Amazon SES alternative
PigeonAtlas vs. Amazon SES
SES underneath, without building the rest
We deliver through Amazon SES, so this is a comparison with doing it yourself. SES is the cheapest way to send email at scale, by far. What it does not give you is the application around it: per-record DNS checks, a suppression list your API enforces, signed webhooks instead of SNS topics, a message history, newsletters with unsubscribe, and a dashboard a non-engineer can read. That is what you pay us for.
Amazon SES is the better choice for
- Teams with an engineer to own the integration, the event pipeline and the sandbox exit.
- High volume, where cents per thousand decide it.
- Anyone already deep in AWS who wants everything on one bill.
PigeonAtlas is the better choice if
- You do not want to apply for production access, wire SNS to a handler, and build suppressions yourself.
- You want newsletters with one-click unsubscribe without building them.
- You want a free plan without an AWS account.
- Your code already speaks Resend.
Price per month
The cheapest published plan that covers each volume, in US dollars before tax.
| Emails a month | PigeonAtlas | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 1,000 emails a month, 1 domain, no card, no time limit. | Up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts; the free plan runs 6 months from account creation. |
| 10,000 | $9/mo (Starter, includes 10,000) | $1 at $0.10 per 1,000 |
| 50,000 | $29/mo (Growth, includes 50,000) | $5 at $0.10 per 1,000 |
| 100,000 | $79/mo (Scale, includes 200,000) | $10 at $0.10 per 1,000 |
Pay-as-you-go outbound rate. Attachments add $0.12 per GB, a dedicated IP is $24.95 a month, and SES's newer optional plans charge more per 1,000.
Feature by feature
| PigeonAtlas | Amazon SES | |
|---|---|---|
| Resend-compatible API | Yes. Same request and response shapes; moving is the base URL and the key. | No. The SES v2 API, signed with AWS credentials. |
| SMTP | Built and tested, but not open to the internet until its TLS certificate is in place. Use the HTTP API today. | Yes. |
| Attachments | Not over the HTTP API yet. | Yes, at $0.12 per GB. |
| Newsletters and broadcasts | Included from Growth at the same per-email price, on a separate queue so a newsletter never delays a password reset. | No campaign tool; bulk sending through the API, unsubscribe is yours to build. |
| Webhooks | sent, delivered, bounced and complained, each signed with an HMAC. | Events through SNS or EventBridge, which you wire to your own handler. |
| Dashboard | Domains with every DNS record checked, messages, suppressions, webhooks and newsletters. | The AWS console: sending statistics and identities, no per-message history. |
| Dedicated IP | No. Amazon SES shared pools; your reputation is your domain's. | $24.95 per month per IP. |
| Support | Email, answered by the founder. | Through an AWS support plan. |
Amazon SES figures checked October 11, 2026 against Amazon SES pricing. Prices change; if one here is out of date, tell us at support@pigeonatlas.com and we will correct it.
Moving from Amazon SES
- Create a PigeonAtlas account and add your domain. We generate a new DKIM key for it; publish it beside your existing SES records.
- Create an API key.
- Replace the SendEmail call with a POST to https://pigeonatlas.com/v1/emails carrying from, to, subject, html and text.
- Retire your SNS bounce handler: bounces and complaints suppress automatically, and webhooks deliver the events signed.
The API reference has the request in four languages, and the prompts do the move with an AI assistant in one paste.
Try it on the free plan
1,000 emails a month from one verified domain, no card. Run it beside Amazon SES until you trust it.
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