David Santucci

<p>This plugin sends WordPress site email through Amazon’s Simple Email Service (SES) and can optionally monitor bounce and complaint notifications through Amazon’s Simple Notification Service (SNS) and suppress sending email to bounced or complained addresses. The plugin also logs bounce and complaint notifications and can export the saved data in CSV format.</p>
<h3>Requirements</h3>
<ul>
<li>PHP >= 5.5</li>
<li>OpenSSL PHP extension</li>
<li>Amazon Web Services account</li>
</ul>
<h3>To install:</h3>
<ol>
<li>Upload files to the WordPress plugins directory.</li>
<li>Activate in the plugins admin page.</li>
<li>Set up configuration as described in the “Configuration” section.</li>
</ol>
<p><em>Note</em>: This plugin includes Amazon Web Services SNS Validator v1.4.0 and AWS SDK for PHP 3.36.19. If you are using other plugins that use these AWS libraries, these may conflict with the versions in use with those plugins. It is not recommended to use this plugin with other plugins using the AWS PHP SDK, SNS Validator or any of their dependencies.</p>
<h3>Configuration</h3>
<h3>In AWS:</h3>
<h4>IAM</h4>
<p>The plugin requires an Identity and Access Management (IAM) user with API access and the following permissions:</p>
<ul>
<li>SES permissions:
<ul>
<li>SendRawEmail</li>
<li>SetIdentityNotificationTopic</li>
<li>SetIdentityFeedbackForwardingEnabled</li>
<li>GetIdentityVerificationAttributes</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>SNS permissions:
<ul>
<li>CreateTopic</li>
<li>DeleteTopic</li>
<li>Subscribe</li>
<li>Unsubscribe</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>SES</h4>
<ul>
<li>Make sure you have at least one verified “identity” (i.e. email address or domain) through which to send email.</li>
<li>Make sure your account is out of the <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/request-production-access.html" rel="nofollow ugc">SES “sandbox”.</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>In WordPress:</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Enter the following in “SES Settings” admin page (under the “Amazon SES” admin menu):</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>From address</strong>: The email address to send mail from. This address or its domain should be verified in Amazon SES. (Defaults to WordPress’ admin email.)</li>
<li><strong>From name</strong> (optional): The name associated with the from address. (WordPress’ default is “WordPress”.)</li>
<li><strong>Host</strong>: The AWS SMTP endpoint through which to send mail. Available SMTP endpoints are listed here: <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/smtp-connect.html" rel="nofollow ugc">http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/smtp-connect.html</a>. Choose the one for your SES region.</li>
<li><strong>Port</strong>: The port on which to connect to the SMTP endpoint. Currently supported ports include 25, 465 and 587.</li>
<li><strong>Access key ID, Access key Secret</strong>: The access key ID and secret access key for the IAM user you’re using to send email.
<ul>
<li><strong>Note</strong>: SMTP credentials created using the SES control panel’s “Create My SMTP Credentials” will not work. If you’re using an IAM user that was created this way, you should create a new access key for them in the “Security credentials” tab on their IAM configuration page and use those credentials.</li>
<li><strong>Security note</strong>: If your WordPress site doesn’t use https, the secret access key will be vulnerable to interception by third parties when submitting or viewing the SES settings page. It is <em>not</em> exposed when sending email or accessing the AWS API.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>SES Region</strong>: The identifier for your SES account’s region. Supported regions are listed here: <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#ses_region" rel="nofollow ugc">http://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/rande.html#ses_region</a>. Use the value in the “Region” column (e.g. “us-east-1”).
<ul>
<li><strong>Note</strong>: If you are using the plugin to handle bounces and complaints, your Simple Notification Service (SNS) region must be the same as your SES region.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>SES Identity Type</strong>: Choose “Email” or “Domain”.</li>
<li>Choose whether or not you’d like the plugin to suppress email to bounced or complained recipients</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p>On submission, the plugin will verify your Amazon SES identity and send a test email to the SES simulator. If successful, WordPress will send email through Amazon SES.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If you opted have the plugin suppress email to bounced or complained addresses, bounce and complaint notifications for your SES identity will be handled by the plugin.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>If email sending fails unexpectedly, the plugin will stop attempting to send email through SES and revert back to WordPress’ default email handling. This will also stop suppression of email to bounced or complained addresses.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>To resume sending through Amazon SES, verify your settings on the settings page and click “Save Changes”. The plugin will attempt to verify your SES identity and send a test email, and if successful, resume sending through SES.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The plugin displays notifications indicating its current email and bounce handling state on its admin pages and on the WordPress admin dashboard.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Sending Test Email</h3>
<p>You can send a test email using the current configuration from the WordPress admin panel under “Amazon SES > Test Email”.</p>
<h3>SNS Notifications and Bounce/Complaint Handling</h3>
<p>If you opt to have the plugin suppress email to bounced or complained addresses, bounce and complaint notifications from Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) will be recorded in the WordPress database. You can view the notifications and export them in CSV format in the WordPress admin panel under “Amazon SES > SNS Notifications”.</p>
<p>While the plugin is active and email suppression is in effect, email will be suppressed to addresses associated with any “Complaint” notification or a “Permanent” bounce notification. Bounces of type “Transient” are recorded but will not result in suppression of future email.</p>


