HelloBox

Is there an inbox for Amazon SES?

Updated

Short answer

Amazon SES has no inbox. It can receive mail for your domain, but it only drops each message into an S3 bucket, a Lambda function or an SNS topic, as raw MIME. To read and answer that mail like normal email, use HelloBox: it connects to your SES account through one CloudFormation stack, sets up receiving for you, and gives you and your team a real inbox for hello@, support@ and [email protected]. It's free for one person.

What Amazon SES does with incoming mail

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is built for sending. It's the cheapest way to send serious volume, at about $0.10 per 1,000 emails, and many teams already use it for transactional email from their app.

SES can also receive email. You point your domain's MX record at SES, then write receipt rules that decide what happens to each message: store it in S3, pass it to Lambda, publish it to SNS, or bounce it. That's where SES stops. There's no mailbox, no list of conversations, no reply button and no way to share mail with a colleague.

So people end up reading .eml files out of an S3 bucket, writing a Lambda function that forwards mail to Gmail, or paying for a separate mail host just for replies.

A real inbox for SES with HelloBox

HelloBox is an inbox built for the email you already send with SES. You don't move your domain, change your DNS provider or replace your sending.

  1. Sign up at hellobox.app and choose Connect Amazon SES.
  2. Pick your AWS region and press Open AWS. The AWS console opens with a CloudFormation stack ready to go.
  3. Press Create stack. It creates one IAM role that only HelloBox can use, with an external ID unique to your connection.
  4. HelloBox verifies your domains, adds DKIM, sets up the receiving bucket, receipt rule and delivery events through that role, and adds the MX record for you if your DNS is in Route 53.

From then on, mail sent to any address on your domain arrives in HelloBox, threaded into conversations. You can reply, forward, assign, add notes, search, label, snooze and send from the same address, with your team.

What stays the same

  • Your app keeps sending exactly as it does today. Your SES API keys, SMTP credentials and configuration don't change.
  • Mail goes out from your own SES account, under your own sender reputation, and AWS bills you for volume at its own prices.
  • HelloBox never sees your AWS access keys. Deleting the CloudFormation stack ends its access straight away.
  • Incoming mail lands briefly in an S3 bucket in your account, is copied to HelloBox, then deleted from the bucket. Anything not collected expires after a day.

If your SES account is still in the sandbox

Receiving works in the sandbox. Sending is limited to addresses you've verified until AWS grants production access. You can request it from HelloBox's settings, and AWS usually decides within a day.

Frequently asked questions

Does Amazon SES have an inbox?
No. SES can receive email, but it only stores or forwards raw messages through receipt rules to S3, Lambda or SNS. To read and reply in an inbox, connect SES to HelloBox, which sets up receiving and gives your team a shared inbox.
Can I read SES email without writing a Lambda function?
Yes. HelloBox sets up SES receiving through a CloudFormation stack you launch in two clicks, and shows incoming mail in a normal inbox. No code or forwarding function is needed.
Does HelloBox change how my app sends with SES?
No. Your SES API keys, SMTP credentials and transactional email keep working unchanged. HelloBox only adds the inbox and campaigns.
How much does an inbox for SES cost?
HelloBox is free for one person on up to 2 domains. Team is $20 a month for up to 10 people, and Business is $60 a month for up to 50. AWS bills you separately for SES volume.