ImprovMX provides first-class[1] email forwarding to your existing inbox, with sending handled by SMTP.
Amazon SES is AWS's developer email service for high-volume transactional sending. Inbound mail goes to S3, SNS or Lambda — not to a mailbox.
Choose Amazon SES for high-volume API sending wired into AWS. Choose ImprovMX for simple forwarding to your existing inbox, without an AWS account.
ImprovMX
Amazon SES
Inbound Email
Native email forwarding and inbound webhooks.
No mailbox forwarding; receipt rules route to S3, SNS or Lambda only.[2]
Setup
Add two MX records and you're done.
AWS account, IAM, identity verification and sandbox approval.[3]
Pricing
Predictable fixed plans.
$0.10 per 1,000 emails, plus AWS data and storage charges.
Free Plan
Free-forever forwarding (500 emails/day).
3,000 emails/month for 12 months only.[7]
Customer Support
Basic free; technical help via paid plans from $29/mo.
Advanced Forwarding
Recipient matching via receipt rules; routing logic via manual Lambda code.
Email Send API
SMTP sending; Send API in progress.
Full SES API and SMTP relay.
CLI/MCP
SES commands available via the official AWS CLI.
Webhooks
Inbound email webhooks.
Inbound and sending events via SNS HTTP subscriptions.
Email Tracking
No open or click tracking.[6]
Open and click tracking via configuration sets.
Email Templates
Not offered.[6]
Reusable templates with personalization.
Dedicated IPs
Shared IP pool only.[6]
Dedicated IPs from $24.95/mo, or managed pools from $15/mo.
Ownership
A profitable company focused on email.
One of hundreds of AWS services.
Compliance
ImprovMX is GDPR compliant.
1. ImprovMX offers SMTP sending, rules routing, wildcard addresses, multiple recipient destinations, regex aliases and webhooks.
2. Amazon SES receipt rules route to S3, SNS, Lambda, or WorkMail. Forwarding to an external inbox requires custom Lambda code.
3. New SES accounts start in the sandbox: 200 messages per 24 hours, 1 message per second, and only verified recipients until AWS approves a production access request.
4. ImprovMX's CLI is built for terminal workflows, automation, and ai coding tools like Claude Code and OpenAI Codex.
5. ImprovMX has an industry-leading 4.9-star Trustpilot rating.
6. Email tracking, templates, and dedicated IPs are sending-side features outside ImprovMX's focus on inbound forwarding.
7. The indefinite 62k-emails-from-EC2 free tier was retired in August 2023.
Questions? Reach out to us, we love chatting about email service providers.
Your domain deserves better email
Set up in minutes and forget about it.