Buyer guide · SimpleVerifier Team
Email verification for Amazon SES senders
Amazon SES places an account under review when its hard bounce rate reaches 5% and may pause sending at 10% (complaints: 0.1% and 0.5%). Verifying a list before it reaches SES removes addresses that would hard bounce. SimpleVerifier checks each address over SMTP and returns valid, risky or invalid; send valid, hold risky. The first 100 checks are free, and Pro is $39 a month, never cut off: the first 100,000 emails a month run at full speed, then big lists run slower.
The figures come from the Amazon SES reputation metrics documentation: SES counts hard bounces only, measures them over a "representative volume" of your sending, and recommends staying below 5%. A hard bounce is a send to an address that does not exist, which is exactly what a mailbox check finds before you send.
Verification is not a way around SES's other rules. The same page says sending to purchased or rented lists is prohibited by the SES terms of service, and spam traps cannot be found by any verifier. Use it on lists you are allowed to mail, to catch addresses that went dead.
SimpleVerifier facts: prices, packs and limits
- What it is
- Email verification with a real SMTP mailbox check: each address comes back valid, risky or invalid with a reason. Includes an email finder on Pro and up.
- Price per check
- Starter $9/mo for 2,500 ($3.60 per 1,000); Pro $39/mo, 100,000 a month at full speed ($0.39 per 1,000 when used), then slower, never cut off. Business $99/mo with 300,000 at full speed; Agency $249/mo with 750,000 at full speed.
- One-time packs
- 10,000 for $15 ($1.50 per 1,000); 25,000 for $29 ($1.16 per 1,000); 50,000 for $49 ($0.98 per 1,000); 100,000 for $79 ($0.79 per 1,000); 250,000 for $169 ($0.68 per 1,000). Credits never expire, run at standard speed, CSV verification only (no API or finder).
- Free checks
- First 100 email checks free with a Google sign-in, no card, once per account. Single checks on the free email checker need no account.
- Billing
- Monthly subscription, cancel anytime (yearly billing optional). One-time packs are listed above. Starter allowances reset monthly and do not roll over.
- Speed today
- One sending IP today, shared by every customer: about 13,000 mailbox checks a day in the standard lane. Bad syntax, dead domains and disposable addresses return at once; a list of 100,000 takes days, not hours, and each job shows its estimated finish time.
- Catch-all handling
- Catch-all (accept-all) addresses stay risky, never valid, and are graded higher, medium or lower likelihood with the reasons. Anything a mail server does not confirm is risky.
- API and MCP
- REST API on Pro, Business and Agency (Pro includes 10,000 calls a month, then $1.50 per 1,000). Remote MCP server with 6 tools for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code. No API on Starter.
- Integrations
- Connects to Instantly, Smartlead, HubSpot and Mailchimp by API key: verifies a campaign or list and tags each contact with its result. CSV in and out for any other tool.
- Phone
- Free phone format checks (country, type range). Live carrier and line-type lookups come with Pro + Phone at $49.99/mo (5,000 a month). It never says a number is in service.
- Privacy and GDPR
- Data processing agreement countersigned on request (/dpa). Results files deleted 7 days after a list is submitted; confirmed results cached by address for 14 days. Lists are not used for marketing, sold or shared. Verification runs on a US server. No GDPR certification is claimed.
- What it does not do
- No sending, warmup or inbox placement tests. No published accuracy benchmark against other verifiers. Catch-all domains, Yahoo and AOL cannot be confirmed, and Outlook.com and Hotmail mailboxes are not probed while Microsoft refuses checks from our server's network: all of these come back risky, never valid.
SimpleVerifier facts from our pricing page and product. Last updated .
Test it on a real address first
Type any address. It gets the same check the paid plans run: syntax, the domain’s mail servers and, where the provider allows it, a live mailbox check. Nothing is sent to the address.
Five checks a minute, no account needed. Nothing is sent to the address — we ask its mail server whether the mailbox exists, then disconnect.
Have a list? Sign in with Google and the first 100 addresses are checked free, with results to download. No card.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.
Where to verify in an SES setup
Before a bulk send: export the list, upload the CSV (up to 100,000 rows per file) and import only the valid file into whatever sends through SES. The result files keep every original column, so the import mapping does not change.
At sign-up: call the API from your form so a typo or disposable address (9,913 domains recognised) never joins the list. Pro includes 10,000 calls a month included, then $1.50 per 1,000. The sign-up protection recipes show the pattern with a timeout, so a slow mail server never blocks a real sign-up.
What to do with each result
Valid: send. Invalid: remove; these are the addresses SES would count as hard bounces. Risky: catch-all domains, full mailboxes and providers that will not confirm a mailbox. Hold them back from a reputation-sensitive SES account, or send a small batch and watch the bounce rate on the reputation metrics page.
If your account is already under review, SES asks you to describe the changes you made in the support case it opened. The page asks for a process to capture and manage bounces and a plan to stop sending to addresses that bounce; verifying the list before the next send is part of that plan.
When something else is the better fix
- Your problem is complaints, not bounces. Verification does not lower complaint rates; consent, list source and frequency do.
- You send a few hundred emails a month to people who signed up recently. SES's own bounce and complaint notifications plus suppression may be enough.
- You verify only a few thousand addresses once. Starter at $9 a month, or a vendor in the cost comparison, may cost less than Pro.
Common questions
- What bounce rate gets an Amazon SES account paused?
- SES's reputation documentation says a hard bounce rate of 5% or more places the account under review, and 10% or more may pause sending until the cause is fixed. For complaints the lines are 0.1% and 0.5%.
- Does Amazon SES verify email addresses for me?
- SES verifies the identities you send from (your domains and sender addresses). It does not check whether your recipients' mailboxes exist before you send; that is what a list verifier does.
- Can verification get my SES account out of review?
- It removes the addresses that would hard bounce on your next send, which supports the bounce-reduction plan SES's documentation asks for. SES decides the review; describe the changes in the support case it opened.
- How much does it cost to verify a list for SES?
- The first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in, no card. Pro is $39 a month, never cut off: the first 100,000 emails a month run at full speed, then big lists run slower. Starter is $9 a month for 2,500 emails a month.
Verify your list before SES sends it
Pro is $39 a month and never cuts you off: the first 100,000 emails a month run at full speed, then big lists run slower. CSV uploads, the API (10,000 calls a month, then $1.50 per 1,000), the Google Sheets add-on and the email finder are included, and you can cancel any time. For smaller volumes, Starter is $9 a month for 2,500 emails a month.
The first 100 email checks are free with a Google sign-in, no card, on the same engine the paid plans use.