Skip to content
BuildBase

Send email through Amazon SES

Connect your own Amazon SES account as a sender, with its SMTP credentials, and send its bounces and complaints back through an SNS topic.

With an Amazon SES sender, mail goes out through your own AWS account, from an identity you verified there. SES reports bounces and complaints to an SNS topic, and BuildBase reads them from it, so the sending limits protect this sender too.

Before you start

An AWS account with the domain or address verified in SES, bring-your-own SMTP on your BuildBase plan, and a console role that can create email senders. Connect a sender shows the Sender accounts page.

1. Verify the identity in SES

In the AWS console, open SES, then Identities, and check that the domain or address you will send from reads Verified. An account still in the SES sandbox sends only to verified addresses: ask AWS for production access first.

2. Create SMTP credentials

In SES, open SMTP settings and create SMTP credentials. These are not your AWS access keys: SES shows an SMTP user name and password once. Keep both.

3. Make a topic for bounces and complaints

In SNS, create a topic, and copy its ARN (arn:aws:sns:<region>:<account>:<name>). In SES, publish the Bounce, Complaint and Delivery delay events of your configuration set (or of the identity) to that topic.

4. Open Add new sender

Open Sender accounts in the console

(opens the console in a new tab)

In the left rail choose Messaging, then Sender accounts. Press Add new sender and choose Amazon SES.

5. Fill in SES

Fill Name, From address (Name <address> on your verified identity), AWS region (such as eu-west-1), SES SMTP username, SES SMTP password, Configuration set (optional) and SNS topic ARN for bounces and complaints. Press Connect Amazon SES.

BuildBase signs in to SES with those credentials before it saves anything: a wrong user name, password or region is refused and nothing is stored.

The Amazon SES tab: Name Acme newsletter (SES), From address, AWS region eu-west-1, the SES SMTP username and password, Configuration set acme-news, the SNS topic ARN, and the Connect Amazon SES button highlighted as step 5

6. Subscribe BuildBase to the topic

Once connected, the dialog says Last step and shows the SNS subscription endpoint, https://api.console.buildbase.app/api/webhooks/email/<orgId>/ses. Copy it and press Done. In SNS, add an HTTPS subscription to your topic with that endpoint. BuildBase confirms the subscription itself, and accepts messages only from the topic you entered.

7. Find it in Email senders

The sender is listed under Email senders with the others. Press Make default on it to send your sign-in mail through SES too (make it the default).

Check it works

Press Edit on the sender, then Send test email. Then send to the SES mailbox simulator's bounce address, [email protected], and see the bounce under Messaging, then Email history.

Things to watch out for

  • SES SMTP credentials are not AWS access keys. Create them under SES, SMTP settings.
  • The SMTP user name is 16 to 128 characters, the password 16 to 256. The region and the topic ARN must be in AWS's own format.
  • Without the SNS topic, bounces and complaints are not recorded, and the sending health checks cannot protect this sender.
  • An account in the SES sandbox sends only to verified addresses.

Next Steps