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. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
At a glance
At a glance
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
Best for
Best for B2B teams already running Salesforce as their CRM, who want lead scoring, nurture and attribution on the same records their sellers work in.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Amazon SES | Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | lower value 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. | From $1250 / org / month Growth+ is $1,250 per organisation and month with 10,000 contacts included, Plus+ $2,750, Advanced+ $4,400 and Premium+ $15,000 with 75,000 contacts. Extra contact blocks cost $100 per 10,000 contacts and month on Growth+, rising to $400 on Premium+. All per-month products require an annual contract. |
| Free trial | New AWS customers receive up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, usable over six months | Not stated |
| API | Yes, the SES v2 API and an SMTP interface, called from the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI | Yes, a daily API call allowance that rises with the edition, plus an External Activity API and custom object integration with Salesforce CRM |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS), run as an AWS service per region | Cloud (SaaS) |
| 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 | Unlimited email marketing, landing pages, forms and form handlers for existing forms, with an integrated marketing calendar and a CMS with approval workflows |
| 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. | Engagement Programs for nurture tracks plus automation rules, with lead scoring and grading, multiple scoring categories and rule-based account scoring deciding who moves on |
| 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 | Prospect tracking across online campaigns feeds rule-based dynamic content and cross-object merge fields, so messages vary on data held against the CRM record; Einstein adds lead scoring, behaviour scoring and engagement frequency |
| 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. | Drag-and-drop building with reusable repeater blocks and fully customisable URLs, and Einstein Content Creation drafts and iterates subject lines, email copy and landing page copy |
| 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. | Email A/B testing and multivariate landing page testing, a dedicated IP address, Einstein Send Time Optimization, and advanced email analytics with email rendering and preview analysis |
| 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. | Built on the Salesforce CRM database: Engagement History Dashboards sit on leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities, with custom object integration, a Data Cloud connector and multi-touch attribution through B2B Marketing Analytics |
| 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. | Daily API call allowance scaling by edition, an External Activity API with active extensions, custom object integration, and prebuilt Google Ads and Eventbrite integrations |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat, 24/7, Community forum | Not stated |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Live online demos and webinars |
| Company size | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | more entries 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 | Salesforce CRM, Google Ads, Eventbrite, Salesforce Data Cloud, B2B Marketing Analytics |
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 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement From $1250 / org / month
- Company size Amazon SES Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Hosting Amazon SES Cloud (SaaS), run as an AWS service per region Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Cloud (SaaS)
- AI features Amazon SES No Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Yes
- API Amazon SES Yes, the SES v2 API and an SMTP interface, called from the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Yes, a daily API call allowance that rises with the edition, plus an External Activity API and custom object integration with Salesforce CRM
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
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
Strengths
- Scores, engagement history and attribution sit directly on Salesforce CRM records, with no connector between marketing and sales
- Multi-touch attribution models and B2B Marketing Analytics report campaign effect against pipeline rather than against opens alone
- Einstein covers both sides of the job, scoring prospects and drafting email and landing page copy
Limitations
- Priced per organisation from $1,250 a month billed annually, so the entry cost does not scale down for a small team
- Contact allowances are the real cost driver, and extra blocks run from $100 to $400 per 10,000 contacts and month depending on edition
- Business units cost $2,000 per unit and month on top of the edition price
- The value rests on Salesforce being the system of record, which makes it a poor fit for companies running another CRM
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.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- Growth+ $1,250 Per organisation and month, billed annually. 10,000 contacts included. Extra contacts $100 per 10,000 and month.
- Plus+ $2,750 Per organisation and month, billed annually. 10,000 contacts included. Extra contacts $150 per 10,000 and month.
- Advanced+ $4,400 Per organisation and month, billed annually. 10,000 contacts included. Extra contacts $300 per 10,000 and month.
- Premium+ $15,000 Per organisation and month, billed annually. 75,000 contacts included. Extra contacts $400 per 10,000 and month.
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.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
- 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
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement https://www.salesforce.com/marketing/b2b-automation/ · checked against the official source on 2026-09-15
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.