Overview

Sendy and Amazon SES aren't direct competitors. They're different layers of the email stack. Sendy is a marketing application that uses SES for sending. SES is the underlying email infrastructure. Understanding this relationship helps you make the right choice.

How They Relate

Think of it like WordPress and a web server. SES is the infrastructure (like Apache/Nginx). Sendy is the application (like WordPress). You need infrastructure to run, but the application is what you interact with. Sendy specifically requires SES. It's not optional.

When to Use Sendy

Use Sendy when you need marketing email features but want the cost efficiency of SES. Sendy gives you list management, campaign builders, autoresponders, and tracking. Without something like Sendy, you'd have to build all of this yourself on top of raw SES.

When to Use SES Directly

Use SES directly for transactional email. Password resets, receipts, notifications. These are triggered by your application code and don't need marketing features. Many businesses use both: Sendy for marketing, SES API for transactional.

The Cost Equation

SES alone costs ~$0.10 per 1,000 emails. Sendy adds a $69 one-time license plus hosting costs. If you need marketing features, $69 is far cheaper than building them yourself. If you only need transactional email, skip Sendy and use SES directly.

For SaaS Companies

Most SaaS companies need both marketing and transactional email. Managing Sendy for marketing plus raw SES for transactional is operationally complex. Sequenzy unifies both in one platform with Stripe integration, no self-hosting required.

Making the Choice

This isn't really either/or. Use Sendy if you need marketing features on top of SES. Use SES directly if you're building custom solutions or sending transactional email. Or consider a managed platform like Sequenzy that handles both without infrastructure management.