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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon SES

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) is an outbound-only email-sending service useful for marketing and transactional email, relying on the infrastructure of Amazon. Amazon SES provides the requisite statistics and built-in notifications for bounces, complaints, and deliveries for optimization of campaigns. Emails are sent via SMTP or the Amazon SES API. Amazon's pricing is per usage, presently at $.10 per thousand sends. The service is free for users of Amazon EC2 (up to 62,000 messages),…

    $0.10

    for emails after the first 1,000

    Twilio SendGrid

    Score6.6 out of 10
    N/ATwilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns provides users with segmentation, campaign editing, and deliverability. According to the vendor, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns is trusted by over 80,000 customers globally, including Airbnb, Spotify and Uber. Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns aims to help users by providing: MORE EFFICIENT EMAIL BUILDING The campaign building process is free from frustrating, rigid step-by-step wizards that slow users down. The vendor says…

    $15

    per month

    Pricing
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Editions & Modules
    Sending Emails from an Application Hosted in Amazon EC2
    $0.10 ($0.12)
    for every 1,000 emails after 62,000 (for each GB of storage)
    Sending Emails from Another Email Client or Software Package
    $0.10 ($0.12)
    for every 1,000 emails (for each GB of storage)
    Receiving Email
    $0.10
    for emails after the first 1,000
    Sending Emails from an Application Hosted in Amazon EC2
    Free
    for first 62,000 emails
    Receiving Email
    Free
    for the first 1,000 emails
    Basic
    $15
    per month
    Advanced
    $60
    per month
    Free
    Free
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    Chose Amazon SES
    They have fix cost and not pay per use model like Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) and moreover selecting best suited plan is also difficult as per our organisation use case.
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon SES
    I'd recommend SendGrid and MailChimp to most smaller business that can't dedicate engineers solely to their email pipeline. The price/value ration is fair and the tools are fairly flexible for the intended use cases. It's often a good idea to start to start there and only pivot …
    Incentivized
    Chose Amazon SES
    I also use Sendgrid for sending all my transactional emails. It is more expensive than SES, but I feel it is more reliable with a better reputation than SES. I have also used Mailgun, but they are more expensive than SES and deliverability on a shared IP are as bad as SES.
    Incentivized
    Twilio
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    SendGrid offers a ready-to-go solution to delivering e-mails to your users. They have integrated the most popular features/requirements for managing the Marketing aspect of your e-mail list with one of the best APIs for managing your lists, campaigns, creatives, and messages. …
    Incentivized
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    I like SendGrid best for my most important transsactional emails because I feel they have the highest chance of getting through.
    I also use Amazon SES, but only use them for less important transactional emails. SES is cheaper, but their reputation isn't as good with ISPs so …
    Incentivized
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    Easier to use, especially easier than Amazon SES. Also, MUCH better support access than with Amazon.
    Incentivized
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    Sendgrid has a lot of features that other providers have and a few more - like the dynamic template builder, which AWS SES doesn't have. We choose the provider based on the scenario of use and the provider we're using. If we're going to be making regular changes to a template, …
    Incentivized
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    Originally our engineering team selected SendGrid because it was a well-known brand and highly regarded as the leader in email deliverability services. My executive team at the time was familiar with the brand as well, and had worked with key stakeholders at SendGrid prior to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Twilio SendGrid
    Cost is effictive measurement when we want to get started with any email provider. SendGrid provides cost-effective solution than other competitors. Also, their dashboard is more user friendly for marketors and developers. They provide in-detail analytics for each events …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    75%
    Would buy again
    15 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    72%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    70%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    65%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    70%
    Implementation went as expected
    14 Answers
    Features
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) and Twilio SendGrid
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
    -
    Ratings
    Twilio SendGrid
    6.8
    50 Ratings
    17% below category average
    WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings9.337 Ratings
    Dynamic content00 Ratings6.740 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings4.438 Ratings
    Landing pages00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    A/B testing00 Ratings9.330 Ratings
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings8.938 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings5.050 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings4.744 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings4.624 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) and Twilio SendGrid
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
    -
    Ratings
    Twilio SendGrid
    6.1
    50 Ratings
    22% below category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings4.648 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings5.148 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings8.631 Ratings
    Pre-Send Testing
    Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) and Twilio SendGrid
    Feature
    Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
    -
    Ratings
    Twilio SendGrid
    8.2
    12 Ratings
    1% above category average
    URL Validation00 Ratings7.911 Ratings
    Link Tracking00 Ratings7.512 Ratings
    Image Validation00 Ratings8.29 Ratings
    Inbox Display00 Ratings8.011 Ratings
    Email Accessibility Tools00 Ratings9.012 Ratings
    Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings8.19 Ratings
    Spam Testing00 Ratings8.111 Ratings
    Email Previews00 Ratings9.112 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Small Businesses
    Postmark
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Mad Mimi
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Postmark
