Amazon SES Now Offers Dedicated IP Addresses

Edited September, 2017: Since this article was published, we have made several changes that impact the dedicated IP address feature:

• This post states that the only way to use both dedicated IP addresses and shared IP addresses is to create two separate AWS accounts. This statement is no longer true; you can now use dedicated IP pools to create pools of dedicated IP addresses, as well as pools that use shared IP addresses, all from a single account. See Managing Dedicated IP Pools in the Amazon SES Developer Guide for more information.
• This post also states that you must send an average of 175,000 or more emails per day in order to use dedicated IP addresses. We no longer enforce this minimum volume requirement; instead, we consider your use case and sending practices when deciding whether or not to grant a request for dedicated IP addresses. See Requesting Dedicated IP Addresses for more information.

Edited March, 2017: You can now warm up your leased dedicated IPs with the Amazon SES automatic warm-up feature. See this blog post for details.

The SES team is pleased to announce that, starting today, you can lease IP addresses dedicated exclusively to your email sending. Prior to the availability of dedicated IPs, all Amazon SES customers sent their email through IP addresses shared by other Amazon SES customers. Although shared IPs remain the best fit for many of our customers, dedicated IPs offer several benefits that might be a great fit for your use case. This blog post explains the use cases that benefit from dedicated IPs, how to request them, and the considerations you need to take when you use them.

Why should I use dedicated IPs?

You might choose to lease dedicated IPs so that you can fully control the email coming from your IPs. Because you know exactly what mail is being sent from those IP addresses, it can make troubleshooting deliverability issues simpler.

Also, most email certification programs require you to have dedicated IPs because they demonstrate your commitment to managing your email reputation.

You might also choose dedicated IPs if you send multiple types of mail, such as marketing and transactional mail, and you want to isolate the reputation of your mail streams to improve your visibility and control over your email deliverability.

Dedicated IPs also address whitelisting and security requirements, because they are an unchanging set of IP addresses. For example, you might use SES to send yourself operational notifications such as alarms. Knowing that all mail originating from your dedicated IPs is safe, you can whitelist the dedicated IPs with your incoming mail servers to ensure that they always accept mail from those IP addresses.

Am I a good candidate for dedicated IPs?

To be a good candidate for dedicated IPs, we typically recommend a sustained and consistent sending pattern and a minimum daily sending volume of 175,000 emails per day (on average). However, if you need dedicated IPs for whitelisting or security purposes and your sending does not meet the minimum volume requirement, feel free to apply anyway, and we will evaluate your request.

SES provides extensive documentation on email-sending best practices as well as guidelines regarding IP-blocking events, but with dedicated IPs the onus is on you to ensure that you send high-quality email that your recipients expect, want, and engage with. Even though you control the email coming from your dedicated IP addresses, SES will continue to monitor SES’s entire IP space to ensure a high deliverability bar for all SES customers.

To learn more about the requirements and whether dedicated IPs are right for you, see Trade-offs Between Dedicated IPs and Shared IPs in the developer guide.

How can I request dedicated IPs?

To request dedicated IPs, open an SES Sending Limits Increase case in Support Center. You can also reach the limit increase form from the Amazon SES console. First, however, be sure to read Requesting Dedicated IPs in the developer guide for instructions on how to use an SES Sending Limits Increase case to request dedicated IPs.

How will my sending process change?

If your request for dedicated IPs is granted, you have to warm up your dedicated IPs before you continue to send emails in the usual way. Warming up your dedicated IPs before you start sending large amounts of email is needed because many receiving ISPs will not accept email from IPs that suddenly send a large volume of email. You warm up your IPs by gradually increasing the volume of emails you send through a new IP address. Each IP address needs some time to build a positive reputation. ISPs determine an IP address’s reputation in part based on the quality and the volume of email sent through that IP address. If you’re not sending a lot of email, a dedicated IP can actually hurt your deliverability because receiving servers aren’t seeing enough email to know whether to trust the IP address or not. Also, your traffic might be rejected by ISPs if you don’t warm up your IPs before sending. You can find more guidance about the warm-up process in the developer guide.

Do dedicated IPs incur an extra cost?

Yes. See the Amazon SES pricing page for dedicated IP pricing information.

Why would I choose to continue using the shared IP model instead of moving to dedicated IPs?

With SES, shared IPs are commitment-free, enable you to send with arbitrary email volume, and there is no cost beyond the regular SES email sending price. Shared IPs are also pre-warmed, which means that you can start sending a large volume of emails through them right away. With shared IPs, it is easier to maintain a good reputation with irregular sending spikes and there is no minimum usage required.

Can I use both shared IPs and dedicated IPs for my sending?

Yes. You can do this by using two different AWS accounts. Request dedicated IPs for one account, and leave the other account at its default option, which is the shared IP model. For example, you could send your transactional mail, which has a steadier sending cadence, through dedicated IPs. For large bursts of mail, you could use shared IPs instead. More guidance about sending from multiple AWS accounts can be found here.

We hope you find this feature useful! If you have any questions or comments, let us know in the SES Forum or here in the comment section of the blog.