useSend
The open-source Resend - transactional + campaign email with a dashboard and API, delivered through your own SES.
One-click deploy, from $25/mo on a Miget plan.
Resend made transactional email pleasant: clean API, dashboard, domains, analytics. useSend rebuilds that experience as AGPL open source - with delivery handled by YOUR AWS SES, which is the architecturally honest choice (SES owns IP reputation at ~$0.10 per 1,000 emails; you own the platform, templates, contacts, and data).
The stack is catalogue-standard: the Next.js app behind a thin proxy, BullMQ sends queued in a noeviction Valkey, everything durable in the managed Postgres. Migrations run on start.
The honest prerequisites are listed, not discovered: SES production access and a GitHub OAuth app (useSend’s login provider). Once those exist, you have Resend’s workflow at SES postage prices - 100k emails costs ~$10 in delivery, not a tier upgrade.
Upstream project: useSend (formerly Unsend)
#what you get
- Transactional API + campaign sends with one platform
- Contacts, domains (DKIM via SES), delivery analytics, webhooks
- Your SES underneath: ~$0.10/1k emails, SES-grade deliverability
- BullMQ queue on noeviction Valkey; managed Postgres state
- API keys per app - drop-in for Resend-style SDK usage
- AGPL-3.0, actively maintained
#topology
| Service | Role | Public |
|---|---|---|
| usesend | dashboard + API (Next.js :3000) | no |
| web | nginx :5000 -> usesend:3000 | yes |
| broker / db | noeviction Valkey / managed Postgres | no |
#miget sizing
// this stack needs
2.3 GiB RAM · 5 GB disk · 4 services
Send volume is SES’s problem, not this stack’s - the queue and dashboard idle small. Stateless except Postgres.
Hobby - recommended fit
$25/mo
2 vCPU · 4 GiB · 80 GiB disk
Headroom for your own apps: 8 GiB at $49/mo
Professional - production
$43/mo
2 vCPU · 4 GiB · 25 GiB disk
Dedicated resources, production SLOs - plan details
One Miget plan is a fixed pool of compute - the whole stack (managed databases included) deploys inside it, and anything left over runs your other apps. No per-service or per-seat math.
#vs. the managed service
What the hosted equivalents charge, against the flat Miget plan this stack fits on. Prices as of June 2026, sources linked.
| Service | Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| useSend on Miget ★ | 4 GiB plan | $25 | this whole stack, flat - no usage meters, and room left for your own apps |
| Resend | Pro | ~$20 | 50k emails/mo ($35 for 100k); the developer experience useSend mirrors |
| Postmark | Basic | ~$15 | 10k emails/mo, $1.80 per extra 1k |
Self-hosted, delivery costs SES postage (~$0.10/1k) - the platform fee disappears and the per-email curve flattens.
#vs. other PaaS
Estimated monthly cost of running this exact stack (2.3 GiB RAM, 5 GB disk, 4 containers) elsewhere, from published June 2026 rates.
| Platform | Est. monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miget ★ | $25 flat | compose stacks first-class: one deploy, dedicated vCPU, managed Postgres/Valkey, volumes and TLS all included in the plan |
| Heroku | ~$113 | no volumes; nothing between 1 GB ($50) and 2.5 GB ($250) dynos - 2 GB containers cost far more than shown |
| DO App Platform | ~$32 | no persistent volumes - stateful containers need managed DBs/Spaces (base $5 Spaces included here) |
| Render | ~$29 | per-service instances (0.5 GB $7, 2 GB $25) - every container is its own paid service |
| Railway | ~$23 | usage-based ($10/GB RAM-mo); vCPU billed separately at $20/vCPU-mo on top |
| Fly.io | ~$14 | cheapest sticker price - but burstable shared CPUs (1/16 core; dedicated vCPUs cost ~2-3×), no compose deploys (one app per container, manual wiring), managed DBs billed extra |
Estimates assume RAM fully allocated at published on-demand rates - and sticker price isn't the whole comparison: the cheaper rows buy burstable shared CPUs, per-service wiring instead of a compose deploy, and managed databases billed separately. Heroku and DO App Platform have no persistent volumes at all - stateful stacks like this one need workarounds there.
#deploy it
On Miget
- Create a Compose Stack in app.miget.com pointing at the templates repository
- Set the stack path to
usesend -
Set the required variables:
NEXTAUTH_SECRET / REDIS_AUTH, core secretsAWS_*, SES credentials (production access, IAM scoped to SES+SNS)GITHUB_ID / GITHUB_SECRET, OAuth login app (callback on your domain)NEXTAUTH_URL, the app’s https domain after first deploy
- Deploy. Miget layers
compose.miget.yaml(RAM, privacy, volumes, managed services) automatically
Locally first?
Every template is portable, vanilla Docker Compose - the Miget overrides are ignored locally:
git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd miget-compose-templates/usesend
docker compose up -dSame files, same behavior. The template README covers connection strings and scaling notes.
#faq
How does the cost compare to Resend?
Resend Pro is $20/month for 50k emails, $35 for 100k. useSend is $25/month infrastructure plus SES postage (~$0.10/1k): 100k emails ≈ $35 total, 500k ≈ $75 - and the curve flattens where Resend’s tiers climb. Below ~50k/month, Resend’s simplicity honestly wins; above it, owning the platform does.
Why is AWS SES required rather than any SMTP?
useSend is built around SES APIs and SNS delivery webhooks (bounces, complaints, opens) - that integration is what makes the analytics real. It is the same architecture Resend itself runs on; you are just holding the SES account.
useSend or listmonk - the catalogue has both?
useSend for the Resend-shaped job: transactional API + product emails + light campaigns, developer-first. listmonk for serious newsletter/list management at scale (segmentation, double opt-in machinery). They share the SES-underneath philosophy and coexist happily.
Ship useSend today
One compose stack, 2.3 GiB of RAM, from $25/month flat, and it runs on your laptop with the same files.