorecard above.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of August 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. Mailgun is a Sinch product.