Aspects include balancing work of tasks at a sending node of a transaction server in a network. A method can include processing a task from the top of a work queue at the sending node, where the task is an instance of a transaction which requires a transaction message to be sent from the sending node using a network connection. The transaction message is divided into chunks of partial transaction sub-messages. For each chunk, it can be dynamically determined whether a pacing response indicator is required based on metrics that monitor the activity in the work queue and a number of chunks of the transaction message already sent.