I’d like to raise a concern regarding Amazon SES production access policies.
I recently received the following response from AWS:
“Due to some limiting factors on your account currently, you are not eligible to send SES messages in the FRA region. You will need to show a pattern of use of other AWS services and a consistent paid billing history to gain access to this function.
We enforce these limitations on all new accounts.”
Here is the issue:
I only need AWS for Amazon SES. I do not require EC2, S3, RDS, or other infrastructure services. My business use case is strictly transactional and compliant email sending. However, I am being told that I must first use other AWS services and generate billing history before being allowed to use SES in production.
This creates a circular limitation:
I cannot use SES because I have no billing history.
I cannot generate billing history because I do not need other AWS services.
Therefore, I cannot use SES at all.
This effectively blocks legitimate small businesses or service providers who only need email infrastructure.
What makes this more confusing is that there are accounts reportedly being auto-approved in certain cases without billing history, and there are even sellers offering “ready” AWS accounts with SES production access. That suggests the restriction is inconsistent or bypassable, which undermines the fairness of the policy.
I fully understand the need to prevent abuse and spam. However, tying SES access to unrelated AWS service usage seems counterproductive and unintentionally pushes users toward unofficial or risky alternatives.
I would appreciate clarification from the AWS team on:
Why SES production access in some regions is dependent on unrelated AWS billing history.
Whether there is an official pathway for businesses that only require SES.
How legitimate users can qualify without artificially using services they do not need.
I hope AWS can review this policy to make SES accessible to legitimate, compliant users without forcing unrelated spending.
Thank you for your attention.
I am experiencing the same situation. My request for production access was denied due to lack of billing history, while at the same time other newly created accounts are being approved automatically. This feels inconsistent and unfair.
What makes it worse is that there is clear evidence showing how easily production access can be obtained for accounts with no real website, no proper configuration, and no billing history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr4MYxCvqVg The video linked above demonstrates this clearly, and the date in the video shows this is not theoretical it is actively happening right now.
Legitimate users face strict limitations, while low-quality or potentially abusive accounts seem to pass without issue. This selective approach is damaging trust in the process.