Moving out of Sandbox is just the first step. When your SaaS scales, your transactional volume might exceed the default production limits: 50,000 emails per 24 hours and 14 messages per second.
To avoid deliverability delays or dropped queue jobs, you must request an AWS SES sending quota and rate limit increase. This post shows you how to submit a bulletproof quota request to AWS.
1. Understanding AWS Sending Metrics
AWS SES enforces two distinct types of quotas:
- Sending Quota: The maximum number of emails you can send in a rolling 24-hour period.
- Max Send Rate: The maximum number of emails you can send per second.
[Daily Quota: 50,000] ----> Limits total daily marketing and transactional volume
[Send Rate: 14/sec] ----> Limits bulk mailing burst speed
2. Preparing Your Request (Avoid Rejection)
AWS support engineers manually review limit increase requests to prevent spam. A poorly formatted request will get rejected instantly.
Core Deliverability Information Required:
- Bounce & Complaint Strategy: Detail how you handle bounces. State that you use SNS/SQS notifications to auto-remove bad email addresses.
- Opt-in Mechanism: Explain how users end up on your list. Mention "We send double opt-in confirmation emails for marketing and send only user-triggered receipts for transactions."
- Unsubscribe Strategy: State that all emails contain a single-click unsubscribe link in headers (
List-Unsubscribe) and footers.
3. Submitting the Request Ticket
- Go to the AWS Support Center console.
- Click Create case -> Service limit increase.
- Under Limit type, choose SES Sending Limits.
- In the request details, add:
- Region: (e.g., US East N. Virginia)
- Limit: Desired Daily Sending Quota (e.g., change to 100,000) or Desired Maximum Sending Rate (e.g., change to 30/second).
- Case Description: Copy and adapt this template:
Hi AWS Support Team,
We are requesting a sending quota increase to 100,000 emails/day and sending rate to 30 emails/sec for our transactional application.
1. Bounces & Complaints: We have configured SNS Topics mapped to SQS queues. Our Laravel app automatically moves bounced or complaining addresses to a suppression list to prevent future sends.
2. User opt-in: All users are verified via double opt-in OTP on register. We do not buy third-party lists.
3. Unsubscribe: All mail headers contain List-Unsubscribe tags.
Please let us know if you need any further information.
AWS usually responds and approves limits within 24 hours. Keep track of your bounce rates during this period.