SMASHSEND, an AI-driven email marketing platform, drastically reduced its database costs by transitioning from AWS RDS to Neon, achieving a 95% cost reduction and solving several operational challenges. Initially, SMASHSEND faced issues with RDS due to its inability to efficiently handle bursty workloads, high connection demands causing failures in background jobs, and expensive replication for testing environments. The migration to Neon was completed in about three hours, involving snapshot import, environment variable updates, and gradual traffic rollout, leading to significant improvements. Neon’s serverless architecture allowed for automatic scaling and cost reductions by adjusting resources based on activity levels. Built-in connection pooling resolved previous job failures, and the introduction of ephemeral Neon branches facilitated more efficient testing and integration processes, aligning seamlessly with SMASHSEND's serverless infrastructure. The transition not only improved cost efficiency but also enhanced performance and workflow integration, making Neon a compelling choice for startups facing similar challenges with RDS.