Selfhosted

SES is indeed the best option if you want reliable delivery for a reasonable cost. The pricing changed just last month so it's no longer effectively free for small users but it's relatively cheap (for now). I looked at the prices you quoted for other services and they seem ridiculously high, but it's fair to say that sending legitimate (non spam) bulk email is not so easy if you do everything yourself - getting your mail accepted is very challenging. For example, even using SES, if you attempt to originate too many emails to one provider in a single call, they may start rejecting everything - I had to put counters into the code to limit how many gmail addresses would be sent with each iteration. SES also rate limits so you need to manage that somehow. It sounds like you're planning to send a LOT of email. You'll also need to be mindful of the bounce rate and complaints (spam / abuse reports from recipients) because SES will shut you down if they go over a certain threshold, which you can see in the dashboard. It sounds like you've already figured a lot of this stuff out though - it's not rocket science but it can be frustrating to work with bulk email delivery for a number of reasons.