MASV vs TransferFiles.net: what you pay for, and when it is worth it

If you move large media files for paying work, regularly, and need them to arrive fast, survive interrupted connections and land straight in cloud storage, MASV is the stronger tool and is priced accordingly. If you send a big file now and then, to someone who can receive it while you wait, a free live transfer like TransferFiles.net does the job without an account, a credit card or a per-gigabyte bill. The rest of this page puts real numbers on that line.

What MASV is

MASV is a Canadian service aimed at film, TV, post-production, sports and other media teams. Its pitch is speed and reliability for files that are measured in hundreds of gigabytes: camera originals, edit project packages, VFX plates, deliverables to broadcasters. It is used through the browser, a desktop app and an API, and it focuses on workflows rather than one-off links: upload portals for clients, automated delivery to storage, watch folders and integrations.

Unlike most transfer services, MASV does not sell seats. You pay for data.

How MASV pricing works

The figures below are from MASV's pricing page at the time of writing (October 2026).

• Pay-as-you-go: the first 15 GB each month is free, then $0.25 per GB. No contract.
• What counts: MASV charges when data leaves its network, either as a download or as a delivery to connected storage. Uploading is not what you pay for; delivering is.
• Storage: files are stored free for 5 days, then cost $0.07 per GB per month.
• Annual subscriptions (12-month commitment, billed monthly): 250 GB for $58/month, 500 GB for $110, 1 TB for $215, 2 TB for $410, with overages at a discounted rate.
• Pre-buy credits valid for 180 days: 5 TB for $1,229, 10 TB for $2,355, 25 TB for $5,632.
• Card required: signup needs a credit card. MASV says it places a $10 pre-authorisation that is released automatically.

One detail worth knowing: MASV's FAQ says its plan sizes use binary units, so a "1 TB" plan provides roughly 1,099 GB.

Worked cost examples

These assume pay-as-you-go, no other usage that month, and files downloaded within the 5 free storage days.

Two lessons fall out of this. First, the free 15 GB genuinely covers occasional small sends, but a credit card is still on file, so a mistake such as sharing a link with a large group can generate a bill. Second, each extra recipient multiplies the cost, which is fair (each download uses MASV's bandwidth) but different from flat-rate services. At around 400 GB a month, the 500 GB annual plan at $110 starts to compete with pay-as-you-go, provided your volume is steady enough to justify a year's commitment.

What the money buys

It is easy to look at $0.25 per GB and compare it with "free". That misses what MASV is actually selling. According to MASV's own product pages, you get:

• Accelerated transfers. MASV routes uploads and downloads through a network of more than 400 servers and opens multiple parallel connections, which helps a lot over long distances where a single connection struggles to fill the line.
• Asynchronous delivery. The sender uploads, goes home, and the recipient downloads whenever they like. MASV also says recipients can begin downloading while the upload is still in progress.
• Resilience. Automatic retries and resume from a checkpoint after a dropped connection. On a 300 GB transfer this matters more than raw speed.
• Portals. Branded upload pages where clients or crew can send you files without a MASV account. MASV's FAQ says a Portal can receive up to 15 TB per file, and it describes no maximum package size.
• Integrations and automation. Delivery straight into storage such as Amazon S3, Wasabi, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, Frame.io and NAS devices, plus watch folders and an API.
• Security and compliance. Encryption in transit and at rest, transfer passwords, SSO and MFA, audit logs, and certifications MASV lists as SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and TPN (the film industry's Trusted Partner Network) verification. For many studio contracts, that last one is not optional.

None of those are things a free browser-to-browser tool offers. If your work depends on them, MASV, or a comparable professional service, is the right answer.

What a free live transfer does instead

TransferFiles.net solves a narrower problem. You open the page, pick files, and share a link or a short code like ABCD-1234. When the recipient opens it, their browser connects to yours over WebRTC and the file streams directly between the two, encrypted with DTLS. Nothing is uploaded to or stored on a server. On strict networks the encrypted data may pass through a TURN relay that forwards it without being able to read it.

That model has real advantages for occasional use: no account, no card, no per-gigabyte bill, no size cap set by us, and no stored copy left behind. It also has clear limits that matter to professionals:

• Both people must be online for the whole transfer, with tabs open and devices awake.
• No resume. If the connection drops at 90%, you start again.
• Speed is the slower of the two connections, plus relay overhead if one is used. There is no acceleration network.
• One sender, one receiver per session; no portals, no storage integrations, no audit trail.
• Browser memory on some devices. On desktop Chrome and Edge, files over 200 MB stream straight to disk. On Safari, Firefox and most mobile browsers, the file is assembled in memory first, which can fail for multi-gigabyte files on low-RAM devices.

Why speed and resume matter at this scale

Consider 300 GB of camera originals. At a sustained 100 Mbps, the transfer takes about 6 hours and 40 minutes, and that assumes both ends hold that rate the whole time. With a direct peer-to-peer transfer, both computers must stay awake and connected for all of it, and a router restart at hour five means starting from zero. With a stored service that resumes from a checkpoint, the same hiccup costs a few minutes. And if the sender's uplink is the bottleneck, a service that uploads once and lets the recipient download later separates the two halves, so neither person has to wait for the other.

For a 5 GB file the picture is very different: at the same 100 Mbps it takes under seven minutes, and the risk of interruption is small enough that resume hardly matters.

How to decide

1. Is this paid production work with a client or studio requirement? If TPN, audit logs or delivery to a specific storage bucket is expected, use MASV or a similar professional service. Stop here.
2. Will the recipient download later, or are there several recipients? You need a stored, asynchronous service. MASV fits for very large media; general services fit for smaller files.
3. Is the connection long-distance or unreliable, and the file hundreds of gigabytes? Acceleration and resume are worth paying for. Estimate the time first with the transfer time calculator; if the answer is many hours, a dropped connection with no resume is a real risk.
4. Is it a one-off, both of you are at a computer, and the connection is decent? A free live transfer will do it, at no cost and without accounts.

The fair summary

MASV is better at almost everything a production team needs: speed over distance, reliability, asynchronous delivery, portals, integrations and compliance. You pay per gigabyte for that, and you need an account with a card. TransferFiles.net is better only on the things it is designed for: zero cost, zero signup and no stored copy, for a live transfer between two people who are both there. If you are weighing MASV against other paid services instead, our Filemail comparison and the comparison hub cover alternatives with flat-rate pricing.

Sources

• MASV: pricing and FAQ
• MASV: MASV vs WeTransfer feature comparison
• MASV: Portals product page and FAQ