Overview

Amazon SES and Plunk represent different approaches to email. SES is raw infrastructure at rock-bottom prices. Plunk is an open source platform that builds on top of infrastructure to provide a complete email solution.

The choice is fundamentally build vs buy, with engineering time as the key tradeoff.

Infrastructure vs Platform

Amazon SES sends email. That is essentially it. Contact management, campaigns, analytics, automations, and developer tools are all build-your-own. SES excels at being cheap, reliable email infrastructure.

Plunk provides the full platform. Contact management, campaign tools, analytics, and a modern API are included. You can focus on your product instead of building email infrastructure.

Pricing Comparison

SES costs $0.10 per 1,000 emails. Plunk costs $1 per 1,000 emails. At pure per-email cost, SES is 10x cheaper.

But consider total cost. Building contact management, analytics, and campaign tools on SES takes engineering time. At average developer rates, a few days of development costs more than the email savings for most teams.

For very high volume senders (millions of emails monthly), the math shifts toward SES. For most startups and growing companies, Plunk's included features provide better total value.

Developer Experience

Plunk has a modern REST API, React Email support for templates, and built-in webhooks. Integration takes hours.

SES requires the AWS SDK, SNS configuration for webhooks, CloudWatch for monitoring, and AWS-style documentation. Integration takes days to weeks to do properly.

For teams prioritizing launch speed, Plunk wins significantly.

Open Source and Self-Hosting

Plunk is open source. You can self-host on your infrastructure and even configure it to use your own SES credentials. This gives you Plunk's platform features with SES infrastructure pricing.

This hybrid approach can be the best of both worlds for teams with DevOps capabilities.

When Each Approach Shines

Choose SES when: You have AWS expertise and engineering time. Volume is very high (millions daily). Cost optimization is critical. You want to build custom solutions.

Choose Plunk when: You want features now, not after weeks of building. Modern developer experience matters. Open source is valuable. Volume is moderate and launch speed matters.

For SaaS Companies

Neither has Stripe integration. Sequenzy connects directly to Stripe for subscription-aware automation. If you run a SaaS business and want billing-triggered emails without building integrations, check Sequenzy's Stripe integration.