Can you send newsletters with Amazon SES?

Not on its own — SES is a sending API with no UI, lists, or templates. You need a layer on top. Broadcast manages subscribers and campaigns and sends them through your SES account, so you get newsletters at SES prices.

Does Broadcast replace SES or work with it?

It works with it. You connect your SES credentials and Broadcast sends through them, keeping SES's pricing and deliverability. You can also switch to Postmark, Mailgun, or any SMTP without changing platforms.

Self-hosted — one-time license

The Amazon SES alternative — and front-end

Amazon SES is the cheapest way to push email at scale, but it stops at the API. No dashboard, no subscriber lists, no campaign builder, no unsubscribe handling. Broadcast is the marketing platform that fills that gap — running on your own server for a one-time license, and sending through SES underneath. Keep SES’s pricing; add everything it’s missing.

Buy Broadcast — $250 Calculate your savings

The short answer

There are two reasons people look for an Amazon SES alternative. If you want simpler managed sending, Postmark and Mailgun trade SES’s low price for an easier setup. If you’re frustrated that SES has no UI, lists, templates, or campaigns, the answer isn’t a different sending provider — it’s a front-end. Broadcast is a self-hosted, one-time-purchase ($250) marketing platform that runs on top of SES, adding contact lists, a campaign and template editor, automations, segmentation, and one-click unsubscribe — while keeping SES’s roughly $0.10-per-1,000-emails pricing underneath.

At a Glance

What it is

SES: Raw sending API/SMTP

Broadcast: Marketing platform on top

UI / campaigns

SES: None — you build it

Broadcast: Lists, editor, automations

Pricing

SES: ~$0.10 / 1,000 emails

Broadcast: $250 once + SES

Unsubscribe / GDPR

SES: Your responsibility

Broadcast: Built-in

Straight answer: Broadcast doesn’t replace Amazon SES — it completes it. SES remains the thing that physically delivers your mail, and it’s hard to beat on price. What Broadcast replaces is the pile of glue code you’d otherwise write yourself: subscriber management, a campaign UI, templates, segmentation, bounce and complaint handling, and compliant unsubscribes. If your real goal is to stop building a mini-ESP around SES by hand, Broadcast is that alternative. If you want to leave SES entirely for fully managed sending, look at Postmark or Mailgun instead — and Broadcast still sits on top of whichever you pick.

What raw SES leaves you to build

The common reasons teams outgrow a hand-rolled SES setup

No campaign UI

SES sends one API call at a time. Broadcast gives you a campaign and template editor to send a newsletter without writing code.

No list management

SES has no concept of a subscriber. Broadcast manages lists, tags, custom fields, and segments out of the box.

Unsubscribes & compliance

CAN-SPAM and GDPR unsubscribe handling is on you with SES. Broadcast does one-click unsubscribe and suppression automatically.

Bounce & complaint handling

Ignore SNS bounce/complaint events and SES will pause you. Broadcast processes them so your account stays in good standing.

Sandbox & sending limits

SES starts sandboxed with quotas you must raise. Broadcast paces your sends to respect SES limits as you scale.

Open/click analytics

Tracking on SES means wiring up configuration sets. Broadcast reports opens, clicks, and deliverability per campaign.

More on getting the best out of SES: email deliverability guide and SES vs Postmark vs Mailgun.

Broadcast + SES vs raw SES

Feature	Broadcast (on SES)	Amazon SES alone
Campaign & template editor	Yes	No
Subscriber lists & segments	Yes	No
Automations / sequences	Built-in	No
Unsubscribe / GDPR	Automatic	Build it yourself
Bounce / complaint handling	Handled	SNS wiring on you
Open / click analytics	Per campaign	Config sets required
Sending cost	SES rates (unchanged)	~$0.10 / 1,000
Platform cost	$250 one-time	Free (your dev time)
Data ownership	Your server	AWS account

Who Should Choose What

Choose Broadcast on SES if you…

• Like SES’s price but need lists, campaigns, and a UI
• Don’t want to hand-build unsubscribe and bounce handling
• Want to send newsletters, not just transactional API calls
• Want to own the platform and data on your own server
• Prefer a one-time license over a monthly SaaS bill

Stay on raw SES (or move to Postmark) if you…

• Only send transactional email from your app
• Already have your own sending tooling you’re happy with
• Want fully managed sending with less setup (try Postmark/Mailgun)
• Have no marketing list to manage

Frequently Asked Questions

Not on its own — SES is a sending API with no UI, lists, or templates. You need a layer on top. Broadcast is that layer: it manages subscribers and campaigns and sends them through your SES account, so you get newsletters at SES prices.

It works with it. You connect your SES credentials and Broadcast sends through them, so you keep SES’s pricing and deliverability. You can also switch to Postmark, Mailgun, or any SMTP without changing platforms.

It helps. Broadcast processes bounces and complaints and suppresses bad addresses automatically — the handling SES expects but doesn’t do for you. It also honors unsubscribes, which keeps complaint rates down. You’re still responsible for sending to people who opted in.

Both are one-time purchases that wrap SES. Sendy is a low-cost, no-frills wrapper; Broadcast costs more but adds real automations, segmentation, multi-provider support, and agency licensing. See the full Broadcast vs Sendy comparison.