On July 21, 2026, Amazon SES started placing new accounts on a bundled pricing plan called Essentials. Two larger plans, Pro and Enterprise, sit above it. The old pay-as-you-go model is still there, now called à la carte.
The numbers
| Monthly fee | Per 1,000 emails (first 10M) | |
|---|---|---|
| À la carte | none | $0.10 |
| Essentials | none | $0.16 |
| Pro | $105 per account and region | $0.22 |
| Enterprise | $500 per account and region | $0.23 |
Essentials adds no monthly fee, but every email costs 60% more than à la carte. In exchange it bundles Virtual Deliverability Manager's SES insights and Mail Manager features.
Who should switch back
If you mainly send transactional email and watch your own bounce and complaint rates, à la carte is the better deal. At a million emails a month it is $100 instead of $160, every month.
If you were placed on Essentials by default, AWS applies your first switch to à la carte immediately, rather than at the next billing cycle. Remember to do it in every region you send from.
Why we recommend à la carte for Stamp0 users
Stamp0 already gives you what most teams want from VDM: delivery, bounce and complaint rates per domain and project, built from SES events, plus a DNS advisor. Paying for both is paying twice.
We wrote up the details, including what each plan includes, in Amazon SES pricing explained.