When your Amazon SES account hits its daily sending limit, the next campaign won't go out. A quota increase request to AWS Support Center is the standard fix: AWS approves most legitimate requests within 24-72 hours (AWS, 2026), but the wording of the request matters. This guide walks through the process, what AWS actually wants to see, and the most common reasons increases get denied.
When You Actually Need a Quota Increase
A quota increase makes sense when your daily sending volume is approaching or exceeding the current limit and you have growth visibility. AWS distinguishes two limits: the daily sending quota (typically 50,000 emails per 24 hours for new production accounts) and the maximum send rate (typically 14 emails per second). Both grow over time with usage and good reputation, but neither auto-grows fast enough for a launching product or a campaign-driven business with seasonal spikes (AWS, 2026).
If you've never hit the limit, you don't need an increase. AWS auto-grows quotas with steady usage. If you're at 60-80% of the cap on a typical send day, request now - the lead time is non-zero and you don't want to be blocked the morning of a big launch.
Finding Your Current Quotas
Open the SES console, choose your region (quotas are per-region), and go to Account dashboard. The top section shows three numbers: your Daily sending quota (emails per 24 hours), Max send rate (per-second cap), and Sent in the last 24 hours. The last figure tells you how much headroom you actually have.
You can also query via API: aws ses get-send-quota --region <region> returns the three numbers in JSON. Useful for monitoring scripts or dashboards.
| Account state | Daily quota | Max send rate |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox (default) | 200 emails / 24h | 1 email/sec |
| Production - typical starting limit | 50,000 emails / 24h | 14 emails/sec |
| Production - first increase | 100k-500k / 24h | 50-100 emails/sec |
| Production - high volume | 1M-10M / 24h | 200-500+ emails/sec |
| Enterprise scale | 10M+ / 24h | 1,000+ emails/sec |
How to Write an Effective Support Case
The quota increase form lives in the AWS Support Center as a Service limit increase case. From the SES console, click Request a sending limit increase - it opens a pre-filled Support case for SES service limits. Pick the region you want the increase in (each region's quota is separate), state your desired daily quota and send rate, and fill in the use-case fields.
The five fields that actually matter to the AWS reviewer:
- Mail type: marketing / transactional / both. Be honest.
- Website URL: the domain you're sending from. AWS reviewers do look here.
- Use case description: 2-3 sentences explaining what you're sending, who you're sending it to, and why volume is growing.
- Recipient list acquisition: how subscribers opt in. Confirmed opt-in, double opt-in, signup form, customer purchase, etc. NEVER say "purchased list" or "we scraped these from the web" - that's an instant denial.
- Bounce and complaint process: how you handle bounces. Reference your SNS feedback setup, your suppression list, your unsubscribe link. AWS wants to see that you treat bounce/complaint feedback as a first-class operational concern.
A request that includes specific numbers (target daily volume, current bounce rate, current complaint rate, expected list growth) gets approved faster than a vague one. AWS reviewers process hundreds of these requests; specific cases are easier to approve.
What AWS Wants to See
The implicit checklist AWS reviewers run through:
- Clean recent metrics. If your current hard bounce rate is above 2% or your complaint rate is above 0.05%, the reviewer will hesitate. Above 5% bounce or 0.1% complaint puts your account under review and freezes any quota request until you resolve the underlying issue (AWS, 2026).
- Plausible volume growth. Going from 1,000/day to 50,000/day in one request is a yellow flag. Asking for 2-5x your current volume is typical and gets approved easily. Asking for 100x is suspicious and gets pushback.
- Specific use case. "Newsletter for our 50,000 paying B2B SaaS subscribers, sending weekly product updates" is a sentence AWS approves. "We send marketing emails" is not.
- Clean list source story. Double opt-in, signup forms, in-product email collection, or post-purchase confirmation are all acceptable answers. Purchased lists, lead-gen lists, and contact-scraping are not.
Common Reasons Requests Get Denied
Most denials fall into one of four buckets:
- Vague use case. Submit a request with one-sentence justification and you'll either get a long clarification reply or an outright denial. Treat the use case field as essay-length, not bullet point.
- Reputation issues. If your account is even slightly elevated on bounce or complaint, AWS won't grant an increase. Clean up before requesting.
- Trust signal mismatch. New AWS account, no DKIM verified, no SNS feedback, no SES suppression list configured - all signal an unprepared sender. Set these up first.
- Listed sending domain. If your sending domain appears on Spamhaus or another blocklist, AWS won't grant new capacity until you resolve the listing. Check via Spamhaus's domain lookup before requesting.
