I'm looking into the feasibility of creating an email service strictly for enterprise use, similar to Gmail or Outlook, but built entirely on AWS. The idea is that focusing on enterprises could simplify things since we can control who signs up and handle a more manageable volume of email traffic, especially for internal communications within organizations. However, I'm new to AWS email services, and I have some concerns:
- What do I need to do to get out of the SES sandbox? Are user-initiated emails counted as transactional? Does SES support this?
- I've heard port 25 is blocked or throttled across AWS compute services.
- WorkMail seems to fit, but at $4 per user per month, it can get pricey.
Is this something that's technically viable? Has anyone attempted a similar setup? If so, how did you go about it?
3 Answers
You can absolutely build your own email service on AWS, especially if you bring your own IPs and work with your AWS account team. It's definitely doable, but make sure the AWS addresses you use aren't at risk of being flagged.
Before diving in, what unique features are you planning beyond what Gmail and Outlook offer?
I’ve previously managed an SMTP service on AWS. There are companies using their own MS Exchange servers on AWS too. However, managing your own email server can be a hassle. You might find that many AWS IPs have a bad reputation, which can send your emails straight to spam. We ended up running multiple SMTP servers with different IPs to avoid being blocked, which can be a real headache if you're expecting reliable delivery.
I’m just brainstorming ideas and trying to understand all the implications for now—nothing set in stone.