What does Relay.app cost in 2026? Pricing tiers and plans explained

Pricing Overview

Relay.app is shutting down (service ends 14 September 2026; details and export steps), so the pricing below is retained as a historical record and is no longer purchasable.

Relay.app was an automation platform that differentiated itself with human-in-the-loop capabilities, allowing workflows to pause and request human approval, input, or review before proceeding. The platform uses run-based pricing across three tiers. A "run" in Relay.app is counted per workflow execution, regardless of the number of steps.

Relay.app Pricing Tiers (as of March 2026)

What Each Tier Includes

Free

The free tier provides 100 runs per month with access to the human-in-the-loop feature that defines Relay.app. Users can build workflows that pause at any step to request human approval via email, Slack, or the Relay.app dashboard. Basic integrations with popular applications (Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, Airtable) are included. The 100-run limit is suitable for low-volume approval workflows.

Pro

The Pro tier at $9.99 per month increases the run limit to 2,500 and unlocks all available integrations, team collaboration features, and workflow templates. Multi-step workflows with conditional branching, data formatting, and error handling are included. This tier covers most small business automation needs.

Growth

The Growth tier at $29.99 per month provides 10,000 runs, custom branding for approval request emails, priority support, and API access for triggering workflows programmatically. This tier targets growing teams with higher automation volumes and custom workflow requirements.

Hidden Costs and Considerations

• Run-based counting advantage: Relay.app counts runs per workflow execution, not per step. A 6-step workflow triggered once counts as 1 run. On Zapier, the same workflow would consume 6 tasks. This makes Relay.app 3-6x more cost-efficient per run allocation for multi-step workflows.
• Human-in-the-loop latency: Workflows that pause for human input introduce latency. If an approver is unavailable, the workflow waits indefinitely. Time-sensitive processes may need fallback logic or timeout configurations.
• Integration ecosystem size: Relay.app supports approximately 100 integrations as of March 2026, significantly fewer than Zapier (9,000+) or Make (2,000+). For niche applications, users may need to use the webhook or API integration features.
• No self-hosted option: Relay.app is cloud-only with no self-hosting capability.

How Relay.app Pricing Compares

Relay.app Pro at $9.99/month for 2,500 runs is competitively priced. Zapier's entry plan starts at $29.99/month billed monthly (about $19.99 annually) and bills per data-moving action step. Make starts at $10.59/month for 10,000 operations. The key differentiator is the human-in-the-loop capability — while Zapier and Make can send approval notifications, they lack native workflow pause-and-resume functionality tied to human decisions. For workflows that genuinely require human judgment at specific steps (content approval, expense authorization, hiring decisions), Relay.app provides a purpose-built solution that would require workarounds on other platforms.

Editor's Note: We deployed Relay.app Pro ($9.99/month) for a content agency that needed approval workflows for client deliverables. The workflow: content writer submits draft (Notion), workflow sends approval request to account manager (Slack), account manager reviews and approves or requests changes, approved content is published (WordPress) and the client is notified (email). Monthly runs: approximately 400. The same workflow on Zapier would cost $29.99/month and consume approximately 2,400 tasks (6 steps x 400 triggers). Relay.app saved $20/month and provided a cleaner approval interface. The limitation: the agency needed an integration with a niche project management tool that Relay.app did not support, requiring a webhook workaround that took 2 hours to configure.