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Amazon SES - What can I do to get approved and out of the sandbox?

Is this just about perseverance i. e. replying often enough or is there something they want to hear?

Edit: Does anybody have a script or checklist for this?

  • 9 comments

Daniel Iser

We paid a guy a few hundred $ and he had it set up from zero to full approval, including offering to submit letter for increased limits.

It took a week or so to go through the whole process, but well worth it.

Pat k

I just followed a tutorial and got approved almost immediately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMlt631FKXU

What country is your website located at? Depending on the country is faster than others.

Daniel Iser

Effectively he used a prewritten script of emails to get past all the gatekeepers. He knew just what to say when.

Volker Knöringer

Pat k thanks for the video. That's what I've done so far, but they sent back an email, basically saying they can't approve.

Daniel Iser thanks for your answers. That's what I assumed, they want some ping pong interaction, to make them feel good. So they don't unleash another spammer on humanity, which is good.

And some guy doing the ping ponging with them for you, probably means it's not that hard.

Thank you both for your inputs.

Pat k

Volker Knöringer, If it helps with ideas, do you have a stablished newsletter you can show them? I sent them 10 direct links to my latest newsletters, which has been stablished for a long time. So maybe that's why I got approved so fast....? not sure... :(

Volker Knöringer

Pat k, very good idea. Thank you.

Mat ‎

Volker Knöringer, I believe it is much easier to get out from the sandbox if you don't focus on marketing emails but on transactional emails. This must be the real case.

However if you want to start with a marketing campaigns then you need to provide them reasons:

  • how you get your emails list

  • how you validate them

  • what marketing tools you are going to use

  • what is the email volume you are planning to send (make sure you don't buy mailing lists and you ask the user for the concent etc).

    NOTE: It also depends what hosting and/or data center you have selected with AWS and what is your location (your server, IP, neighborhood, if your domain is listed on RBLs, how old is your domain and/or website/business).

    If you are in spammy neighborhood then you need a to convince them that you are not the SPAMMMER but real business and you know how to deal with mass mailing.

Note: make sure you send some email with your domain in the sandbox and you have your domain configuration with SPF, DKIM, DMARC.

Volker Knöringer

Mat ., thank you. This is very helpful. The service is geared to people who send a lot emails, so they want to see if you know what you do and if you're legit.

Hm, IP neighborhood? Gotta check that.

Trouble is, I'm not sending a lot of emails right now and I want to use SES to start doing this, so it's a bit catch-22ish.

Sending within the sandbox eventhough nobody gets the email may be important for them.

For the record: The setup is in Germany, hosting is with a reliable 3rd party and I want to use the Frankfurt datacenter. Domain certification setup is properly done.

Will try again in while, if a time slot shows up ;-)

Mat ‎

Volker Knöringer, if you have a Privacy Policy on your website it might also help to prove them how you deal with your mailing list etc.

Please also read this if needed.

  1. Don't forget that the first reply from AWS might be automatically generated. You didn't use good keywords, you didnt describe the business mailing goal or your domain was not configured the way it should be than fix it before you apply again.

  2. You don't need your website to be Public to be approved but if you have already existing website it should help you out if you will use it as a proof of legit business. If you use double opt-in or captcha for mailing forms (newsletter signup) - mention this in your request. If you have legit traffic and you can show them numbers from GSC - why not to mention this. Tell them what is your previous experience with mailing and why you want to switch to AWS etc.

  3. I hope you verified your full domain not a single email address for sending emails. Also your credit card was added and it is not a "fake" one.

  4. AWS and Germany have high standards (which is good) so probably they won't accept "lorem ipsum", "ChatGPT", "copycat" requests at the first attempt haha.

  5. If you use cheap shared hosting (or even the ASN is spammy) for $10/year then your neighbour's can SPAM a lot and it might matter for AWS.

  6. If your IP range is in DROP list* (Don't Route Or Peer) then it might be challanging too.

    *DROP lists consist of netblocks that are leased or stolen by professional spam or cyber-crime operations, and used for dissemination of malware, trojan downloaders, botnet controllers, or other kinds of malicious activity.

  7. Once approved make sure your warm up your domain first too - don't start with large marketing campaigns.

Good luck!

BTW: I think you use OVH (IP .230 .187 are not on RBL) and Tutanota (OK) plus you have old domain so it's not bad. If this is the case so just work on the business justification text or hire a professional person with AWS SES and email deliverability experience.