Amazon SES Sending Limits — Cookbook for AcelleMail Operators

SES quota tiers#

Plus a per-second send rate: 1/sec sandbox, 14/sec new-production, up to 500+/sec with raised limits.

Recipe 1: Get out of sandbox#

Sandbox = 200/day, recipients must be verified. Useless for marketing.

To leave sandbox:

1. AWS Console → SES → Account dashboard → Request production access
2. Form: use case, expected volume, complaint/bounce handling
3. Approval: 24-48 hours typical

Be specific + honest. AWS rejects:

• "Send to a purchased list" — instant denial
• Vague descriptions — back-and-forth, slows approval
• No mention of unsubscribe + consent process — denial

Good template:

Use case: Marketing email for SaaS customers who explicitly opted in via signup form. We currently have 25,000 subscribers across 3 lists in [region], all collected via double-opt-in over the past 2 years. Expected volume: 50,000/month initially, growing to 250,000/month over 12 months. Bounces and complaints are auto-processed via AcelleMail's bounce + FBL handlers; unsubscribe links present in every email.

Recipe 2: Configure SES in AcelleMail#

Open the sending-server detail#

In AcelleMail's sidebar, click Sending → Sending servers. The list shows every server connected to this account with its status chip, sending limit, and last activity:

Click into the row you want to configure. The detail page surfaces Connection settings (host / credentials), Configuration (server name, default from, sending limit, bounce + FBL handler), and the Test connection / Send test email buttons in the toolbar:

For SES specifically:

Pick the SES type#

Type picker:

Two SES options:

• Amazon SES (API) — uses SES SendEmail API. Faster, better tracking. Recommended.
• Amazon SES (SMTP) — uses SES SMTP relay. Vendor-neutral, slightly slower.

Pick API for the AcelleMail-side install. The API form:

The SMTP alternative — if you need the vendor-neutral integration:

Configure credentials + region#

AWS Access Key ID:     [from IAM SES-FullAccess user]
AWS Secret Access Key: [paired with above]
Region:                [where you verified your domain — us-east-1, eu-west-1, etc.]
Default from email:    [verified address on your domain]
Sending limit:         50000 (for production-default daily quota)

Save. AcelleMail validates immediately — Active badge or inline error.

Verify the auth chips#

Server detail shows the auth status:

All three should be Green if your SES setup is correct. If any Red, the verify-domain wizard will walk you through DNS records.

Recipe 3: Raise the per-account quota#

After ~30 days of clean sending, you can request raised limits:

1. AWS Console → SES → Account dashboard
2. Service quotas (in the AWS account, not just SES) → search "ses"
3. Find: "Sending quota" + "Sending rate"
4. Request quota increase

Approval: ~24-48h. AWS sees your bounce rate + complaint rate; if clean, approval is automatic.

Recipe 4: Dedicated IP for premium reputation#

At $24.95/mo, dedicated IP gives:

• Full reputation control (your traffic only)
• Better postmaster signals (per-IP rep)
• Pool of dedicated IPs available for rotation

Setup:

1. AWS SES → Dedicated IPs → Request dedicated IP
2. Wait 1-2 days for provisioning
3. AcelleMail: no config change required; SES routes via dedicated IP automatically

For a pool of dedicated IPs:

AWS SES → Configuration Sets → "production-marketing"
  Dedicated IP pool: [ip1, ip2, ip3]
  Tracking: enabled
  CloudWatch destination: enabled

AWS SES → Configuration Sets → "production-transactional"
  Dedicated IP pool: [ip4]
  Tracking: disabled (transactional doesn't need engagement tracking)

In AcelleMail admin: set the Configuration Set in the sending-server advanced config. Campaigns automatically use the right IP pool.

Recipe 5: Multi-region for global audience#

If your audience is global, set up SES in 3 regions:

us-east-1     (Virginia)   - US recipients, best AWS-global integration
eu-west-1     (Ireland)    - EU recipients, GDPR data residency
ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)  - APAC recipients

Process:

1. Verify your domain in EACH region (separate verification per region)
2. Add 3 sending servers in AcelleMail (one per region)
3. Tag subscribers by region: tag:us, tag:eu, tag:apac
4. Create 3 Plans, each scoped to a single regional server
5. Assign campaigns to the right Plan based on segment

Cost: SES is $0.10/1k regardless of region. Multi-region adds zero marginal cost beyond the verified-domain effort.

Recipe 6: Monitoring#

Daily checks:

1. AcelleMail bounce log — last 24h pattern:

Target: bounce rate <2%, complaint rate <0.1%.

2. AWS CloudWatch SES metrics:

   • BounceRate → keep <5%
   • ComplaintRate → keep <0.1%
   • Reputation → high
   • SendsForGeneralRecipient → trending up

3. Google Postmaster Tools for Gmail-specific signals (see walkthrough)

4. Microsoft SNDS for Outlook-specific (see walkthrough)

If any signal goes red, AWS may auto-suspend your account. Recovery requires audit + AWS engagement.

Common UI signals + fixes#

Cost math#

50k/day SES production = 1.5M/month = $150/month
With 3 dedicated IPs = $150 + $75 = $225/month

vs Postmark same volume = $1500+/month
vs SendGrid same volume = $1500+/month
vs Mailgun same volume = $1000+/month

SES is the cheapest at scale by 5-10×. Worth the AWS-side complexity.

Day 0: Auto-paused notification from AWS
       AWS console: SES → Account dashboard → Status: Paused
Day 1: Audit + identify root cause
Day 2: Compose detailed response to AWS, including:
       - Root cause analysis
       - Remediation actions taken (list cleaned, sending paused, etc.)
       - Process changes preventing recurrence
Day 3-7: Submit request to AWS Support to lift the pause
Day 7-14: AWS reviews; if convinced, lifts the pause
Day 14: Resume sending at 50% of pre-incident volume, slowly ramp back

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Sid": "SESSendOnly",
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
      "ses:SendEmail",
      "ses:SendRawEmail",
      "ses:GetSendQuota",
      "ses:GetSendStatistics"
    ],
    "Resource": "*",
    "Condition": {
      "StringEquals": {
        "ses:FromAddress": "[email protected]"
      }
    }
  }]
}

AWS Account A: SES production, dedicated IPs 1-5
  Verifies domains for Customer-Tier-1

AWS Account B: SES production, dedicated IPs 6-10
  Verifies domains for Customer-Tier-2

AWS Account C: SES production, shared pool only
  Verifies domains for Customer-Tier-Free

# SES → Configuration Set → Event Destinations → Add SNS
# Topic: "ses-bounces"
# Events: bounce + complaint

# Subscribe AcelleMail to the SNS topic via HTTP endpoint
aws sns subscribe \
  --topic-arn arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:ACCT:ses-bounces \
  --protocol https \
  --notification-endpoint https://acellemail.com/webhooks/ses-bounces

# Set up tracking + dedicated pool
aws ses put-configuration-set-tracking-options \
  --configuration-set-name production-marketing \
  --tracking-options CustomRedirectDomain=track.yourdomain.com

aws ses put-configuration-set-event-destination \
  --configuration-set-name production-marketing \
  --event-destination Name=CloudWatch,Enabled=true,MatchingEventTypes=send,reject,bounce,complaint

Related articles#

• Configuring Amazon SES with AcelleMail
• Configuring multiple sending servers
• Sender reputation monitoring
• IP warmup schedule for new sending servers