How to Configure Mautic with Amazon SES for Cheap Email

Why Amazon SES Is the Best Budget Email Provider

If you're running Mautic as your marketing automation platform, the default PHP mail configuration isn't going to cut it. You need a proper transactional email provider to ensure deliverability, and Amazon SES is arguably the best option available.

Here's why SES stands out: the first 62,000 emails per month are free for the first year, and after that you're looking at just $0.10 per 1,000 emails. That means sending 50,000 emails a month costs you roughly five dollars. Compare that to dedicated email marketing platforms charging $50-$300+ per month for similar volume, and the savings are dramatic.

What makes SES a bit of a paradox is that despite being the cheapest option, it also has some of the best deliverability rates in the industry. Amazon enforces strict sending policies, which keeps their IP reputation clean and your emails landing in inboxes rather than spam folders.

Verifying Your Domain in Amazon SES

Before SES will send a single email on your behalf, you need to prove you own the domain you're sending from. Head into the AWS console, search for SES (it'll show up as "Simple Email Service" — the second option, not the first), and navigate to the Domains section.

Click "Verify a New Domain," enter your domain name, and make sure to check the box that says "Generate DKIM settings." This is important — DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a cryptographic signature to your emails that proves they're legitimately sent from your domain.

After clicking verify, Amazon gives you a set of DNS records to add: one TXT record for SPF authorization and three CNAME records for DKIM. You'll need to add these at your DNS provider — whether that's GoDaddy, Cloudflare, SiteGround, DNS Made Easy, or wherever your domain's DNS is managed.

One critical note: do NOT add the MX record that Amazon suggests. If you're already receiving email through G Suite, Microsoft 365, Amazon WorkMail, or any other provider, changing your MX records will break your incoming mail. You only need the TXT and CNAME records. Verification usually takes just a couple of minutes, though the DKIM verification can sometimes lag a bit behind the domain verification.

Creating SMTP Credentials and Connecting Mautic

With your domain verified, it's time to generate the SMTP credentials Mautic needs to authenticate with SES. In the SES dashboard, navigate to "SMTP Settings" and click "Create My SMTP Credentials." You'll create an IAM user — give it a descriptive name so you can identify it later, something like "mautic-yoursite."

Once you click create, Amazon displays your SMTP username and password. This is the only time you'll see the password, so copy it immediately. If you lose it, you can always generate new credentials, but you can't recover the old ones.

Back in Mautic, go to the gear icon, then Configuration, then Email Settings. Change the mail service dropdown from PHP Mail to Amazon SES. You'll need to select the correct AWS region — check the URL in your SES dashboard to see whether you're in us-east-1, us-west-2, or eu-west-1. Paste in your SMTP username and password, then hit "Test Connection." If everything is configured correctly, you'll see a success message. Send yourself a test email to confirm it arrives in your inbox.

Getting Out of SES Sandbox Mode

New AWS accounts start in sandbox mode, which means you can only send emails to verified email addresses within your own domain. To send to your actual mailing list, you need to request a sending limit increase.

From the SES dashboard, go to "Sending Statistics" and click "Request a Sending Limit Increase." Amazon takes this process seriously, so be specific and honest in your responses. Choose "SES Sending Limits" as the case type and "Marketing" as the mail type.

Amazon wants to know four things: how you acquired your mailing list (organically, through opt-ins), how you'll handle bounces and complaints (you'll use Amazon SNS, which we're setting up next), how recipients can opt out (unsubscribe link in every email), and why you need the sending quota you're requesting (explain your list size and sending frequency).

Take this form seriously. Amazon's strict vetting process is actually one of the reasons SES has such great deliverability — they keep spammers off the platform. If you give thoughtful, legitimate answers, approval is typically quick.

Setting Up Bounce and Complaint Monitoring with SNS

Bounce and complaint handling isn't optional — it's essential for maintaining your sender reputation. Amazon's Simple Notification Service (SNS) acts as the bridge between SES and Mautic, automatically notifying your Mautic installation when emails bounce or recipients mark your messages as spam.

In the AWS console, search for SNS and navigate to Topics. Create a new topic and give it a descriptive name like "bnc-yourdomain" (for bounce and complaint). Next, create a subscription under that topic. Set the protocol to HTTPS, and for the endpoint, enter your Mautic URL followed by the webhook path: `/mailer/amazon/callback`. If your Mautic installation uses index.php in the URL, include that as well.

After creating the subscription, check that the status shows "Confirmed." This should happen almost instantly — if it doesn't, double-check that you entered the endpoint URL correctly. The most common issue is getting the webhook path wrong.

Connecting SES Notifications to SNS

The final step ties everything together. Head back to Amazon SES, go to Domains, click on your verified domain, and scroll down to the Notifications section. Click "Edit Configuration" and set the SNS topic for bounces, complaints, and deliveries to the topic you just created.

You can also disable email feedback forwarding since SNS is handling all of that for you. Save the configuration and you're done.

At this point you have a fully operational email sending infrastructure: Mautic handles the marketing automation and campaign logic, Amazon SES handles the actual email delivery at rock-bottom prices with top-tier deliverability, and SNS automatically feeds bounce and complaint data back into Mautic so your lists stay clean. It's a setup that rivals platforms costing hundreds of dollars per month, and you're running it for pennies.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.