Sending limits

Amazon SES sending limits (2026)

Amazon SES's documented sending limits, as Amazon SES publishes them: Sandbox: 200 per 24h at 1/sec; production: per-account quota assigned on request. Recipients per message: 50. What happens when you exceed them, what the trial or free tier restricts, and how a warmup ramp fits inside the limit.

Published 6 min read
Amazon SES limits, as documentedChecked
Daily messages
Sandbox: 200 per 24h at 1/sec; production: per-account quota assigned on request
Recipients per message
50
Recipients per day
quota-based
Rate limits
sandbox 1 email/second
Trial or free tier
sandbox can only send to verified identities
When exceeded
Throttling / MaxSendingRateExceeded

What happens when you exceed the limit

Throttling / MaxSendingRateExceeded. Sending services enforce their quotas at the API, so the failure is explicit and immediate. The reputation of the domain you send from is a separate matter that the quota does not protect.

How the limit interacts with a warmup ramp

Dedicated IPs use SES automatic IP warm-up — a different product from mailbox warming. A warmup ramp and a provider cap are two different ceilings. The cap is where Amazon SES stops you; the ramp is where reputation would stop you first. MailStrike's default ramp climbs to 30 warming emails a day per mailbox over 21 days, and real outreach starts at 20 to 30 a day once the ramp is done. Set the provider, the domain's age and the target volume below to see the schedule.

Warming a day, per mailboxMailStrike's guidance
Outreach a day, per mailbox1 mailbox2 mailboxes3 or more
Not sending yet302118
10 emails302118
20 emails251815
30 emails201412
40 emails15119
50 emails1076

The rule behind the table: a mailbox on its own that is not sending yet warms at the plan default of 30 a day, and once outreach starts it drops one warming email for every two you send, down to a floor of 10. Put a second mailbox on the domain and each one needs 70% of that figure, three or more and each needs 60%, because the domain earns the signal across all of them. Volume is a setting per mailbox, so you can dial these in directly.

Amazon SES is a sending service, not a mailbox. Its IP warm-up (where it offers one) ramps a dedicated IP's volume; it does not build the sender reputation of the domain you send from. Warm the domain's mailboxes with MailStrike, then send campaigns through Amazon SES: see how warming works.

Trial, free tier and new-account restrictions

sandbox can only send to verified identities. Free and trial tiers exist to test integration, not to run campaigns; the volume above them is a plan decision.

The bulk sender rules are a separate limit

None of the caps above is the line that decides placement. Google's and Yahoo's bulk-sender requirements and Microsoft's 2025 high-volume rules set authentication, spam-rate and unsubscribe conditions that apply well below any sending cap; the sender requirements page has them provider by provider, and the auth checker tests a domain against them.

How Amazon SES compares

documented cap per day (log scale); basis differs per provider

Documented daily sending caps: Microsoft 365 10,000 recipients per mailbox per day; Outlook.com 5,000 recipients per day; Google Workspace 2,000 messages per user per day; iCloud Mail 1,000 messages per day; Gmail 500 messages per day; Brevo 300 emails per day on the free plan; Amazon SES 200 messages per day in the sandbox; SendGrid 100 emails per day on the trial; Mailgun 100 messages per day on the free plan. No fixed cap published by Zoho Mail, Yahoo Mail, Postmark.1001,00010,000Microsoft 36510,000Outlook.com5,000Google Workspace2,000iCloud Mail1,000Gmail500Brevo300Amazon SES200SendGrid100Mailgun100
Each bar is the provider's own published figure and its basis: Microsoft 365 (recipients per mailbox per day), Outlook.com (recipients per day), Google Workspace (messages per user per day), iCloud Mail (messages per day), Gmail (messages per day), Brevo (emails per day on the free plan), Amazon SES (messages per day in the sandbox), SendGrid (emails per day on the trial), Mailgun (messages per day on the free plan). Zoho Mail, Yahoo Mail, Postmark publish no fixed daily cap. Checked on .

Questions about Amazon SES sending limits

What is the Amazon SES sending limit per day?

Sandbox: 200 per 24h at 1/sec; production: per-account quota assigned on request. Recipients per day: quota-based. Source: Amazon SES's own documentation, checked 6 Sep 2026.

What happens when you exceed the Amazon SES sending limit?

Throttling / MaxSendingRateExceeded. Above the plan's allowance, sending resumes when the quota or plan allows.

How many recipients per message does Amazon SES allow?

50.

How do I increase the Amazon SES sending limit?

sandbox can only send to verified identities. Volume above that is plan-based: Sandbox: 200 per 24h at 1/sec; production: per-account quota assigned on request.

Is there a Amazon SES rate limit per minute or per hour?

sandbox 1 email/second.

Does the Amazon SES limit change how you warm up?

Dedicated IPs use SES automatic IP warm-up — a different product from mailbox warming.

What this page was checked against

Every figure on this page is Amazon SES's own, read from these pages on and re-verified quarterly. If Amazon SES has changed a limit since, tell us and we will correct it.

The whole set was last reviewed on .