# Amazon SES vs Resend API + MCP

> Resend API + MCP has a score of 75.3 (BB) against Amazon SES's 75.1 (BB). Both do email send. The largest gap is security & auth, 22 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Resend API + MCP has a score of 75.3 (BB) against Amazon SES's 75.1 (BB). Both do email send. The largest gap is security & auth, 22 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
- Resend API + MCP: grade BB, 75.3/100, rank #38 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/resend.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/resend.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Amazon SES for reliability (+10), security & auth (+22).

Pick Resend API + MCP for schema & documentation (+10), payments & pricing (+20), maintenance & community (+8), transparency & trust (+8).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amazon SES | Resend API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 95 | 85 | Amazon SES +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 95 | Resend API + MCP +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 64 | 67 | Resend API + MCP +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 87 | 65 | Amazon SES +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | Resend API + MCP +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 93 | Resend API + MCP +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 85 | Resend API + MCP +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.1 · BB** | **75.3 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon SES | Resend API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Resend |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://email.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/v2` | `https://api.resend.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 106 |
| 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 | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-29 |
| Popularity | 5.1M npm/wk | 575 stars, 13.6M npm/wk, 2.8M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (8) | 3.4/5 (8) |

## 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.

**Resend API + MCP.** `Idempotency-Key` on POST /emails and /emails/batch, kept for 24 hours. 106 MCP tools load at once, with no toolsets.

## 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

### Resend API + MCP

1. Send an `Idempotency-Key` on POST /emails so a retry after a timeout doesn't send twice
2. Send a User-Agent header on raw HTTP calls or you'll get a 403
3. Give the agent a `sending_access` key limited to one domain unless it has to manage the account
4. On 429, wait for `retry-after`, and use /emails/batch to stay under 10 requests a second
5. Verify a domain before sending to anyone but your own address

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