AWS SES bounce and complaint handling with SNS — the right way

AWS SES gives you production access and then watches your bounce and complaint rates like a hawk. If either metric crosses the threshold, your sending gets paused. The fix is wiring up Amazon SNS so you process these events in real time.

The two numbers that matter

Bounce types explained

Setting up SNS topic for bounce/complaint notifications

Step 1: Create an SNS topic in the AWS console. Name it ses-notifications. Copy the ARN.

Step 2: In SES Console → Configuration → Configuration Sets → your config set → Event destinations → Add destination. Select SNS. Check Bounces and Complaints.

Step 3: Subscribe an HTTPS endpoint to the SNS topic. SES Mailbox provides this endpoint automatically once you connect your AWS credentials.

# Example SNS bounce notification payload
{
  "notificationType": "Bounce",
  "bounce": {
    "bounceType": "Permanent",
    "bounceSubType": "General",
    "bouncedRecipients": [{
      "emailAddress": "user@nonexistent.com",
      "action": "failed",
      "status": "5.1.1",
      "diagnosticCode": "550 5.1.1 The email account does not exist."
    }],
    "timestamp": "2026-05-04T09:12:33.000Z",
    "feedbackId": "0102abc..."
  },
  "mail": {
    "source": "newsletter@yourdomain.com",
    "destination": ["user@nonexistent.com"],
    "messageId": "0102abc..."
  }
}

Webhook handler example (Node.js)

// Express.js endpoint to process SES SNS notifications
app.post('/webhooks/ses', express.json(), async (req, res) => {
  const message = JSON.parse(req.body.Message);

  if (message.notificationType === 'Bounce') {
    const bounce = message.bounce;
    for (const recipient of bounce.bouncedRecipients) {
      if (bounce.bounceType === 'Permanent') {
        await db.suppressions.upsert({
          email: recipient.emailAddress,
          reason: 'HARD_BOUNCE',
          timestamp: bounce.timestamp,
        });
      }
    }
  }

  if (message.notificationType === 'Complaint') {
    for (const recipient of message.complaint.complainedRecipients) {
      await db.suppressions.upsert({
        email: recipient.emailAddress,
        reason: 'COMPLAINT',
        timestamp: message.complaint.timestamp,
      });
    }
  }

  res.status(200).send('OK');
});

Complaint rate thresholds by ISP

What to do if you're already over the threshold

1. Stop sending immediately
2. Identify the campaign or segment that caused the spike in SES Mailbox analytics
3. Run a full suppression of all hard bounces and complaints
4. Reply to AWS Trust & Safety with your root cause analysis and remediation plan
5. Restart only with your most-engaged subscribers (opened in last 30 days)
6. Monitor daily for 2 weeks before returning to full volume