Amazon SES vs Sparkpost
Compare Amazon SES and Sparkpost based on observed API performance, features, and pricing
Live performance comparison
Real-world performance data from messages sent through Knock
| Provider | Message volume | Growth | Status page updates (30d) | Status page updates (90d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 25M–100M | 3rd of 10 ↑ | 0 | 0 |
 | <1M | 10th of 10 ↑ | 8 | 11 |
From December 12th to March 12th, Knock routed 25M–100M messages through Amazon SES and <1M through Sparkpost. Amazon SES reported 0 status page updates over the last 90 days, while Sparkpost reported 11.
Response time
Response time measures how long each provider takes to accept an API request from Knock, including connection overhead and any automatic retries. Lower values mean faster message hand-off.
| Provider | Median (p50) | p90 | p95 | p99 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 127ms | 214ms | 246ms | 472ms |
| 288ms | 347ms | 388ms | 544ms |
The chart above shows each provider's daily median response time (p50) from December 12th to March 12th. The top-line number is an average of these daily values: Amazon SES averaged 127ms compared to 288ms for Sparkpost. Amazon SES's highest daily p50 was 160ms; Sparkpost's was 336ms. Amazon SES is 161ms faster at the median, which can add up at high volumes.
The 90th percentile (p90) captures the slowest 10% of requests, revealing how each provider handles moderate stress. Averaged across all days, Amazon SES has a p90 of 214ms compared to 347ms for Sparkpost. The highest daily p90 was 244ms for Amazon SES and 402ms for Sparkpost. Amazon SES handles these slower requests 133ms faster, suggesting more consistent performance across the board.
The 99th percentile (p99) represents the long tail — the slowest 1% of requests. Averaged across all days, Amazon SES reached 472ms at p99 while Sparkpost reached 544ms. The highest daily p99 was 492ms for Amazon SES and 31566ms for Sparkpost, indicating the worst-case response time during spikes or provider-side congestion. Amazon SES shows a tighter tail, which may matter for time-sensitive notifications like one-time passwords or real-time alerts where even rare delays can impact user experience.
Error rate
Error rate tracks the ratio of 5xx responses and timeouts to total requests. Knock automatically retries failed requests, so transient provider errors rarely affect end-user delivery.
| Provider | Avg. daily error rate | Highest daily rate | Peak error date | Zero-error days | Days above 0.01% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00% | 0.01% | Feb 4 | 90 | 0 |
| 0.22% | 3.41% | Feb 24 | 90 | 1 |
Averaged across the date range, Amazon SES shows a 0.00% daily error rate compared to 0.22% for Sparkpost. The highest single-day error rate was 0.01% for Amazon SES and 3.41% for Sparkpost. Amazon SES demonstrates a lower error rate, indicating slightly more consistent availability during this period. Knock automatically retries failed requests to both providers, minimizing the impact of transient errors on end-user delivery.
About these metrics: Data represents messages sent through Knock during the specified period. Response time measures time from Knock to provider acceptance. Error rate includes only provider 5xx responses and timeouts.
Recent Amazon SES incidents
Status page incidents from the last 30 days for Amazon SES
No incidents reported in the last 30 days
Recent Sparkpost incidents
Status page incidents from the last 30 days for Sparkpost
Ongoing since Mar 16, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Mar 16, 15:00 - 18:00 EDTMar 12, 11:24 EDT Scheduled - On March 16th between 19:00 UTC, we will be performing maintenance on our EU routers. During this planned maintenance, you may experience slightly longer initial delivery times, up to 15 minutes, between 19:00 and 22:00 UTC each day. During the full duration of this maintenance all emails will continued to be accepted. This maintenance only impacts our EU sending infrastructure. We appreciate your understanding
Started Mar 12, 2026 — Resolved Mar 12, 2026
Mar 12, 07:25 EDT Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Mar 12, 06:03 EDT Monitoring - System functionality has been fully restored and all emails are being transmitted correctly without added latencies; we are actively monitoring.Mar 12, 04:00 EDT Investigating - Email delivery in US is impacted, experiencing elevated delays.Mar 12, 03:48 EDT Monitoring - System is fully recovered and under monitoring.Mar 12, 02:51 EDT Investigating - We are currently investigating issues with delivery of
Started Mar 5, 2026 — Resolved Mar 5, 2026
Mar 4, 20:24 EST Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Mar 4, 20:00 EST Monitoring - We are observing recovery in email delivery performance and are actively monitoring.Mar 4, 19:51 EST Investigating - We are investigating an increase in delivery latency for some outbound messages.