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Campaign Monitor by Marigold
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    Emma by Marigold
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (23 ratings)
    4.7
    (61 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    4.9
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.3
    (8 ratings)
    3.0
    (9 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon SESTwilio SendGrid
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon Simple Email Service comes with the bundle of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and it also offers a limited number of emails per month for free. One who has a technical background and wants to send custom emails with custom domains in a professional way can go with Amazon Simple Email Service. If you have no technical background or tech team, it might not be useful for you.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    If you're prepared to build out your whole staff UX, audience creation, email production, and analytics on your own using API, this tool may have that flexibility. If you require a sturdy drag and drop production tool, this tool has it but at the expense of a lot of other critical functionality. Out of the box analytics/reporting, is extremely limited. Complex queries, even something like pulling those who haven't engaged in email within a certain time period, is clunky. If you require any support at all, this is not the tool for you. I'm a deliverability consultant and have used many of the top email marketing tools and SendGrid has been extremely difficult for my team. I do not recommend it. Shiny and bright during sales, pretty disappointing thereafter.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • As compare to other vendors that I have integrated response is very quick.
    • You can verify both domain or email to send out the emails from.
    • While setup you can easily configure it with your domain with few clicks like adding CNAME, DKIM records
    • Easy to use with or without access key and secret key within aws servers. You can directly map permissions to servers to go without credentials using boto3.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    • Managing email lists / audiences is easy with features like groups and segments.
    • They provide pre-built email templates that are very easy to modify. It is also super easy to create new email templates with their drag-and-drop email builder.
    • Provides clear / easy-to-read analytics of email campaigns.
    • I can easily import large email contact lists all at once or add a user manually one-at-a-time, when needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • While the service limits are one of the main points that keep the delivery metrics so reliable, it can be stressful to get a new implementation out the door quickly.
    • If you're looking for a point-and-click style email delivery tool, this is not the right type of product for you. Amazon Simple Email Service is for a developer-centric approach to implementation into existing applications, processes, and services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    • Not necessarily their Email API but their email in general - they are currently in beta for automated email sequences but are still bare bones. Much more work is needed before it can be used mainstream and be able to convert everything to SendGrid.
    • Helping with warming up our dedicated IP for the best-sending score.
    • We seem to hit the promotions folder a decent amount (maybe the IP problem above) and even a lot of their emails hit my spam or promotions folder (whether they be transactional or marketing) which isn't a great sign when trusting an ESP.
    • Transactional email sequences would be a huge plus.
    • Now that Twilio owns SenGrid, having an integrated platform where you could see all our transactional emails together.
    • Better reporting and split reporting between transactional and marketing emails.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    1. Very less cost. 2. Fastest in market. 3. Negligible downtime. 4. Easy to integrate with other systems. 5. Easy to setup with your domain and email.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    It is usable but needs improvement in overall user experience and ease of use. A new joinee/anyone new to the tool would need more tarining currently before he can use the platform seamlessly. The set-up to value realization time for Twilio SendGrid customers is generally high because of this concern.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    We did not have the need of contacting Amazon for support. The documentation they provide is of great quality. Examples are easy to follow. One thing to have into consideration is we didn't have the premium support for AWS, so I can't provide details on how good or bad this service is, but in general, the basic support I had was great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    Twilio SendGrid Email API is everything we want it to be, and we have no reason to look for any other solution. Features and pricing match exactly what we need. As developers for SaaS products, Twilio SendGrid Email API provides a great service. I hope that they stay this way and don't inflate the service with too many marketing oriented features, because there are other tools for that and Twilio SendGrid Email API is a API for sending email first and foremost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Mailchimp has a fixed monthly price, and with the number of emails that we sent, it's pretty expensive. Since our mailings are quite infrequent, using Mailchimp didn't make financial sense for us, even though Mailchimp is a more polished, packaged solution for email marketing. We evaluated other email delivery solutions as well and didn't find anything that matches Amazon SES on reliability and pricing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    Sendgrid has a lot of features that other providers have and a few more - like the dynamic template builder, which AWS SES doesn't have. We choose the provider based on the scenario of use and the provider we're using. If we're going to be making regular changes to a template, then we'd go with Sendgrid, as the changes will be easier to make and don't necessarily require developer intervention.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • SES is still more cost effective than other email services like Mailgun.
    • Unless we have a high-traffic month, staying within the free tier is very nice for our bottom line.
    • Not having to spend time worrying about SES reliability saves us frustration and money.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Twilio
    • As it was cheaper than the transactional service we previously used, it saved costs.
    • The API was relatively easy to work with so it helped us ship the service and test it quickly.
    • We still use the transactional email service, even though we recognize its limits as it meets our immediate needs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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