Resend vs. Transmit:
The "Scale Trap"
Resend has the best DX in the industry. But their business model relies on "The 3-Day Wall" and linear pricing markup.
Resend is a wrapper that charges a premium for UI and strictly limits data retention (3 days). Transmit provides the same UI/API experience but stores data in your own S3 bucket (Infinite retention) and charges flat usage fees.
- Resend's 'Pro' plan only keeps logs for 3 days. 'Scale' keeps them for 7 days.
- Debugging customer issues from last week is impossible on Resend.
- Transmit stores full raw logs in your S3 bucket forever. You own the data.
- Resend marks up AWS costs by ~1000% at scale. Transmit is flat pricing.
01. The "3-Day Wall"
Imagine a user complains: "I didn't get my password reset email last Tuesday."
On Resend Pro ($20/mo), you check the logs. They are empty. Logs are deleted after 72 hours.
404 Not Found
"Resource not found. Upgrade to Enterprise for extended retention."
Why do they do this?
Storing logs is expensive. Resend runs on top of AWS, so they pay for storage. To maintain margins, they must delete your data aggressively.
Transmit Architecture: We stream logs directly to your S3 bucket. You pay AWS pennies for years of storage. We don't mark it up.
The Workaround (If you stay on Resend)
To be compliant, you must write a cron job that scrapes their API every 24 hours. Here is the script you need to maintain:
02. The Linear Pricing Trap
Resend charges per email. This typically works fine for small apps. But as you scale, the math breaks.
| Metric | Resend (Scale Plan) | Transmit (Scale Plan) |
|---|---|---|
| Log Retention | 7 Days (Hard Limit) | Infinite (S3) |
| Platform Fee | $90 / mo | $149 / mo |
| Cost per 10k Overage | $9.00 | $1.00 |
| Cost for 5M Emails | ~$4,500 / mo | ~$650 / mo |
Compliance Warning: SOC2 & GDPR
If you are audited for SOC2 or HIPAA, you often need to prove the chain of custody for data processing activities (like sending a password reset email) for at least 90 days.
Resend's 3-day (Pro) or 7-day (Scale) limits mean you physically cannot pass these audits. You are deleting evidence every week. Transmit gives you an immutable audit trail in your own S3 bucket that lasts forever.
That is an 85% reduction in OpEx just by changing your API provider.
03. Stop Renting. Start Owning.
Tenant (Resend)
- Markup on AWS Costs (~10x)
- Logs Deleted (3-7 days)
- Black Box Infrastructure
Owner (Transmit)
- Flat Platform Fee
- Logs Forever (Your S3)
- Glass Box (Full AWS Access)
Beyond the Beauty
Beauty is table stakes. Sovereignty is the goal. Learn how Transmit pairs Resend-level DX with AWS-level control and security.