Two transactional email providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
AWS SES wins on price and deliverability. SparkPost wins on sending APIs and analytics.
AWS SES starts at $0.10 versus SparkPost's $20. AWS SES rates higher with developers (4.2 vs 4.0 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where AWS SES leads, violet where SparkPost does.
FAQ
AWS SES starts at $0.10 versus SparkPost's $20. Because pricing models differ by tier, the cheaper option depends on your monthly volume, so compare the pricing rows in the scorecard above.
Amazon SES is pay-as-you-go with no fixed monthly plan. Outbound email through shared sending costs $0.10 per 1,000 emails, or $0.0001 per message, and is billed per recipient rather than per message. Additional charges apply for outgoing attachment data, dedicated IP addresses, and inbound email processing.
On current Bird pricing, signup provides a test API key for evaluation rather than an ongoing free production allowance. SparkPost historically offered a free monthly volume for some accounts, but the published Bird email plans now start with the paid Starter tier. Teams needing a permanent free sending quota should confirm current terms directly with Bird.
Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route AWS SES, SparkPost, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. SparkPost is a Bird (MessageBird) product.