Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon WorkMail vs Microsoft Exchange Online comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkMail
Ranking in Email Applications
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Email (2nd)
Microsoft Exchange Online
Ranking in Email Applications
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Email Applications category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkMail is 9.7%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Exchange Online is 14.1%, down from 15.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Applications
 

Featured Reviews

Michael Olayemi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides free messages and helps to keep customers updated
The solution is quite low-level and lacks some advanced features. For example, it doesn't provide tracking capabilities, such as knowing how many users opened an email, which is crucial for email marketing. You would need to integrate these analytics with other tools to get them. I need to know if there has been a bounce and how customers interacted with the email. I would only suggest that Amazon WorkMail relax the rules for using Amazon SES in production. When you create an account, it starts in Sandbox mode, which means you can't use it in production right away. You must go through a process, message Amazon, and request to move it to production. Since Amazon is a big company, I feel customers shouldn't need this permission to use the service in production.
NancyHartman - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective collaboration achieved with versatile features and good customer service
There are always improvements needed. My personal issue with using OfficeSuite and the Exchange Server is that one has to cobble together a whole bunch of different applications. Therefore, a lot of scripting and programming knowledge is necessary. I am not an IT person; I am an educator, a trainer, a user. I want to get the work done. However, I find that the Exchange Server and possibly the way our company has set up access permissions require extensive programming knowledge. It might take six to eight weeks to get a programmer's time to build something, whereas I can use something like Smartsheet that will do everything I want without needing a programmer. Smartsheet is more end-user friendly compared to a Microsoft product. Microsoft believes an expert IT person should manage everything, however, I want to manage things on my own in a simplified way. That is not easy using the Exchange Server or Microsoft Office. It is not end-user friendly for development, and a programmer is needed. Once set up, using them as an end-user is fine. I find that the automations are not robust, and the FedRAMP systems are not robust. I have a few issues with Exchange and Office, but there's nothing I can do about it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable thing is that emails sent through SES have a delivery rate of greater than ninety percent."
"Amazon SES can handle a high volume of emails, making it suitable for organizations with large email lists or that need to send a large number of emails on a regular basis."
"Amazon SES is very easy to configure."
"It is highly available and scalable. It is also highly reliable. I don't lose any of the messages or emails. If there is an issue where the email sent operation failed, Amazon as a platform ensures that the send operation is retried, and the email reaches its destination. This way, it is highly reliable."
"Amazon WorkMail integrates with Route 53 and other AWS services, providing a seamless experience when using AWS infrastructure."
"The best feature is that Amazon SES provides verified email messages."
"It is very stable. I haven't faced any issues."
"We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing."
"Exchange Online is consistent. It's easy to deploy and scale out to all of our organizations."
"What I like about Microsoft Exchange Online is that it's a very convenient solution because it's part of the Microsoft business suite. This is the first email service I've used that lasted for many years, and I'm still using it because it's very convenient and it's suitable for my needs. Microsoft Exchange Online is the best product in the world for me because I don't remember any other service that's so well-accepted."
"The solution offers complete scalability and flexibility."
"One of the important features is the collaboration tool used in Office 365. The security and DLP mechanisms are also quite good."
"The most valuable feature as it encompasses all aspects of collaboration, communication, reporting, and storage."
"Microsoft Exchange Online has great functionality."
"The best thing about Microsoft Exchange Online is that it's integrated with the Outlook application."
"Tech support has been great, when necessary."
 

Cons

"Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"When we first set up an email on Amazon SES, they had to verify it, which was not fast enough."
"There is room for improvement in the support. It's just that customer support, though good, takes time to resolve issues."
"WorkMail is not available in all the regions."
"I would like to see detailed reports on email success and failure rates."
"Email service is definitely a requirement from an enterprise standpoint. Many organizations have their own on-premise email services, which take a lot of memory, backup, and other resources. If we can have a completely managed backup solution where we have a tiered backup or a tiered archival to be able to retrieve emails, it would be great. I would like to be able to retrieve emails in real-time (hot retrieval), over the 90-days period (warm retrieval), and over the one-year period (cold retrieval). It would be useful to have tiered backup and retrieval. It would help us in managing emails better and have a better backup solution. So, backup is something that we require."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
"The product should improve technical support."
"The support from the vendor is fine. However, it could be faster, and some of the agents could be more knowledgeable, but it is a large solution, there's a lot of information that the agents have to work with. I can't always expect when I get connected to the first-level agent that they will know absolutely everything. Sometimes there's no replacement for pure experience."
"Microsoft Exchange Online could improve the overall protection of the solution."
"I would like to make the solution more user-friendly."
"The solution’s API integrations could be improved."
"There is an annual enterprise subscription could improve by having more features."
"Exchange Online has issues with its mail flow and content search."
"We'd like to have the ability to recall emails on the web. I'm not sure if that is available yet."
"The pricing could be a bit lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution should improve its price."
"It's very cheap. The cheapest among all the services available."
"I rate the solution's pricing as one out of ten. It is close to being cheap. Sometimes, the tool offers a generous amount of free messages, up to 40,000, which is great for startups like ours. This means that we don't accumulate any costs for some months because we stay within the free usage tier. When we exceed the free allocation, the costs are reasonable, and no hidden charges exist."
"WorkMail does require a license, it is, per user."
"The pricing for this solution is good. We renew our contract every three years. I would rate the pricing for this solution a three out of five."
"Our organization pays for a corporate license to use the solution."
"I would give the cost a five out of ten."
"In my opinion, the online license is the best one we have. It is a bundle that we have from Microsoft. It is a bit high in price."
"I would say the solution is reasonable and affordable."
"I pay approximately $120 or $150 per year, and as long as I pay that amount, they will do regular updates so that I always have the most recent and greatest version of the application."
"We pay per user per year for the cluster with over a thousand users."
"Microsoft Exchange Online is too expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Applications solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
University
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkMail?
We use the tool for transactional emails and marketing.
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkMail?
Amazon WorkMail's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Integration with Gmail using both SMTP and POP3 would be beneficial.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon WorkMail?
Currently, I don't have any advice about using Amazon WorkMail. Since I only use AWS and am unfamiliar with its competitors, I can't recommend it.
What do you like most about Microsoft Exchange Online?
The benefits are widespread and effective communication. We use Microsoft Teams for meetings within and outside our organization. Additionally, Teams can be used for chat, allowing us to track comm...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Exchange Online?
The pricing for Microsoft Exchange Online is quite reasonable, in my opinion. Many licensing options are available so that we can choose based on the customer's needs. For example, if a customer on...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Exchange Online?
There are always improvements needed. My personal issue with using OfficeSuite and the Exchange Server is that one has to cobble together a whole bunch of different applications. Therefore, a lot o...
 

Also Known As

Amazon SES
Exchange Online, Exchange Online Plan 1, Exchange Online Plan 2, MS Exchange Online
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Bank Alfalah Ltd., Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport, Blue Star Infotech, Scitec Nutrition, Resolution Films, British Airways, Empire Cinemas, InnoGames
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkMail vs. Microsoft Exchange Online and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.