EMAIL PROCUREMENT
Transactional Email Budget Planner
Compare transactional email delivery fees, attachment data and your setup time. Adjust SES and MailerSend rates and export an auditable monthly budget.
Set sending volume → Adjust rates and time → Compare monthly totals
Compare providers after using your result
Check MailerSend plans Check Amazon SES plans
Provider links currently earn us no commission.Method, assumptions and source prices
Sending cost is only part of the decision A 50,000-recipient month costs an estimated $74.50 on the modeled Hobby tariff, before taxes and add-ons. At the SES Essentials rate shown, sending costs $8 before attachment data. If SES requires four setup hours spread across a year plus one hour each month, at $50/hour that adds $66.67 of your time. These are scenario assumptions, not measured vendor workload. How to use this budget Count recipients, not API requests. Put expected attachment size in KB, then estimate the work you would actually do for domain setup, event handling and delivery monitoring. Change the editable price inputs when your provider quote differs. Export the results for your buying decision. SES also offers an à-la-carte rate of $0.10/1,000 emails, with different included features. To model it, change the rate field. This compares two specific plans, not every available tier or a guarantee of delivery quality.
Price snapshot: 2026-09-23. Verify current provider terms before buying. Prices and time inputs are estimates; no delivery or savings guarantee.
Sources: MailerSend pricing · Amazon SES pricing
Related: Inspect an email attachment before estimating data charges
How to read your result
Compare the exact plan you can buy. Count recipient deliveries rather than API calls. The time column is your own estimate, not a provider fee. Change the editable tariff inputs to match your quote; this worksheet does not measure deliverability.
Related tool: Email Payload Inspector — Attachment & Base64 Size Calculator
Reproduce a known result
Time cost is zero; compare only the two tariff calculations using the displayed editable rates. This CSV records scenario assumptions, not a provider quote.
Load 50,000 recipients, no attachments, time excluded · Download synthetic example
Examples and troubleshooting
Two services can have similar sending fees and very different operating effort for your team. Build a monthly budget with separate columns for provider charges and your own time. Do not turn a time estimate into a claim about provider billing.
Estimate transactional email cost beyond the sending fee
Common questions
Why does the tool show provider fees and time separately?
Only the provider-fee column estimates an external bill. Time cost is an internal planning assumption supplied by you.
Can I use a different quote?
Yes. Edit the rate and base-price inputs to match the option you can actually purchase, then rerun the calculation.
Does this compare inbox placement?
No. It budgets volume, data and time. Deliverability requires separate evidence from your sending context.
Privacy and anonymous measurement
Your tool inputs stay in the isolated browser workspace. We count page views and action names, anonymous browser IDs, referring domain, campaign channel and device class. We do not collect your JSON, email text, playlists or complete referring URLs. Country is unknown unless supplied by a trusted server configuration. Browser storage may be unavailable; in that case unique-user counts are limited to this visit.
Share the tool, not your input
Add this tool to your docs or resource page
Copy a plain link for your team wiki, tutorial or resource page. It opens the free tool and includes no input data, embedded scripts or account requirement. The docs tag helps us count visits from shared resources.