# Amazon SES vs Mailgun API + MCP

> Amazon SES has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Mailgun API + MCP's 66.3 (B). Both do email send. The largest gap is reliability, 38 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Amazon SES has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Mailgun API + MCP's 66.3 (B). Both do email send. The largest gap is reliability, 38 points.

- Amazon SES: grade BB, 75.1/100, rank #42 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-ses.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-ses.json
- Mailgun API + MCP: grade B, 66.3/100, rank #161 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mailgun.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mailgun.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Amazon SES for reliability (+38), security & auth (+13), transparency & trust (+7).

Pick Mailgun API + MCP for payments & pricing (+20).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amazon SES | Mailgun API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 95 | 57 | Amazon SES +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 83 | Amazon SES +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 60 | Amazon SES +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 74 | Amazon SES +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | Mailgun API + MCP +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 87 | Mailgun API + MCP +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 70 | Amazon SES +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.1 · BB** | **66.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon SES | Mailgun API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Mailgun (Sinch) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://email.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/v2` | `https://api.mailgun.net/v3` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 74 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-21 |
| Popularity | 5.1M npm/wk | 62 stars, 1.3M npm/wk, 61k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (8) | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Amazon SES.** Sending starts at $0.10 per 1,000 emails on the a la carte plan. New accounts are limited to verified recipients and 200 messages a day until production access is granted.

**Mailgun API + MCP.** Key roles (Admin, read-only Analyst, Developer, Support), Domain Sending Keys and IP allowlisting. 74 MCP tools load by default, each a one-line summary, with no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint.

## Before you call either

### Amazon SES

1. Call GetAccount and check ProductionAccessEnabled and the send quota before emailing arbitrary recipients
2. Verify the From domain as an identity first. Sends from unverified identities fail even in production
3. Use the mailbox simulator (success@simulator.amazonses.com) to test bounces and complaints without hurting reputation
4. Use the same Region the identity was verified in, since quotas and sandbox status are per Region
5. On a throttling error, wait and retry the send. SES drops messages over quota rather than queueing them

### Mailgun API + MCP

1. Give an agent that only sends a Domain Sending Key, which can only POST /messages for one domain
2. Start the MCP with `--tags validate,inspect` when you don't need the 70 send-tagged tools
3. Set `MAILGUN_API_REGION=eu` for EU accounts, which live on api.eu.mailgun.net
4. Add `o:testmode=yes` to check a send without delivering it
5. Verify a custom domain first. The sandbox domain reaches only 5 authorised recipients

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