The price anchor
| Droplink | WeTransfer | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 — no subscription | $12/mo |
| Annual | $0 after purchase | $144 |
| 5-year total | $79 | $720 |
| 10-year total | $79 | $1,440 |
Subscription figures from the vendor's published pricing ($12/mo, ~$144/yr); the Droplink column is the full price, paid once.
Break-even analysis
Pays for itself in 6.6 months versus WeTransfer Pro — and stays free forever after that.
- After 1 year: Droplink has cost you $79 total — WeTransfer has cost $144.
- After 3 years: Droplink is still $79 — the subscription is at $432.
- After 5 years: Droplink is still $79 — the subscription is at $720.
What you get for $79 once
- Chunked, resumable uploads. Files slice into 5MB chunks with per-chunk retry. Drop your connection mid-upload and it resumes exactly where it left off — a 50GB file is as safe as a 5MB one.
- Transfers with real terms. Expiry (default 7 days), optional bcrypt-hashed password, optional max-download count, optional message to the recipient.
- Clean share links. File list with sizes, live expiry countdown, password gate, inline preview for images and PDFs, per-file download plus streamed "Download all as ZIP".
- Email the link. Compose recipients + a note straight from the transfer page using your own SMTP credentials — no third-party mail service.
- Auto-cleanup. A sweep runs every 5 minutes deleting expired or limit-hit transfers — database rows and files on disk.
- No renewal, ever. The license does not expire and there is no per-seat meter — $79 is the whole price.
Pricing questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — the full source is MIT at github.com/bensblueprints/droplink-mvp, always. $79 buys the packaged installer, guided deploy and lifetime updates instead of building it yourself.
Do I need a server?
For public share links, yes — a $5 VPS with the included Docker Compose setup does it, with Caddy or nginx in front for TLS. Desktop mode runs the identical app in an Electron window for local use. WeTransfer's zero-setup convenience is real; the trade is you rent it forever.
What happens if an upload drops at 90%?
It resumes. The server tracks exactly which 5MB chunks it already has, so a refresh or dropped connection continues instead of restarting — verified in the test suite with a sha256 byte-identical check, not just eyeballed.
What about download speed and bandwidth?
It's your server's bandwidth — a decent VPS handles client-file delivery fine, but a global CDN like WeTransfer's will be faster for recipients on the other side of the world. For freelancer/agency client work, one good server covers it.
Droplink — $79, one time
Or get Droplink plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.