Case Study: SMASHSEND cut its database bill 95% moving from AWS RDS to Neon
Key results
The challenge
SMASHSEND, an email marketing platform, ran its database on AWS RDS, where the monthly bill had reached $1,500 and background jobs were failing on database connections. The team wanted lower cost and reliable connection handling without heavy operational work.
The solution
SMASHSEND migrated to Neon in roughly three hours, using built-in connection pooling to resolve the background-job failures and branching to test changes safely. Traffic was rolled out gradually from 10% to 100% after a dark-launch and monitoring period.
“We moved from AWS RDS to Neon in literally hours, and the benefits have already been massive. Built-in pooling fixed our background job failures, branching lets us test safely, and we cut our database bill from $1,500 to $70 a month”
JFJorge FerreiroFounder, SMASHSEND
The results, in context
SMASHSEND reported cutting its database bill from $1,500 to $70 a month, a 95% reduction, and completing the migration in about three hours. Built-in connection pooling resolved the background-job failures the team had seen on RDS.