What It Costs to Send 100,000 Emails a Month on Your Own Server
On your own server, 100,000 emails a month costs $22 a month on Amazon SES, $102 on Mailgun and $127 on Postmark. That is the provider’s list price plus a $12 DigitalOcean server. The software is a one-time cost on top.
The provider you pick moves the bill more than anything else. Postmark costs more than eleven times what SES costs for the same 100,000 emails. At that volume, self-hosting on Postmark or Mailgun costs more each month than Brevo’s hosted Starter plan.
Conflict of interest: we make Broadcast, the self-hosted software used for the one-time cost below. Every other figure is a published list price, checked on October 17, 2026 unless the source says otherwise, and linked in the sources. How each number was worked out is in the method.
100,000 emails a month
| Sending provider | Provider, per month | Server, per month | Total, per month | Three years, with the $250 license |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon SES | $10 | $12 | $22 | $1,042 |
| Mailgun (Scale) | $90 | $12 | $102 | $3,922 |
| Postmark (Basic) | $115 | $12 | $127 | $4,822 |
The server here is DigitalOcean’s 2 GB Droplet, which meets Broadcast’s minimum. On the recommended 4 GB Droplet at $24, add $12 to each monthly total and $432 to each three-year total: $34 a month on SES, $114 on Mailgun, $139 on Postmark.
Why Mailgun’s Scale plan and Postmark’s Basic plan: they are the cheapest published plans that include 100,000 emails. Mailgun’s Basic plan with overage would be $177, and its Foundation plan with overage $100. Postmark’s 50,000 tier with overage would be $145, so its 125,000 tier at $115 is cheaper.
At 10,000 and 1,000,000 emails a month
| Emails a month | Server | Amazon SES | Mailgun | Postmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | 2 GB, $12 | $1 + $12 = $13 | $15 + $12 = $27 | $15 + $12 = $27 |
| 100,000 | 2 GB, $12 | $10 + $12 = $22 | $90 + $12 = $102 | $115 + $12 = $127 |
| 1,000,000 | 4 GB, $24 | $100 + $24 = $124 | No list price, sales quote | $775 + $24 = $799 |
At 10,000 emails the provider barely matters. The server is most of the bill, and every option is under $30 a month.
At a million emails it matters a lot. SES is $124 a month all in. Postmark is $799, using its 1.5 million tier, which is cheaper than its 700,000 tier plus overage ($965). Mailgun publishes no price above its 100,000 Scale plan and asks you to request a quote. Scale plus its listed overage rate of “from $1.10” per 1,000 would be $1,080, but that is our arithmetic, not a price Mailgun quotes.
Over three years, a million emails a month is $4,714 on SES and $29,014 on Postmark, each with the $250 license.
What the same 100,000 emails cost on a hosted platform
Hosted platforms mostly charge by subscriber, not by email. 100,000 emails a month is a weekly newsletter to 25,000 subscribers, four sends a month. Here is that list on three hosted plans:
| Platform and plan | Priced on | Per month | Three years | Price as of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp Standard | 25,000 contacts | $310 | $11,160 | August 2026 |
| Kit Creator | 25,000 subscribers | $199 | $7,164 | September 2026 |
| Brevo Starter | 100,000 emails | $69 | $2,484 | August 2026 |
| Broadcast on Amazon SES | 100,000 emails | $22 | $1,042 | October 2026 |
Monthly billing for every hosted plan. The hosted prices come from our own pricing pages for each platform, which cite their sources and dates.
Brevo is the honest surprise. It charges by emails sent, so a large list that gets one email a week stays cheap there. If you plan to self-host on Postmark or Mailgun, Brevo Starter costs less per month at this volume. Self-hosting wins on price when you pair it with SES, or when your list grows faster than your sending.
Why per-subscriber bills keep climbing
Mailchimp and Kit charge for how many people you could email, not for how many emails you send. A subscriber who never opens costs the same as your best customer. So the bill goes up with every signup, and it goes up fastest in the months your list grows fastest. It also never stops: three years of Mailchimp Standard at 25,000 contacts is $11,160, and year four adds another $3,720.
On your own server the list itself costs nothing. You pay only for the emails you send. On SES, a weekly email to another 25,000 subscribers is 100,000 more emails a month, which adds $10 to the bill.
The server, sized from our own tests
Broadcast’s system requirements are 2 GB of RAM, 1 CPU core and 40 GB of disk at minimum, and 4 GB, 2 cores and 60 GB recommended. DigitalOcean’s $12 Droplet has 2 GB, 1 vCPU and 50 GB. Its $24 Droplet has 4 GB, 2 vCPUs and 80 GB. Those are the two sizes in the tables.
