diff --git a/app/api/cron/emails/route.ts b/app/api/cron/emails/route.ts
index 8a832bc..066f94c 100644
--- a/app/api/cron/emails/route.ts
+++ b/app/api/cron/emails/route.ts
@@ -10,7 +10,10 @@ export async function GET(req: Request) {
 
   const result = await runCronEmails();
   if (!result.success) {
-    return NextResponse.json({ success: false, error: "Database unavailable" }, { status: 500 });
+    // Report the cause the workflow actually returned. Hardcoding one of the
+    // two made an email-configuration failure read as a database failure, and
+    // the operator chased Postgres while the sender address was the problem.
+    return NextResponse.json({ success: false, error: result.error }, { status: 500 });
   }
   return NextResponse.json(result);
 }
diff --git a/lib/workflows/cron-emails.ts b/lib/workflows/cron-emails.ts
index fe5840e..faf16b4 100644
--- a/lib/workflows/cron-emails.ts
+++ b/lib/workflows/cron-emails.ts
@@ -28,7 +28,15 @@ export async function runCronEmails(now: Date = new Date()): Promise<CronEmailsR
   // No provider → leave every row pending (retried next run once configured)
   // instead of "sending" into the void and marking the queue sent.
   if (!isEmailConfigured()) {
-    console.error("[cron/emails] RESEND_API_KEY not configured — queue left pending");
+    // Name the real reason. isEmailConfigured() is false for TWO reasons and
+    // this line only ever announced one of them, so a sandbox sender — the
+    // case the guard was written for — reported a missing key that was
+    // present and correctly shaped.
+    console.error(
+      process.env.RESEND_API_KEY
+        ? "[cron/emails] sender is a sandbox address that reaches nobody — queue left pending"
+        : "[cron/emails] RESEND_API_KEY not configured — queue left pending"
+    );
     return { success: false, error: "Email provider not configured" };
   }