Relay

Free

Relay was a workflow automation tool that put human judgment back in the loop. You could build automations that pause for approval, Data entry, or a simple yes or no before they finish.

It sat in the workflow automation category. You connected apps, added AI steps, and built conditional logic. The difference was the built-in checkpoints. A workflow could ask a person via email or Slack before it moved forward.

Then it shut down. All accounts, workflows, and run history were permanently deleted in September 2026. There is no successor and no way to recover what you built.

Open this article if you want to know what Relay did and why it disappeared. Do not open Relay.app itself—it no longer exists.

These teams got the most from Relay when it was alive:

• Teams that need a person to check before automation runs: You insert approval gates into the workflow itself. Critical steps do not fire until a human says go.
• Zapier users who hated the interface and surprise bills: You get a cleaner visual builder. You pay flat per-user pricing, not per-task volume that spirals.
• Small businesses with tight budgets: You start at $19 per month. You know the cost upfront. No connector paywalls hide on any tier.
• Teams using Notion, Slack, Google Drive, or HubSpot: You get 100 to 200 integrations. Popular tools connect without fuss.
• Users who want AI help without wrangling API keys: You get GPT-4o, Claude, and Gemini built in. You do not manage tokens or rate limits.
• Ops and compliance teams in small companies: You build audit-ready workflows with native approval steps. You stay under 10 users and keep costs predictable.
• Consultants building automations for clients: You export screenshots and structure files. You show clear handoff points between human and machine.

These parts stood out when the tool still worked:

• Human-in-the-loop as a first-class feature: Approvals and decision points are built into the engine. You do not hack them in with webhooks and delays.
• Visual builder that non-developers can use: You describe workflows in plain language. The tool builds the structure. You drag to adjust.
• Flat billing by workflow run: You pay for the run, not each step inside it. Complex multi-step jobs do not multiply your bill.
• AI models ready to use: You pick summarization, extraction, classification, or custom prompts. The keys and limits are handled for you.
• Approval requests in Slack or email: Reviewers see context inline. They approve, edit, or reject without logging into another dashboard.
• Real-time monitoring and team features: You watch runs live. You collaborate on fixes. You are not blind to what your automation is doing.

You cannot use Relay anymore. When it worked, the flow looked like this:

1. Pick a trigger from your connected apps.
2. Add AI steps or human checkpoints between actions.
3. Set conditions for which path a run should take.
4. Publish and let the workflow pause for approvals when needed.
5. Review run history and export prompts for documentation.

Relay is gone. Do not sign up. Do not build. These are the hard limits that ended it:

• Shut down with no warning: The service stopped in September 2026. All data was deleted permanently. You cannot recover workflows or history.
• No migration path: The export gives you JSON and screenshots. You rebuild manually in Zapier, Make, n8n, or another tool.
• Smaller integration library: You get hundreds of connectors, not thousands. Obscure apps may need workarounds or webhooks.
• 10-user cap on team plans: You hit a hard limit on growth. Enterprise governance and scaling are not available.
• AI credits run out fast: Heavy agent use burns through limits. Large operations face steep overage costs.