AWS Free Tier: How to Run Your Email Server Without Cost

Keeping costs low is a top priority for indie hackers, startups, and hobby projects alike. With the AWS Free Tier and NoServerMail, you can deploy a production-ready, self-hosted email system that often remains entirely free for low-to-moderate traffic workloads. This article breaks down the numbers, shows real-world scenarios, and walks you through getting started.

1. What Does the AWS Free Tier Include?

AWS Service	Free Tier Allowance*	How NoServerMail Uses It
Amazon SES (Simple Email Service)	62,000 outbound emails/month + 1,000 inbound emails/month (when invoked from AWS resources such as Lambda)	Sending & receiving messages
AWS Lambda	1 million requests + 400,000 GB-seconds of compute/month	Processing & routing email events
Amazon S3	5 GB storage, 20,000 GET, 2,000 PUT requests/month	Storing message bodies & attachments
Amazon DynamoDB	25 GB storage + 25 provisioned RCUs/WCUs	Indexing metadata for fast inbox searches

^{*Accurate as of Aug 2025—always verify current limits in the AWS Free Tier documentation and AWS pricing pages.}

With these quotas, most small projects—newsletters, SaaS sign-ups, transactional notifications—fit comfortably inside the free tier.

📊 Pro tip: Monitor your usage in the AWS Billing Dashboard to track your free tier consumption.

2. Real-World Savings

Example A – Solo SaaS

Traffic: 20,000 transactional emails + 300 support threads/month
Traditional ESP Cost: Mailgun “Foundation” plan ≈ $35/mo
AWS + NoServerMail Cost: $0 (all usage inside free tier)
Annual Savings: $420

Example B – Bootstrapped Newsletter

List Size: 8,000 subscribers
Sends: Monthly newsletter (8,000 emails) + drip campaigns (10,000 emails)
Sendinblue Cost: ≈ $39/mo
AWS + NoServerMail Cost: $0
Annual Savings: $468

Example C – Early-Stage Marketplace

Users: 5,000 buyers/sellers
Emails: 45,000 bid & order notifications/month
AWS Overages:
Outbound SES overage: 45,000 – 62,000 = 0 (still free!)
Monthly Infrastructure Cost: $0

Bottom line: Until your volume surpasses the generous SES outbound allowance, you pay nothing in AWS fees—yet retain 100% ownership of your data.

3. Why Pair NoServerMail with the Free Tier?

Benefit	Free Tier Alone	Free Tier + NoServerMail
One-click deployment	❌ Manual IAM & CloudFormation setup	✅ Pre-built template
Privacy by default	⚠️ Needs custom architecture	✅ Email stays in your AWS account
Zero server management	⚠️ You build Lambda flows	✅ Managed Lambda, S3, DynamoDB wiring
Developer-friendly UI	❌ Console only	✅ Web inbox + API
Fixed $19.99 lifetime license	—	Covers all future updates

NoServerMail removes the heavy lifting so you can focus on your product, not on plumbing.

4. Quick-Start Guide

# noservermail-config.yaml
region: us-east-1 # Choose any SES-supported region
domain: example.com # Verified sender domain
admin_email: admin@example.com

Buy & verify your domain in SES.
Deploy the CloudFormation stack with your config.
Update DNS with MX & TXT records SES provides.
Start sending & receiving—all within the free tier limits.

🕒 Setup time: ~15 minutes. No EC2 instances, no Postfix tinkering, no maintenance nightmares.

5. When Will You Outgrow “Free”?

Outbound sends > 62,000/mo – SES charges ≈ $0.10 per 1,000 emails.
Inbound > 1,000/mo – $0.10 per 1,000 emails received.
Storage > Free tier caps – S3: $0.023 / GB-mo (Standard), DynamoDB on-demand: $1.25 / million reads.

Even at moderate scale (e.g., 200,000 emails/mo), costs remain far below typical ESP pricing while preserving full control.

💡 Tip: Check the latest AWS SES pricing and AWS Free Tier limits for the most up-to-date information.

6. Conclusion

By combining AWS Free Tier allowances with NoServerMail’s turnkey stack, you can:

Launch a production email server for $0 in infrastructure fees.
Keep complete ownership & privacy of your data.
Scale effortlessly from a handful of emails to hundreds of thousands.

Ready to cut your email bill to zero? Deploy NoServerMail now and start sending for free today!