Amazon SES For Transactional Messaging: Ramping Up Your Daily Allotment
We have recently been using Amazon’s Simple Email Service for their Transactional Messages capabilities. So far it’s turned out to be a fantastic choice both in terms of service and cost. We are especially delighted with the service due to it’s API and ability to adapt to any ESP we are currently using.
If you use this in the future, one thing I suggest you keep in mind is the allowed daily messages when your account first becomes active. You see, once your account is approved by Amazon, you’re only allowed to send 1,000 messages per day. After three days, you will be bumped up to 10k. Within two weeks you can send up to 1 million messages per day. The amount of emails sent per second can also be increased in conjunction with the daily rates… from one email per second, all they way up to 90 per second.
The diagram below further illustrates sending limits:
This is all due to deliverability. Amazon insists that new accounts should be slowly ramped up to these daily levels. If a new account suddenly starts sending out tens of thousands of messages a day, the likelihood that they’ll be delivered to inboxes is slim. The IP address needs to be established first and whitelisting needs to occur. Then, once Amazon is ready, they will allow you to the next level of their daily rate.
If you’re launching a site in the near future while utilizing Amazon SES, please keep this in mind.
Check out their Developer Guide for more information.
Posted by Bryan Quilty on May. 02, 2011