Samva vs Amazon SES
Amazon SES publishes the lowest per-email rate on this page, and it asks you to assemble the product around it. Events, inbound parsing, and suppression flows are yours to wire. Samva ships hosted templates, conversation threading, signed webhooks, and a dashboard.
Pricing verified August 16, 2026. Sources at the end of this page.
What Amazon SES charges next to Samva
Samva
| Plan | Price | Included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3,000 emails/mo |
| Starter | $5/mo | 15,000 emails/mo |
| Growth | $19/mo | 50,000 emails/mo |
| Scale | $99/mo | 300,000 emails/mo |
Sending, templates, inbound, and webhooks ship on every plan. On paid plans, extra emails past the allowance cost $0.50 per 1,000, under a $50 monthly spend limit you control. Free stops at its allowance.
Amazon SES
| Plan | Price | Included |
|---|---|---|
| À la carte | $0.10 per 1,000 | Pay as you go |
| Essentials | $0.16 per 1,000 | Pay as you go |
| Pro | $105/mo + $0.22 per 1,000 | Managed dedicated IPs |
| Enterprise | $500/mo + $0.23 per 1,000 | Custom |
Per-1,000 rates step down past 10M and 100M emails a month. Attachment data transfer bills at $0.12/GB. Dedicated IPs are $24.95/mo each on standard plans. New AWS customers can choose a six-month free plan with up to $200 in credits, which must be used within 12 months of account creation.
What each one ships.
Send and receive
How you send email, build templates, and bring replies back.
| Capability | Samva | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| Send API | Typed REST, POST /v1/messages, with an OpenAPI 3.1.0 spec | SES v2 API and SMTP; requires an AWS account, IAM, and a production-access request |
| Templates | Versioned templates with rollback and publish history | Basic API templates; no visual editor |
| Inbound email | Inbound parsing with conversation threading per recipient | Receipt rules deliver raw mail to S3, SNS, or Lambda; region-limited; parsing is yours to build |
- Send API
Samva
Typed REST, POST /v1/messages, with an OpenAPI 3.1.0 spec
Amazon SES
SES v2 API and SMTP; requires an AWS account, IAM, and a production-access request
- Templates
Samva
Versioned templates with rollback and publish history
Amazon SES
Basic API templates; no visual editor
- Inbound email
Samva
Inbound parsing with conversation threading per recipient
Amazon SES
Receipt rules deliver raw mail to S3, SNS, or Lambda; region-limited; parsing is yours to build
Delivery and visibility
How you follow delivery, observe engagement, and protect your sending.
| Capability | Samva | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| Webhooks | Delivery events signed with HMAC-SHA256 | No native HTTP webhooks; events publish through SNS topics you configure |
| Open and click telemetry | Per-message timeline of provider-observed opens and clicks | Open and click events via event publishing you configure |
| Deliverability | SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your domain; bounces and complaints suppressed automatically | Easy DKIM, configuration sets, account-level suppression list, reputation dashboard |
- Webhooks
Samva
Delivery events signed with HMAC-SHA256
Amazon SES
No native HTTP webhooks; events publish through SNS topics you configure
- Open and click telemetry
Samva
Per-message timeline of provider-observed opens and clicks
Amazon SES
Open and click events via event publishing you configure
- Deliverability
Samva
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your domain; bounces and complaints suppressed automatically
Amazon SES
Easy DKIM, configuration sets, account-level suppression list, reputation dashboard
Integration tools
The SDKs and agent tools you can build with.
| Capability | Samva | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| SDKs | TypeScript SDK plus an Effect-native SDK | AWS SDKs across all supported languages |
| Agent tooling | Hosted MCP server and a CLI with device-flow login | — |
- SDKs
Samva
TypeScript SDK plus an Effect-native SDK
Amazon SES
AWS SDKs across all supported languages
- Agent tooling
Samva
Hosted MCP server and a CLI with device-flow login
Amazon SES
—
Volume and billing
What you can send for free and how extra volume is billed.
| Capability | Samva | Amazon SES |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 3,000 emails a month; 1,000 a day with a card on file, 100 without | Six-month free plan for new accounts, with up to $200 in credits usable within 12 months of account creation |
| Past the allowance | Metered at $0.50 per 1,000, under a spend limit you set | Pure usage-based; every email bills |
- Free tier
Samva
3,000 emails a month; 1,000 a day with a card on file, 100 without
Amazon SES
Six-month free plan for new accounts, with up to $200 in credits usable within 12 months of account creation
- Past the allowance
Samva
Metered at $0.50 per 1,000, under a spend limit you set
Amazon SES
Pure usage-based; every email bills
Cost per email at volume outweighs everything else, you already run on AWS with IAM and event plumbing in place, and your team is comfortable assembling delivery, inbound, and suppression flows yourself.
You want the product included: hosted versioned templates, threading on inbound mail, signed HTTP webhooks, and a dashboard your whole team can read. Typed TypeScript and Effect SDKs and a hosted MCP server come with it.
SES is a send component. Samva is the product you would otherwise staff. Teams that thrive on SES treat email as an engineering domain: SNS topics to queues, suppression sync, a homegrown send dashboard. If that is your team, the published per-email rate is hard to beat.
The bill for 50,000 emails is about $5 à la carte on SES. The difference between that and a Samva plan buys hosted templates, threading, signed webhooks, and a dashboard you do not build or maintain.
Questions before you move.
Isn't SES cheaper per email?
Per email, yes: à la carte SES is $0.10 per 1,000. The difference is what you build and operate yourself. Event handling, inbound parsing, suppression wiring, template workflow, and dashboards are your responsibility on SES; on Samva they're the product.
Does SES still have a free tier?
New AWS customers can choose a free plan that lasts six months. They receive up to $200 in Free Tier credits, and any credits must be used within 12 months of account creation. Samva's free plan includes 3,000 emails a month, ongoing, capped at 1,000 a day with a card on file and 100 a day without one.
Who parses inbound mail?
SES receipt rules hand you raw MIME in S3 or an SNS notification, in supported regions, and you build the parser. Samva parses inbound mail and threads it into per-recipient conversations your product reads through the API.
Start on 3,000 emails, free.
No card required. Then pay for the volume you send.
Sources, verified August 16, 2026