ApexMail vs Amazon SES

EEA DATA PROCESSINGPrimary hosting regionEU (Hetzner, Germany & Finland)Multiple regions including EU (Ireland eu-west-1, Frankfurt eu-central-1, etc.)¹—EEA data processing defaultYes — all customer data in Germany/FinlandAvailable — must be explicitly configured; region selection required per sending domain¹ApexMailDPA availabilityBusiness plan and above — incorporates Subprocessor Register by referenceAvailable — AWS DPA (Artifact) with SCCs²—SENDING CAPABILITIESREST APIYes — native POST /v1/messages (ApexMail API)Yes — AWS SDK (multiple languages) via SendEmail, SendBulkEmail³—SMTP relayYes — smtp.apexmail.ee:587 (STARTTLS)Yes — email-smtp.{region}.amazonaws.com:587 (STARTTLS)³—Idempotency keysYes (all plans) — Idempotency-Key headerNot natively supported — AWS recommends application-level message deduplication³ApexMailMessage event trackingPer-message delivery diagnostics dashboard with 7-step timelineCloudWatch metrics (send, bounce, complaint, delivery) + SNS notifications for events — self-assembly required⁴ApexMailInbound emailPro plan and aboveYes — SES receipt rules with S3, Lambda, SNS, SQS actions⁵—DEPLOYMENT MODELSShared cloudYes (all plans) — managed multi-tenant on HetznerYes (all accounts) — shared IP pool by default⁶—Dedicated IP€30/mo add-on (Pro tier); Growth includes 1 managed dedicated IPYes — $24.95/mo per dedicated IP; IP pool management available⁶—Dedicated tenancyYes — Dedicated Tenant from €4,000/mo (12-month minimum, fully managed)Self-managed — customer architects dedicated tenancy on AWS using SES as a service component⁶ApexMailBYOC / private deploymentYes — BYOC from €6,500/mo (fully managed in customer cloud)Inherent — customer runs on own AWS account; SES is an AWS service⁶—ENTERPRISE CONTROLSSAML SSOBusiness plan and above (built-in)Via AWS IAM Identity Center — requires AWS Organization setup and IAM configuration⁷ApexMailSubaccounts / isolationGrowth (5), Business (25), Enterprise (50) — managed, hierarchicalVia AWS Organizations with separate account per environment — self-managed⁷—Managed supportYes — plan-specific response targets (Developer: 2 days; Pro: 1 day; Business: 4 hours for high severity)AWS Support plans (Developer, Business, Enterprise) — separate purchase from SES usage⁸—HIPAA BAAEnterprise plan — BAA review eligibilityYes — AWS BAA available; SES is an eligible HIPAA service⁹Amazon SESPRICING AT 100K/MO (verified 2026-07-29)Plan comparedPro: €89/mo (150,000 emails included, managed infrastructure)Pay-as-you-go: ~$10/100K emails (raw sending, no management included)¹⁰—Pricing model distinctionManaged email infrastructure: API, event storage, webhook delivery, support, analytics includedRaw capacity billing: IaaS — pay per send, plus additional AWS costs (EC2, S3, CloudWatch, SNS, support)¹⁰—Free tier30,000 emails/month (no credit card, no time limit)62,000 emails/month when sending from EC2 (first 12 months); 3,000/month otherwise¹⁰—AREAS WHERE AMAZON SES IS STRONGERRaw cost per email€0.60/1,000 overage (Pro); €0.22/1,000 at Enterprise volume$0.10/1,000 emails — lowest per-message cost among major providers¹⁰Amazon SESAWS ecosystem integrationStandalone platform with API integrationDeep integration with AWS services: Lambda, S3, CloudWatch, SNS, SQS, IAM, KMS, Organizations³Amazon SESMaximum sending volumeUp to billions/month on Dedicated Tenant / BYOCVirtually unlimited — constrained by account sending limits which auto-scale with reputation⁶—Global regionsGermany & Finland (EEA focus)22+ AWS regions globally including US, EU, APAC, South America¹Amazon SES

Sources (all accessed 2026-07-29):
¹ AWS SES Regional Endpoints
² AWS GDPR Center and DPA
³ AWS SES v2 SendEmail API reference
⁴ AWS SES Monitoring documentation
⁵ AWS SES Receiving Email documentation
⁶ AWS SES Dedicated IPs documentation
⁷ AWS IAM Identity Center (SSO) documentation
⁸ AWS Support Plans
⁹ AWS HIPAA Compliance and BAA information
¹⁰ AWS SES Pricing page

Last verified: 2026-07-29. Volume assumption: 100,000 emails/month, monthly billing. EUR for ApexMail; USD for SES. Prices exclude VAT. ApexMail is priced as managed email infrastructure; Amazon SES is priced as raw email sending capacity. Reviewed by: ApexMail marketing engineering.