The Definitive Amazon Pinpoint Migration Guide (2026)

How do you migrate from Amazon Pinpoint before the October 30, 2026 shutdown?

You have roughly 6 months to move your campaigns, journeys, segments, and templates to a new platform. The fastest path is not rebuilding from scratch. It is moving to a platform that connects to your existing SES account and gives you the marketing UI you are about to lose. Most teams can complete the migration in 4-8 hours with the right tool, or 1 day with assisted migration support. The cost typically ranges from $500 to $1,500 for setup, then $9 to $49 per month depending on contacts.

TL;DR

Amazon Pinpoint's email engagement features shut down October 30, 2026. If you are using Pinpoint for campaigns, journeys, segments, or analytics on top of SES, you have until then to migrate. The fastest path is not rebuilding from scratch. It is moving to a platform that connects to your existing SES account and gives you the UI you lost. For most teams, that migration takes hours, not months, and costs $500 to $1,500 with assisted migration support.

What's Actually Happening (and Why It Affects You)

On May 20, 2025, AWS announced the deprecation of Amazon Pinpoint's email engagement features. This is not a rumor. This is a hard deadline. October 30, 2026 is when the Pinpoint console, campaigns, journeys, segments, endpoints, and analytics all go dark.

If you built your email stack on SES plus Pinpoint, you are now scrambling. And you are not alone. AWS estimates thousands of customers use Pinpoint for marketing automation on top of SES.

What stays:

• SES core email sending (transactional, promotional)

• SMS, push, and voice APIs via AWS End User Messaging

• Your existing email deliverability and sender reputation

What goes:

• Campaign management UI

• Journey builder (visual automation flows)

• Segment management

• Endpoint and contact analytics

• The entire Pinpoint console

A 50-person SaaS company we spoke with discovered this news in their AWS billing portal, not from an email. They had 18 months of journey automations and zero documentation. That team is now rebuilding in CampaignHQ. The lesson: start your migration planning this week.

What You Actually Lose on October 30

Let us be specific about what disappears, because AWS has been vague in their communications.

Campaign management UI gone. You can no longer create, edit, or schedule email campaigns through the Pinpoint console. Your existing campaigns stop running.

Journey builder gone. Every visual automation workflow you built (welcome series, re-engagement flows, onboarding sequences) disappears. There is no export button for journey logic.

Segment management gone. Your dynamic segments based on user behavior, custom attributes, and engagement history vanish. Static lists can be exported, but segment definitions cannot.

Endpoint and contact analytics gone. Open rates, click rates, device data, and engagement history stored in Pinpoint becomes inaccessible. Your SES sending logs remain, but the marketing analytics layer disappears.

Pinpoint console access gone. You cannot log in to view, export, or manage anything. The console becomes a 404 page.

Your SES still works. This is the critical point. SES is not deprecated. You can still send transactional and promotional email via the SES API. What you lose is the marketing layer on top of it.

An e-commerce company with 200 SKUs and 50,000 contacts realized their entire welcome series, cart abandonment flows, and post-purchase sequences were Pinpoint journeys. They had 6 months to rebuild all of it. That is the reality for most Pinpoint users.

Your Migration Options (Honest Comparison)

You have four realistic paths. Here is how they compare on timeline, cost, security, and tradeoffs.

Option A: Build on SES directly. This is what AWS quietly suggests. Use the SES API for everything. Build your own campaign scheduler. Build your own segment engine. Build your own journey builder. Build your own analytics dashboard.

For a 20-person SaaS company, this means at least 3 months of engineering time and $20,000 to $60,000 in fully loaded costs. You also end up with a custom tool that no one outside your team can maintain. We have seen teams try this and abandon it halfway through when they realize the scope.

Option B: Move to SendGrid or Mailchimp. This is the path of least resistance. Both platforms have import tools, templates, and journey builders. The problem is cost at scale.

SES costs $0.10 per 1,000 emails. SendGrid costs roughly $1.00 per 1,000 emails on mid-tier plans. At 1 million emails per month, that is $100 via SES versus $1,000 via SendGrid. Over a year, the delta is $10,000. For high-volume senders, the math gets worse quickly.

Option C: Move to CampaignHQ. This is the path we recommend for most Pinpoint users. CampaignHQ connects to your existing SES account, imports your templates and contacts, and gives you back the campaign management UI and journey builder you are losing.

Migration time: 4 to 8 hours DIY, or 1 day with assisted migration. Cost: $9 to $49 per month depending on contacts, plus your normal SES sending costs. No per-email markup. You keep your deliverability, your sender reputation, and your AWS infrastructure.

We cover build vs buy decisions for internal tools in another guide. The same logic applies here: do not rebuild what you can buy for $9 per month.

Option D: Move to AWS Connect. Some AWS account reps are suggesting Connect as an alternative. This is bad advice for most email marketing use cases. Connect is a contact center platform designed for call centers, not email marketing automation. The journey builder is optimized for voice, the pricing model is different, and the learning curve is steep for marketing teams.

Need Help With Your Pinpoint Migration?

For most teams, CampaignHQ is the fastest path. Connect your existing SES account, import templates and contacts, and restore your marketing UI in under a day.

• Book a Free Migration Assessment — Get a customized migration plan in 30 minutes

• Talk to KumoHQ — For custom integrations, API work, or broader infrastructure needs (50K to 100K budget range)

The Migration Steps (What Actually Happens)

Here is the migration process broken into concrete steps.

Step 1: Audit your current Pinpoint setup. Before you export anything, document what you have. List every active campaign. List every journey. List every segment. Note which templates are used where. Identify the data attributes you rely on for dynamic content and segment logic.

