AWS SES has two sending limits: a sending quota (emails in any 24 hours) and a sending rate (emails per second). Both are set per AWS region. AWS often raises them on its own; when it does not, you ask in the Service Quotas console and AWS answers within 24 hours.
The two limits.
| In the sandbox | In production | |
|---|---|---|
| Sending quota | 200 emails per 24 hours | Set by AWS for your use case |
| Sending rate | 1 email per second | Set by AWS for your use case |
New production accounts commonly start at 50,000 emails a day and 14 a second, but AWS says the numbers vary with your use case. Yours are on the SES Account dashboard, in the region you send from.
What counts.
Recipients, not messages
One email to 10 people counts as 10. A single message can have at most 50 recipients across To, CC and BCC.
A rolling 24 hours
The quota is not reset at midnight. Each time you send, SES counts what you sent in the previous 24 hours.
One region at a time
Limits raised in one region stay in that region. Sending from a second region starts from that region's own limits.
When you hit a limit.
SES drops the email and does not try again. Your code gets an error instead:
API: ThrottlingException: Daily message quota exceeded
API: ThrottlingException: Maximum sending rate exceeded
SMTP: 454 Throttling failure: Daily message quota exceeded
SMTP: 454 Throttling failure: Maximum sending rate exceededRetrying is your job. AWS suggests waiting up to 10 minutes before trying again. A quota error means the day is spent; a rate error means slow down.
Protect your important email
If one big newsletter uses up the day's quota, the password resets and receipts after it fail too. Keep part of your quota spare for transactional email.
Automatic increases.
AWS raises limits on its own, often before you need it, when all four of these are true:
Your readers want your email
Stop sending to people who never open it.
You send real email to real customers
Tests to made-up addresses, or mail only to your own team, tell AWS nothing.
You send close to your quota
Your daily volume regularly comes near the limit without going over it.
Your bounce and complaint rates are low
High rates can lower your limits instead. See AWS SES bounce and complaint rates.
Asking for more.
Step 1
Open the Service Quotas console.
Step 2
In the top right, next to your account number, choose the region you send from.
Step 3
Choose AWS services, then Amazon Simple Email Service (SES).
Step 4
Choose the quota (Sending quota or Sending rate), then Request increase at account level, and enter the number you need.
AWS answers within 24 hours, in English. It may ask for more detail first.
What gets a yes.
Two things matter more than anything you write in the form: a real website that shows what your business does, and an honest description of your sending. AWS reads requests one by one and can refuse any that do not fit its policies. Say plainly:
Who you email
Customers, or people who signed up on your website. How you got the addresses.
What you send, and how often
Receipts and password resets, a weekly newsletter, and your volumes now and in the coming months.
How you handle bounces, complaints and unsubscribes
That they are removed automatically and never mailed again.
Ask for what you need soon, not the largest number you can imagine. Limits grow as your sending earns them.
Sources: SES quotas, Increasing your SES sending quotas, Sending quota errors.