See our SES sandbox-to-production guide for the initial production access step, and the SES rate limits and quotas reference for the underlying limit framework.
Timeline Expectations
AWS typically responds to a quota increase case within 24 hours and reaches a final decision within 24-72 hours. The pattern:
- Hour 0-2: auto-acknowledgement; case enters the Trust and Safety queue.
- Hour 12-24: first human review; either approval, denial, or clarifying questions.
- Hour 24-72: if clarifying questions, final decision after your response.
Complex requests can take longer. A request to jump from 50,000 to 5 million per day, or a request from an account with prior reputation issues, can sit in review for a week or more while a senior reviewer evaluates.
After Approval
Once approved, the new quota takes effect within a few minutes. AWS sends a confirmation reply on the Support case; the Account dashboard reflects the new limits within 10-15 minutes. There's no rolling ramp-up - you can send at the new rate immediately.
One subtlety: if you have a dedicated IP, the increase applies to your account-wide quota but your dedicated IP still needs to be warmed up before you actually push significant volume through it. See the SES warm-up documentation in your account dashboard for the recommended schedule.
Sample Support Case Wording
A template that gets approved consistently:
Mail type: Transactional and marketing (60/40 split) Website URL: https://example.com Use case: We operate a B2B SaaS platform with approximately 80,000 paid subscribers. Our daily SES sends consist of (a) transactional notifications (~30,000/day: signup confirmations, password resets, billing alerts) and (b) a weekly product newsletter sent to engaged subscribers (~50,000 sends, batched on Tuesdays). We currently send approximately 45,000 emails per 24 hours on average and expect to grow to 80,000-100,000 over the next quarter as subscriber base grows. Recipient acquisition: All subscribers opt in via double opt-in on our signup form. We do not purchase, rent, or scrape email lists. Bounce/complaint process: SES bounce and complaint events are published to SNS topics; our application removes hard bounces from the suppression list immediately and pauses sending to complainers. Our current 30-day rolling hard bounce rate is 0.04% and complaint rate is 0.008%. Requested limits: Daily quota: 200,000 emails per 24 hours. Max send rate: 50 emails per second.
Substituting your actual numbers and use case into a structure like this produces a Support case AWS can approve in one pass.
How Mailblast Handles Quota Increases for You
Mailblast operates on your own SES account (BYO-SES), so the quota itself belongs to your AWS account. What Mailblast handles is the operational infrastructure that makes AWS willing to approve increases: SNS feedback wired up correctly, bounce and complaint suppression working automatically, account-level metrics staying clean. When you request an increase, you can reference Mailblast's bounce-handling integration as part of your "Bounce/complaint process" answer, which typically reads well to reviewers.
For senders who'd rather not write Support cases themselves, the Mailblast product side can help with the request wording - but the actual case has to come from your AWS account.
FAQ
How do I request an Amazon SES quota increase?
Open the SES console, go to Account dashboard, click the 'Request a sending limit increase' link, and submit a Service Quota increase case via AWS Support Center. Provide your target sending volume per day, your use case, your list source, and your bounce/complaint history. AWS typically responds within 24-72 hours.
What's the default Amazon SES sending limit?
A new production-access SES account typically starts at 50,000 emails per 24 hours and 14 emails per second (AWS, 2026). Sandbox accounts are capped at 200 emails per day and 1 email per second. Both numbers scale up as you demonstrate consistent good sending behaviour over time.
Why do Amazon SES quota increase requests get denied?
Three main reasons. First: vague justification ('we want to send more email' is not enough). Second: recent bounce or complaint rate above AWS thresholds (5% hard bounce, 0.1% complaint) - AWS won't scale a struggling account. Third: list-source answers that suggest purchased lists or web-scraped addresses. Concrete numbers, specific use case, and clean recent metrics get most requests approved.
How long does an SES quota increase take?
Most requests get a first response in 24 hours and a final decision in 24-72 hours. Complex requests (very large jumps, accounts with reputation issues) can take a week. AWS does not auto-approve increases; every request is reviewed by an SES Trust and Safety team member.
Can AWS reduce my SES quota?
Yes, if your bounce or complaint rate climbs into the warning band. AWS may automatically restrict sending while your account is under review (5% hard bounce or 0.1% complaint rate). When that happens, no quota request will be processed until you resolve the underlying issue.
Disclosure: Mailblast is a hosted management layer for your own Amazon SES account. The quota itself belongs to your AWS account; Mailblast helps you keep the operational hygiene in place that AWS reviewers look for when approving increases.