For a 100-person B2B SaaS company, this audit typically takes 2 to 4 hours. You discover you have 12 active journeys, 28 templates, and 15 segments. That is your migration scope.

Step 2: Export your data. Use the Pinpoint API to export contacts, segment definitions, and templates. CSV exports work for static lists. Template HTML can be copied directly from the console. Journey logic has no export button, so document it manually or take screenshots.

Step 3: Choose your destination platform. Based on the comparison above, pick your path. For most teams, CampaignHQ is the fastest route that preserves SES cost structure.

Step 4: Connect your SES account. If you choose CampaignHQ, you connect via IAM credentials. Your SES sending quotas, domain verified identities, and sender reputation carry over. No new DNS records. No new warmup period.

Step 5: Import templates and segments. Copy your templates into the new platform. Import your contact lists. Rebuild your segment definitions using the new platform's query builder.

Step 6: Rebuild journeys. This is the most time-consuming step. You recreate your automation flows using the new platform's journey builder. A 5-step welcome series takes 30 minutes. A complex 15-step onboarding sequence takes 2 to 3 hours.

CampaignHQ offers assisted migration where their team rebuilds your journeys in under 1 day. For teams with 10 or more active journeys, this is worth the $500 fee.

Step 7: Test and go live. Send test campaigns to internal addresses. Verify links, personalization, and tracking. Run your journeys in test mode. Then flip the switch.

The full migration for a typical SaaS company takes 2 to 4 weeks from start to finish, including planning, execution, and testing.

How Long Does Migration Actually Take?

Here are realistic timelines based on team size and complexity.

DIY via CampaignHQ UI: 4 to 8 hours for teams with fewer than 10 journeys and straightforward segments. You can do this over a weekend.

Assisted migration via CampaignHQ: 1 day for teams with 10 to 50 journeys, complex segment logic, or limited internal bandwidth. You provide the exports and screenshots. The CampaignHQ team rebuilds everything.

Full rebuild on SES from scratch: 3 to 6 months for teams choosing to build internally. This assumes dedicated engineering resources and no other competing priorities. Most teams underestimate this timeline by 2x.

We have written about how to scope complex technical projects in another context. The same estimation discipline applies here.

Beyond Migration: When You Need More Than a Platform Swap

For many teams, the Pinpoint migration surfaces bigger infrastructure questions. You might need:

• API integrations between your email platform and CRM, billing system, or product analytics

• Custom automation workflows that go beyond what Pinpoint or CampaignHQ support out of the box

• Data pipeline work to unify customer data from multiple sources for better segmentation

• Internal tools to give your ops and growth teams better visibility into email performance

• Custom email infrastructure for high-volume or regulatory-compliant sending

These projects typically fall in the $50,000 to $100,000 range for mid-size teams. KumoHQ, the team behind CampaignHQ, works with SaaS and mid-size companies on these kinds of custom development projects. If your Pinpoint migration is part of a broader infrastructure initiative, schedule a 60-minute strategy session to scope the work and get a concrete project plan.

What to Do This Week

If you are a Pinpoint user, here are three concrete steps to take this week.

1. Export your Pinpoint contact list via API. Do this immediately. Contact data is the most important asset to preserve. Use the Pinpoint GetSegments and GetEndpoints APIs. Export to CSV and store in a secure location.

2. Document your active campaigns and journeys. Create a spreadsheet with every journey, its trigger condition, steps, and business purpose. Note which templates each journey uses. Screenshot the journey builder for reference.

3. Book a free migration assessment. CampaignHQ offers a no-cost assessment where they review your Pinpoint setup, estimate migration effort, and provide a customized migration plan. This takes 30 minutes and gives you clarity on timeline and cost.

FAQ

How long do I have to migrate from Amazon Pinpoint?

You have until October 30, 2026. After that date, the Pinpoint console, campaigns, journeys, segments, and analytics are no longer accessible. SES email sending continues unaffected.

Can I just use SES directly after October 30?

Yes, but you lose all marketing features. SES is a transactional email API with no campaign management UI, no journey builder, no segment management, and no marketing analytics. You would need to build those features yourself or switch to a different platform.

Will I lose my email history and analytics?

Your SES sending logs remain accessible via AWS. However, Pinpoint-specific analytics such as open rates by segment, journey completion rates, and endpoint engagement history disappear with the platform. Export any reports you need before October 30.

What is the approximate cost to migrate?

Migration costs range from $0 (DIY via CampaignHQ) to $500 (assisted migration). Ongoing platform costs typically run $9 to $49 per month depending on contact count, plus your normal SES sending fees. There is no per-email markup with CampaignHQ.

What if I have custom integration or development needs beyond the migration?

If your Pinpoint migration is part of a broader infrastructure project (API integrations, data pipelines, custom automation, internal tools), KumoHQ works with mid-size teams on $50K to $100K custom development projects. Schedule a strategy session to discuss your requirements.

Is AWS Connect a viable replacement for Pinpoint?

No. AWS Connect is a contact center platform designed for call centers and customer service workflows. It is not optimized for email marketing automation. Most marketing teams find Connect unsuitable for campaign management and journey building.

About KumoHQ and CampaignHQ

CampaignHQ is the fastest path for Pinpoint migration. Connect your existing AWS SES account, restore your marketing UI, and complete your migration in hours. Book a Free Migration Assessment.

KumoHQ is a software development company based in Bangalore with 13+ years of experience building custom software, AI agents, and workflow automation for mid-size and enterprise clients. Rated 4.8 on Clutch.co with a 99% client retention rate. If your Pinpoint migration surfaces broader development or integration needs, schedule a strategy session to discuss how KumoHQ can help.