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Amazon or AWS SES with FluentSMTP ​

Amazon SES is one of the cheapest email API services available for WordPress, with powerful, high-deliverability infrastructure managed by Amazon. Learn how to connect Amazon SES with FluentSMTP by following the steps with the screenshots below –

Prerequisites ​

  • FluentSMTP installed and activated (installation guide)
  • An active Amazon Web Services (AWS) account

Add an Amazon SES Connection ​

Go to Settings in the FluentSMTP top bar and click the + Add Connection button. Then select the aws icon from the provider grid.

This opens the Amazon SES connection form, where you provide:

  • From Email and From Name
  • Force From Email (recommended, on by default): sends everything not already routed to another connection from this From Email, whatever address the sending plugin set.
  • Force Sender Name: uses this connection's From Name, whatever name the sending plugin set.
  • Set the return-path to match the From Email: sends bounce notices back to the From Email address.
  • Access Key, Secret Key, and Region, obtained from the AWS Console.

The rest of this guide walks through getting the Access Key, Secret Key, and Region from AWS, then pasting them into this form.

Get Credentials from AWS Console ​

The Access Key, Secret Key, and Region come from the AWS Console. You need to:

  1. Create an IAM user in the AWS Console.
  2. Attach the SES and SNS permissions policies.
  3. Create and retrieve an access key.
  4. Identify your region.

Go to the AWS Console and sign in. Use Root user if this is a new account.

Once signed in, search for IAM in the top search bar and click Users under its Top features.

Create an IAM User ​

Click the Create user button.

Give the user a name, for example FluentSMTP, and leave Provide user access to the AWS Management Console unchecked, since this user only needs API access. Click Next.

Attach SES and SNS Permissions ​

AWS creates the user right away without console access, so permissions are attached as a separate step. From the new user's Permissions tab, click Add permissions, then select Attach policies directly.

Search the policy list for sesfull and snsfull, and check AmazonSESFullAccess and AmazonSNSFullAccess.

Review the Permissions summary, confirming both policies are listed, then click Add permissions.

Identify Your AWS Region ​

From the user's page, click the region menu in the top-right corner to see which region you're working in.

Our region here is US East (N. Virginia), us-east-1. Use whichever region your SES identity is verified in.

NOTE

FluentSMTP also supports EU Sovereign Cloud (Germany, Brandenburg) [eusc-de-east-1] in the Region dropdown, alongside the regular EU regions like Frankfurt, Milan, and Stockholm. This is a separate AWS partition (aws-eusc), so your IAM user and SES identity need to be created in an AWS European Sovereign Cloud account. The credentials from your regular AWS account won't work here.

Create an Access Key ​

From the user's page, click Create access key.

On Access key best practices & alternatives, select Other, since this key is for a third-party application (FluentSMTP), then click Next.

Optionally add a description tag, then click Create access key.

Copy the Access key and Secret access key now. AWS only shows the secret once.

Connect the Credentials in FluentSMTP ​

Back on the FluentSMTP connection form, paste the Access Key and Secret Key you just copied, choose the matching Region, and click Save Connection Settings.

NOTE

Use the same From Email here that's verified as a Verified Identity in your SES account, or sending will fail.

Where Secrets Are Stored ​

Leave Store in Database selected. That is the default. FluentSMTP encrypts the Access Key and Secret Key with your WordPress SALT keys before saving. Tick Disable Encryption for Secret Key (Not Recommended) only if a security plugin rotates your SALT keys and the encrypted value keeps breaking.

Click Store in wp-config.php instead if you don't want the credentials in the database at all. The key fields disappear, and the form shows the define() lines to paste into wp-config.php:

NOTE

We recommend using FluentSnippet on your WordPress site for a seamless experience. However, you can use any other snippet plugin of your choice.

define( 'FLUENTMAIL_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID', '********************' );

define( 'FLUENTMAIL_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY', '********************' );

That's all it takes to configure FluentSMTP with Amazon SES. It's recommended to send a test email afterward. See the dashboard overview for how to do that. If you want to send from more than one address on this connection, see Multiple SMTP Connections & Auto Routing for how additional sender addresses work.

NOTE

FluentSMTP reuses the SES connection across sends instead of reconnecting each time, which improves sending speed, especially for bulk sends like FluentCRM campaigns. No setup is needed to benefit from this; it applies automatically.

Additional Resources ​

Moving Out of the Amazon SES Sandbox ​

A new AWS account starts in Sandbox mode, where you can only send to your own verified email addresses under Verified Identities.

To send to other recipients, request Production Access from AWS Support to move your SES account out of the sandbox. See AWS's own guide: Moving out of the Amazon SES sandbox.

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