Best for
Best for engineering teams already running on AWS that want high-volume email billed per message and are willing to build the surrounding tooling themselves.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Email Marketing Comparison
Amazon SES vs. Klaviyo
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for ecommerce and B2C teams that want email and SMS driven by a customer data platform with real-time segmentation and deep store data.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Amazon SES | Klaviyo |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $0.10 / 1,000 emails À la carte sending is $0.10 per 1,000 emails with no monthly fee. The tiered plans are Essentials at $0.16 per 1,000 and no fixed fee, Pro at $105 per month per account and region plus $0.22 per 1,000, and Enterprise at $500 per month plus $0.23 per 1,000. Rates fall above 10 million and again above 100 million emails. Attachment data is charged at $0.12 per GB. | Free plan for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month The free plan also carries $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage a month, with email support for the first 60 days. Paid plans scale with the number of active profiles and the message volume on top. |
| Free trial | New AWS customers receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, usable over six months | Free plan for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends per month, plus $5 of mobile messages a month |
| API | Yes, the SES v2 API and an SMTP interface, called from the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI | Yes, a REST API with webhooks, SDKs, warehouse syncs and more than 350 integrations |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS), run as an AWS service per region | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Made in | Not stated | United States |
| Campaign types | Marketing, transactional and newsletter sending through the console, the SMTP interface or the SES v2 API, plus inbound receiving that can store mail in Amazon S3, publish it to Amazon SNS or trigger AWS Lambda | Yes, email campaigns with SMS and push from the same customer profiles |
| Automation and journeys | No journey builder. Sending is driven by your own application or by other AWS services, and received mail can trigger Lambda functions, which is how autoresponders and unsubscribe systems are built on it. | Yes, automation flows triggered by customer behaviour and events |
| Segmentation and personalisation | Per-recipient personalisation through template replacement data, with SendBulkEmail taking up to 50 destination objects per call, each carrying its own values and falling back to defaults where none are supplied | Yes, real-time segmentation with predictive analytics on unified customer profiles |
| Templates and editor | Stored templates created through the API, up to 20,000 per region and 500 KB each, or inline templates supplied with the request; both substitute placeholder tags in the subject, HTML and text parts. There is no drag-and-drop builder. | Yes, a drag-and-drop email editor with templates |
| Deliverability and testing | Easy DKIM authentication, bounce and complaint notifications through Amazon SNS, rendering failure notifications, and event publishing to CloudWatch or Amazon Data Firehose. Virtual Deliverability Manager is priced separately, from $0.02 to $0.07 per 1,000 emails, with global deliverability at $1,250 per month. IPs can be shared, managed dedicated, or brought from your own range at $24.95 per month per IP. | Yes, deliverability tools with reporting and revenue attribution |
| Ecommerce and CRM data | No ecommerce or CRM connectors. SES keeps one contact list per AWS account, with up to 20 topics, a subscription status per topic and a free-form attributes field on each contact; contacts are imported from an Amazon S3 object in CSV or JSON, up to one million per import job. Order and customer data stay in your own systems and travel with the send request. | Yes, a customer data platform with deep ecommerce data and more than 350 integrations including Shopify and WooCommerce |
| Integrations and API | Yes, the SES v2 API and an SMTP interface, called from the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI, with IAM for access control and CloudTrail for API call logging. Integrates with S3, SNS, Lambda, CloudWatch, Data Firehose, KMS, Route 53 and Elastic Beanstalk. | Yes, a REST API with webhooks, SDKs and warehouse syncs |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | more entries Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat, 24/7, Community forum | Email helpdesk, Chat, Community forum |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Live online demos and webinars, Personal consulting |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Amazon S3, Amazon SNS, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Data Firehose, AWS KMS, AWS IAM, AWS CloudTrail, Amazon Route 53, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon EC2 | Shopify, Magento 1.x, Magento 2.x, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Wix, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Spree, Shift4Shop, Volusion |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Amazon SES From $0.10 / 1,000 emails Klaviyo Free plan for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month
- Free trial Amazon SES New AWS customers receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, usable over six months Klaviyo Free plan for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends per month, plus $5 of mobile messages a month
- Hosting Amazon SES Cloud (SaaS), run as an AWS service per region Klaviyo Cloud (SaaS)
- Support Amazon SES Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat, 24/7, Community forum Klaviyo Email helpdesk, Chat, Community forum
- AI features Amazon SES No Klaviyo Yes
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Amazon SES
Strengths
- Per-message pricing with no seat licence and no monthly fee on the à la carte rate
- SMTP interface and SES v2 API, callable from the AWS SDKs and the CLI
- Inbound mail can land in S3, publish to SNS or trigger Lambda functions
- Up to 20,000 stored templates per region, or inline templates supplied per request
- Shared, managed dedicated or bring-your-own IP addresses
- Sending rates fall at 10 million and 100 million emails per month
Limitations
- No campaign editor, journey builder or drag-and-drop template designer
- The Pro and Enterprise fixed fees are charged per account and per region
- Deliverability tooling is a separately priced add-on, Virtual Deliverability Manager
- Running it in practice means operating SNS, Lambda, CloudWatch and IAM alongside it
- A failed call to a multi-recipient message rejects the whole email, so AWS recommends one recipient per call
- Attachment data is billed separately at $0.12 per GB
Klaviyo
Strengths
- Customer data platform with unified profiles behind email, SMS and push
- Real-time segmentation with predictive analytics
- More than 350 integrations including Shopify and WooCommerce
- Free plan for up to 250 active profiles
Limitations
- Pricing scales with the number of active profiles
- The free plan is limited to 500 email sends a month
Plans
Pricing
Amazon SES
- À la carte $0.10 Per 1,000 emails sent, with no fixed monthly fee.
- Essentials $0.16 Per 1,000 emails up to 10 million per month and no fixed fee. $0.14 per 1,000 from 10 to 100 million, $0.11 above 100 million.
- Pro $105 Per month per account and region, plus $0.22 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million, $0.17 from 10 to 100 million and $0.12 above.
- Enterprise $500 Per month per account and region, plus $0.23 per 1,000 emails up to 10 million, $0.18 from 10 to 100 million and $0.13 above.
Klaviyo
- Free $0 / month Up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and $5 of mobile messages a month, with email support for the first 60 days.
- Email Not stated Paid email plan that scales with the number of active profiles, with higher sending allowances.
- Email and SMS Not stated Adds SMS and mobile messaging on top of the email plan, priced by active profiles and message volume.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Amazon SES
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Klaviyo
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Amazon SES https://aws.amazon.com/ses/ · checked against the official source on 2026-09-09
Klaviyo https://www.klaviyo.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-17
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.