Started Feb 27, 2026 — Resolved Feb 27, 2026
Feb 27, 12:38 EST Resolved - Microsoft has confirmed that they made additional changes the night of Thursday, Feb 26th that should have remediated most IP rate limiting and rejection issues. If you are still seeing impacts, please reach out via your normal support channels and our team can investigate and escalate with Microsoft.Feb 26, 12:55 EST Monitoring - We are currently seeing elevated temporary rejection rates for email delivered to Outlook.com, Hotmail, and other Microsoft-hosted addres
Started Feb 24, 2026 — Resolved Feb 24, 2026
Feb 24, 14:41 EST Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Feb 24, 14:38 EST Monitoring - A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.Feb 24, 14:34 EST Identified - The team has identified the root cause. There is a core networking issue that has impacted sending across the clusters.Feb 24, 14:25 EST Update - We are continuing to investigate this issue. We still see 5xx errors on mail injections and degradation.Feb 24, 14:07 EST Update - We are continuing to investigate this
Started Feb 24, 2026 — Resolved Feb 24, 2026
Feb 24, 13:17 EST Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Feb 24, 12:34 EST Monitoring - A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.Feb 24, 12:19 EST Identified - The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.Feb 24, 10:01 EST Investigating - We are currently investigating this issue. No messages are lost.
Started Feb 20, 2026 — Resolved Feb 20, 2026
Feb 20, 11:33 EST Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Feb 20, 11:15 EST Update - We are continuing to monitor for any further issues.Feb 20, 11:14 EST Monitoring - A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.Feb 20, 11:06 EST Investigating - We are currently investigating this issue.
Started Feb 18, 2026 — Resolved Feb 18, 2026
Feb 18, 12:06 EST Resolved - This incident has been resolved.Feb 18, 11:15 EST Update - We have seen recovery. We will continue monitoring for the next 60 minutes to ensure message queues stay stable.Feb 18, 10:59 EST Monitoring - We continue to see strong recovery of the mail queues and message delivery. We expect all remaining delayed messages to be delivered in the next 5 minutes.Feb 18, 10:15 EST Update - We have begun to see improvements to outbound mail delivery delays. We anticipate fu
Pros and cons
Amazon SES
Sparkpost
Pros
- Delivers billions of emails per year for Netflix, Reddit, and Amazon
- Lowest cost per email among major providers with simple pay-as-you-go pricing
- Deep integration with the AWS ecosystem and SDKs in all major languages
- Highly scalable with no sending limits after warm-up
Pros
- Delivers nearly 40% of all commercial email worldwide
- Subaccount support for isolated sending streams under one billing account
- On-premise mail sending solution available for very high volume workloads
- Great analytics tools with predictive health scores for email deliverability
Cons
- Setup is complex with documentation that can be difficult to navigate
- New accounts are sandboxed to 200 messages per 24-hour period
- Accessing analytics requires additional AWS services like SNS and Lambda
Cons
- Documentation can be hard to navigate with less beginner-friendly getting started content
- Higher price point than basic providers
- Now part of Bird (formerly MessageBird), which may affect product direction
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Amazon SES and Sparkpost?
Amazon SES is a cost-effective, cloud-scale email service built on AWS infrastructure. SparkPost is a data-driven email delivery platform with advanced analytics and predictive tools for high-volume senders. Amazon SES is best suited for cost-sensitive, high-volume, while Sparkpost is geared toward data-driven, high-volume.
Which is cheaper, Amazon SES or Sparkpost?
3,000 free emails per month for the first 12 months. After that, $0.10 per 1,000 emails with additional charges for attachments and dedicated IPs. Free tier includes 500 emails per month with community support. Paid plans start at $20/month for 50,000 emails with premium deliverability features. The best value depends on your sending volume. Use the pricing calculator above to compare costs at your expected volume.
Which is faster, Amazon SES or Sparkpost?
Based on real-world data from Knock, Amazon SES has a median API response time (p50) of 127ms compared to 288ms for Sparkpost.
Which is more reliable, Amazon SES or Sparkpost?
From December 12th to March 12th, Amazon SES showed an error rate of 0.00% while Sparkpost showed 0.22%. Both rates are within acceptable thresholds for production email delivery, and Knock automatically retries failed requests to minimize the impact of transient errors.
Which is more popular, Amazon SES or Sparkpost?
On the Knock platform, Amazon SES handled 25M–100M messages from December 12th to March 12th compared to <1M for Sparkpost. Amazon SES is currently trending upward in adoption, while Sparkpost is trending upward.
Can I use both Amazon SES and Sparkpost together?
Yes. Knock enables you to integrate multiple email providers into a single notification workflow. You can use Amazon SES and Sparkpost side by side, route traffic between them, or migrate from one to the other without changing your application code.
What are the main pros and cons of Amazon SES vs Sparkpost?
Amazon SES strengths include delivers billions of emails per year for netflix, reddit, and amazon and lowest cost per email among major providers with simple pay-as-you-go pricing. Sparkpost strengths include delivers nearly 40% of all commercial email worldwide and subaccount support for isolated sending streams under one billing account. On the other hand, Amazon SES drawbacks include setup is complex with documentation that can be difficult to navigate, while Sparkpost drawbacks include documentation can be hard to navigate with less beginner-friendly getting started content.
Use either provider with Knock
Knock enables you to integrate Amazon SES, Sparkpost, or any combination of email providers into a single notification workflow. Manage templates, orchestrate cross-channel delivery, and switch providers without changing your code.