Lumail vs Amazon SES
Lumail
Amazon SES
Cloud email sending API and SMTP relay
Lumail and Amazon SES pricing and feature comparison
Free allowance
Lumail
$0
Amazon SES
No free plan
$0 · 3,000 emails · Unlimited subscribers
No free plan
Paid entry
$20/month, 40,000 included, then $0.60/1,000
$0.10 per 1,000 emails, no monthly minimum
Pricing basis
Unlimited subscribers; pricing follows email volume
Per email sent or processed, charged per recipient, plus optional add-ons
Automation
Graph workflows with triggers, branches, goals, exits, and A/B paths
No visual journeys; inbound rules can trigger AWS services like Lambda
AI and developer access
ChatGPT OAuth, MCP, skills, CLI, SDK, REST API, and visual editor
AWS SDKs and CLI; the SES MCP server is a sample, not for production
Transactional email
Included through API, SMTP, SDK, CLI, and agent tools
Core product, via the SES API or SMTP
Publishing surface
Capture pages and custom web domains; not a general website builder
No newsletter publication, visual campaign editor, or capture pages
Choose Lumail if…
- You want a newsletter platform, not a sending API you have to build on
- You want agents to run campaigns and workflows through 89 MCP tools, CLI, and SDK
- You do not want to manage AWS sandbox approval, IAM, and regional quotas
Choose Amazon SES if…
- Raw sending cost matters most and you can handle the AWS setup
- You already send email from application code on AWS
- You need inbound processing, archiving, or dedicated IP pools
Where Amazon SES is strong
A real alternative, not a straw man.
Amazon SES is AWS's pay-as-you-go email API and SMTP relay for high-volume transactional, bulk, and inbound mail. It is not a hosted newsletter platform. People pick Amazon SES when they need engineering teams on AWS that want the lowest public per-email price for high-volume sending.
- Among the lowest public rates: $0.10 per 1,000 emails, no minimum
- API, SMTP, AWS SDKs, dedicated IPs, and inbound mail processing
- Built for extreme volume, with customers such as Netflix and Duolingo
Don't trust the table. Run one journey.
Checklists lie by flattening the work. Build one real path: a trigger, a wait, a branch, a goal, an exit. Then open one subscriber and see what actually happened. That tells you more than any feature row.
- 1. Import a small, consented sample. Not the whole list.
- 2. Recreate one campaign and the audience it actually hits.
- 3. Publish one automation with a goal you can measure.
- 4. Fire a test and read every event on one person.
- 5. Compare the weekly work, not the setup afternoon.
Try it on a real send
Keep the whole list. Pay when you send.
3,000 emails free, no card. Rebuild one campaign, one workflow, and one transactional message before you move anyone. If it feels worse than Amazon SES, stay.
The questions people actually ask
Is Lumail cheaper than Amazon SES?
Sometimes. Lumail is $0 for 3,000 emails, then $20 for 40,000. Amazon SES's number only makes sense after you know what they cap: contacts, seats, a daily send limit, or a feature they hide behind a paid plan. Read the honest take above, then price a normal month and a launch month on both pages.
What is the main difference between Lumail and Amazon SES?
Choose Amazon SES if you already run on AWS and only need cheap, scalable sending from your own app. Choose Lumail if you want campaigns, workflows, capture pages, and agent-run newsletters without building them on top of SES.
Can I migrate from Amazon SES to Lumail?
Yes. Don't move the whole list on day one. Export a small consented sample, rebuild one campaign and one automation, authenticate your domain, then watch one subscriber go through the run. If that feels right, move the rest.