Most transfer tools stage your file on their storage first. You send it up, they hold it, and your client pulls it back down.
Two trips for one file
The usual transfer service works in two legs. You upload the file to the service. The recipient downloads it from the service. Nothing has moved from your storage to theirs; it has moved through a third party in between.
That doubles the wait, and it leaves a copy of your file on storage you do not control.
What the middle costs
Every tool in the middle has to pay for its storage and bandwidth somehow, and the bill reaches you in one of a few ways.
- Storage and holding fees, or a limit on how long a file is kept
- Per-gigabyte charges on the volume you move
- A second copy of your work on someone else's servers, which is a security and compliance question for your clients
- Terms of service that can change while your files are sitting there
For a sense of scale, MASV publishes pay as you go pricing of $0.25 per GB after 15 GB free, and storage of $0.07 per GB per month after 5 days. Checked 2026-09-25.
The extra stop has a cost.
When the terms change under you
In July 2025, WeTransfer notified customers of updated terms that included a broad licence to use uploaded content, including to improve machine learning models used in content moderation. After criticism from creators, WeTransfer removed the references to machine learning and AI on 15 July 2025 and said it does not use transferred content to train AI models.
The lesson is not that one company behaved badly. It is that when your file lives on someone else's storage, the rules for that file are theirs to rewrite, and you find out after you have uploaded.
Direct between your own endpoints
Performm skips the middle.
Peer-to-peer transfers, such as desktop to desktop or from a NAS or local drive to the cloud, go directly between your endpoints with no storage in the middle.
Connect the storage you already use, drag and drop the files you want to send, and follow progress in one place. Fastr accelerates the move, and transfers are encrypted, checksum-verified and resumable on any failure.
Built for the move between endpoints.
The bottom line
Do not pay to park your own files on someone else's disk.
Send them from where they already are.
Questions and answers
Do I have to upload to a transfer service to send a big file?
No. Performm sends peer to peer between your own endpoints, with no storage in the middle.
Is a transfer through Performm encrypted?
Yes. Fastr transfers are encrypted, checksum-verified and resumable on any failure.
What does Performm cost for transfers?
Connecting storage and sharing by link are free on the Free plan.
Flow is $20 per user per month for unlimited transfers.
Do you scan or hold my files?
Peer-to-peer transfers go directly between your endpoints with no storage in the middle.
Managed storage is optional, and connecting your own storage is free.
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