emitd vs sending through AWS SES directly
SES has the lowest raw per-message price in the industry, and if your team is happy to build and operate everything around it, that is a legitimate choice — we will not pretend otherwise. What SES gives you is a sending endpoint. What it does not give you is a suppression list, signed webhooks, open and click tracking, a bounce pipeline, a dashboard, or anyone to call. This page is about that gap, because the gap is the entire decision.
| emitd | SES direct | |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | Cloudflare Workers (edge) + AWS SES | AWS SES (raw) |
| Integration | Plain HTTPS, 9 SDKs + CLI, MCP | AWS SDK / SMTP |
| Ingestion latency | Global edge, ~tens of ms | Regional |
| Pricing | 5,000 free; then $0.35/1k or $0.28/1k prepaid | Cheapest raw — you build the rest |
| DKIM / SPF / DMARC | Guided + verified live in-app | You configure it yourself |
| Suppression list | Automatic (bounce + complaint) | You build it |
| Message streams | Yes | No |
| Signed webhooks | HMAC-signed, built in | Wire up SNS yourself |
| Open/click tracking | Yes — HMAC-signed tokens | No |
| BYODKIM | Yes — single TXT record | Yes (manual) |
| Domain Connect | Yes — one-click DNS setup | No |
| Auto-pause circuit breaker | Yes — 5% bounce / 0.1% complaint | No |
| MCP (AI agent support) | JSON-RPC 2.0 endpoint | No |
| AI Design Studio | Yes — visual block editor + AI | No |
| Multi-payment providers | Stripe + Paddle + Razorpay | AWS billing |
| Admin RBAC | super_admin, support_admin, billing_admin | IAM |
| Sandbox mode | Yes — full event simulation | SES sandbox |
| Free tier | 5,000/month, 150/day | None (legacy EC2-only free tier retired) |
| Buy without a subscription | Yes — metered per 1,000, or credits | No |
| Charged per seat | Never | No |
| Dashboard | Activity, templates, domains, analytics, AI Studio | Basic AWS console |
Where AWS SES is stronger
- The lowest raw per-message rate available anywhere — nothing undercuts sending SES yourself.
- Direct control over every knob, which matters if you have unusual routing or compliance requirements.
- No third party in the path, if your procurement or data-residency rules require that.
Where emitd is stronger
- A suppression list that maintains itself from bounces and complaints. On SES, you build and operate it.
- HMAC-signed webhooks out of the box. On SES, you wire up SNS, verify its signatures, and run the endpoint.
- Open and click tracking with signed tokens. SES has none.
- DKIM, SPF and DMARC set up through a guided flow and verified live. On SES, you configure and debug the DNS yourself.
- An auto-pause circuit breaker at 5% bounce / 0.1% complaint, which is the protection that keeps a sending reputation alive.
- An activity view, analytics, templates and a sandbox — against the basic AWS console.
Which should you pick
Send through SES directly if raw per-message cost is the only variable you are optimising and you have the engineering time to build and run the rest. Pick emitd if you would rather that work already be done — it is the same delivery backbone, with the pipeline around it already built.
See the full pricing, read the latency benchmarks, or compare all four side by side.