Gnaritas Amazon SES

beltoftnet

<p>API Mailer for AWS SES replaces <code>wp_mail()</code> with a direct Amazon SES API integration (SendRawEmail). There is no SMTP layer or PHPMailer handoff in the critical path, reducing overhead and improving reliability.</p>
<p>The plugin focuses on correctness, performance, and operational clarity:<br />
– Direct AWS SigV4 signed requests to SES<br />
– Minimal overhead in the <code>wp_mail()</code> hook<br />
– Optional background queue with Action Scheduler or wp_cron fallback<br />
– Optional logging via WooCommerce logger or PHP error_log<br />
– Clean, PSR-4 structured codebase</p>
<h3>Key Features</h3>
<ol>
<li>Direct SES API (SendRawEmail) integration — no SMTP required.</li>
<li>Background sending queue with Action Scheduler or wp_cron fallback.</li>
<li>Tiny-args queueing with job IDs to keep cron payloads small and private.</li>
<li>Configurable rate limiting per second to stay under SES send rate.</li>
<li>From/Reply-To handling with optional forced From and custom X-* headers.</li>
<li>Test tab to send a test email and a Status tab to fetch SES GetSendQuota.</li>
<li>Logging via WooCommerce logger or PHP error_log, disabled by default.</li>
<li>Credentials from wp-config (constants) or saved settings.</li>
<li>Lightweight, minimal I/O, no Composer dependency.</li>
<li>Uninstall cleanup toggle to remove settings and queued jobs on deletion.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Why It’s High Performance</h3>
<ul>
<li>Avoids SMTP for the send path; uses PHPMailer only for MIME construction, then sends via SES API directly.</li>
<li>Background queue returns control to the request immediately when enabled.</li>
<li>Job payloads are stored server-side and referenced by a small <code>job_id</code> to avoid large serialized cron arguments.</li>
<li>Logging is optional and disabled by default to keep I/O low.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Configuration</h3>
<h3>Credentials in wp-config (recommended)</h3>
<p>Define the following constants above “That’s all, stop editing!” in <code>wp-config.php</code>, then enable “Read AWS credentials from wp-config” in the plugin settings.</p>
<pre><code>define('SES_MAILER_ACCESS_KEY', 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID');
define('SES_MAILER_SECRET_KEY', 'YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY');
define('SES_MAILER_REGION', 'us-east-1');
</code></pre>
<p>When this mode is enabled, the Access Key, Secret, and Region fields are cleared, disabled, and ignored.</p>
<h3>Background Sending</h3>
<ul>
<li>When enabled, emails are queued and sent out of band by Action Scheduler if available, or by wp_cron as a fallback.</li>
<li>The plugin stores the full email payload in an option keyed by <code>ses_mailer_job_{uuid}</code> (autoload = no) and schedules a tiny cron/action with only <code>job_id</code>.</li>
<li>Retries: up to 3 total attempts with exponential backoff (60s, then 120s).</li>
<li>For consistent cron execution on low-traffic sites, configure a real system cron to call <code>wp-cron.php</code> regularly.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Rate Limiting</h3>
<ul>
<li>A per-email pause is applied based on the configured send rate to avoid exceeding SES limits.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Logging</h3>
<ul>
<li>When enabled, log entries route to WooCommerce Status <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Logs (source: api-mailer-for-aws-ses) if WooCommerce is active, or to the PHP error log otherwise.</li>
<li>Logging is disabled by default. Uncheck “Disable logging” in settings to enable.</li>
</ul>
<h3>External Services</h3>
<ul>
<li>This plugin connects to Amazon Simple Email Service (AWS SES) at <code>https://email.{region}.amazonaws.com</code> to send email and to fetch sending quotas.</li>
<li>Data sent on each email: recipients, subject, message body, headers, attachments, and your AWS access key ID (signed via AWS SigV4); required to deliver the email.</li>
<li>Data sent when checking quotas: your AWS access key ID and a signed request; no recipient data is sent.</li>
<li>Service terms: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/ — Privacy: https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/</li>
</ul>
<h3>Translations</h3>
<ul>
<li>Text domain: <code>api-mailer-for-aws-ses</code></li>
<li>Translation template: <code>languages/api-mailer-for-aws-ses.pot</code></li>
<li>Example: Danish <code>languages/api-mailer-for-aws-ses-da_DK.po</code> (compile to <code>.mo</code> for runtime)</li>
</ul>
<h3>About the Author</h3>
<p>API Mailer for AWS SES is built and maintained by <a href="https://beltoft.net" rel="nofollow ugc">beltoft.net</a>.</p>


API Mailer for AWS SES

Amazon SES API mailer for WordPress that bypasses SMTP and sends via the SES SendRawEmail API with a lightweight, high‑performance design.

Gnaritas Amazon SES vs API Mailer for AWS SES