The 2 GB figure is not a guess. When we shipped Low memory mode in Broadcast 2.44, we tested it on a 2 GB server with a real automatic installation. Over three hours it sent a new broadcast every 15 minutes, 24,060 emails in total, and every one was delivered. The job server peaked at 375 MB. The full write-up is in Broadcast fits on a 2 GB server again.
We have not yet timed a full 100,000 or 1,000,000 email month end to end on either size. That is why the million-email row uses the recommended 4 GB server.
What the numbers leave out
Sales tax and VAT. DigitalOcean’s paid backups. Your domain name. A dedicated IP, which SES lists at $24.95 a month per IP and which most senders under a few hundred thousand emails a month do not need. Attachments, which SES bills at $0.12 per GB. Free credits for new accounts on AWS and DigitalOcean, which make the first months cheaper.
And your time. You run the server, apply updates and set up your sending domain. Broadcast updates from a button on its dashboard, but someone still has to click it.
Method
All provider and server prices were read from each vendor’s pricing page on October 17, 2026, in US dollars, on monthly billing, before tax.
For each volume we used the cheapest published plan that includes that many emails, and checked it against the next plan down plus that plan’s overage rate. Postmark’s volume tiers (10,000 for $15, 50,000 for $55, 125,000 for $115, 300,000 for $245, 700,000 for $455 and 1,500,000 for $775 on Basic) come from the price slider on its pricing page. Amazon SES is the à la carte rate of $0.10 per 1,000 emails, not one of its newer bundled plans.
Server size follows Broadcast’s documented requirements and the 2 GB test above: the minimum for 10,000 and 100,000 emails, the recommended size for 1,000,000.
Three-year totals are the $250 Broadcast license plus 36 months of provider and server. Hosted three-year totals are 36 months at the listed price. The 100,000-email hosted comparison assumes a weekly newsletter, four emails a month to each subscriber, so 25,000 subscribers.
The pricing calculator runs the same SES math for your own list size and send frequency.
Sources
- Amazon SES: aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing, as of October 17, 2026. À la carte outbound email $0.10 per 1,000; dedicated IP $24.95 per month; attachments $0.12 per GB.
- Postmark: postmarkapp.com/pricing, as of October 17, 2026. Basic tiers listed in the method above; overage $1.80 per 1,000 on the tiers below 300,000 emails and $1.70 per 1,000 from the 300,000 tier up.
- Mailgun: mailgun.com/pricing, as of October 17, 2026. Basic $15 for 10,000 emails, Foundation $35 for 50,000, Scale $90 for 100,000; overage from $1.80, $1.30 and $1.10 per 1,000; higher volumes by quote.
- DigitalOcean: digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets, as of October 17, 2026. Basic Droplets: 2 GiB, 1 vCPU, 50 GiB SSD at $12 a month; 4 GiB, 2 vCPUs, 80 GiB SSD at $24 a month.
- Mailchimp Standard at 25,000 contacts: our Mailchimp pricing page, from Mailchimp’s pricing page and EmailToolTester’s August 2026 breakdown.
- Kit Creator at 25,000 subscribers: our Kit pricing page, from kit.com/pricing and EmailToolTester’s September 2026 breakdown.
- Brevo Starter at 100,000 emails: our Brevo pricing page, from EmailToolTester’s August 2026 breakdown.
- Broadcast: $250 once for one server, from our pricing page. Requirements from the system requirements docs. The 2 GB test from the 2.44 release post.
Prices change. If one of these has moved, tell us and we will update the page and its date.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to send 100,000 emails?
On your own server, $22 a month with Amazon SES and a 2 GB DigitalOcean server, as of October 2026. On Mailgun it is $102 a month and on Postmark $127, with the same server. The software is extra: Broadcast is $250 once.
What is the cheapest way to send 100,000 emails a month?
Self-hosted software on Amazon SES. SES charges $10 for 100,000 emails at list price, and the server is $12. The cheapest hosted plan in our comparison, Brevo Starter, is $69 a month for the same volume.
How much does it cost to send 1 million emails a month?
$124 a month on Amazon SES with a 4 GB server, and $799 on Postmark. Mailgun quotes prices above 100,000 emails a month on request.
Is Postmark worth the extra cost over SES?
It depends on what you send. Postmark is easier to set up and has a strong reputation for inbox placement, and it costs $115 a month for 100,000 emails against $10 on SES. See Postmark vs Mailgun vs Amazon SES for the trade-offs.
