Amazon SES vs listmonk: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Amazon SES and listmonk to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Amazon SES
6.8/10
Amazon Simple Email Service is AWS's pay-as-you-go cloud email API and SMTP service for sending transactional and bulk marketing email at high volume.
listmonk
6.6/10
listmonk is a free, open-source, self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager. Technical teams use it to send high-volume email campaigns and transactional email through their own SMTP providers.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon SES | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 6.8/10 | 6.6/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 3/10 | 4/10 |
| Customization | 7/10 | 9/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Support | 4/10 | 3/10 |
| Cost | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 5/10 |
| Analytics | 5/10 | 5/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $105/mo Pro | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $105/mo Pro | Free Self-hosted (open source) |
| Features | ||
| Email Marketing | ||
| Segmentation | Not listed | |
| SMS Marketing | Not listed | |
| Webinars | Not listed | |
Amazon SES vs listmonk cost by team size
listmonk costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon SES | listmonk |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $105/moPro | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 5 users | $105/moPro | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 10 users | $105/moPro | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 25 users | $105/moPro | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
| 50 users | $105/moPro | FreeSelf-hosted (open source) |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon SES
- Higher Security score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Integration score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (8/10 vs 5/10)
- Better fit for e-commerce (6/10 vs 3/10)
Why choose listmonk
- Has a free plan (Amazon SES does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $105/mo
- Higher Customization score (9/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (4/10 vs 3/10)
Pros & Cons
AAmazon SES
Pros
- The a la carte rate of 0.10 USD per 1,000 emails is one of the lowest in the category, and several comparison articles call SES the cheapest option by volume.
- Tiered rates continue past 100M emails per month, so very high-volume senders can grow without changing providers.
- It supports SPF, DKIM and DMARC authentication, TLS 1.2 and above, and KMS encryption for mail stored in S3.
- Optional dedicated IPs, BYOIP and Virtual Deliverability Manager give large senders control over their sending reputation.
Cons
- New accounts start in a sandbox and must request production access, and users on re:Post and Reddit complain about denials.
- There is no visual campaign builder, marketing automation or landing pages, so marketers need a separate tool on top of SES.
- Reviewers on Capterra and G2 report a learning curve and setup effort, including configuring SNS to handle bounces and complaints.
- Hands-on support requires a paid AWS support plan, and add-ons such as VDM and dedicated IPs raise the total cost.
listmonk
Pros
- The software has no licence or per-subscriber fees. A reviewer estimates 100,000 subscribers on weekly sends costs about 45 USD a month in hosting and SES fees.
- Reviewers report it handles hundreds of thousands to millions of subscribers on modest hardware.
- Multi-SMTP queues with rate limiting let you mix providers such as SES, Postmark or Mailgun.
- SQL-based segmentation and Go templating give developers very fine control.
- It includes a transactional API, OIDC SSO, role-based permissions and scoped API tokens.
Cons
- You must set up and run Docker or the binary, PostgreSQL, a reverse proxy and SMTP yourself.
- Support comes only from the community on GitHub, with no SLA.
- It has no behavioural automation or drip sequences.
- Deliverability and list cleaning depend on your own DNS and provider configuration.
- Reviewers say it has fewer integrations, templates and tutorials than commercial platforms.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon SES scores higher on our Marketing criteria: 6.8/10 against 6.6/10 for listmonk. The largest gap is in Customization: 7/10 for Amazon SES and 9/10 for listmonk.
Listmonk costs less for 10 users: free on its Self-hosted (open source) plan, against about $105/mo on its Pro plan for Amazon SES, billed monthly.
Listmonk has a free plan; Amazon SES does not list one.
Amazon SES is the better fit for e-commerce: we rate it 6/10 for them, against 3/10 for listmonk.
