Sistava

Relay.app

AI-powered workflow automation with human-in-the-loop approvals

About Relay.app

Relay.app is a workflow automation tool that chains AI actions (summarization, extraction, translation) with human approval steps across 100+ app integrations. While Relay requires you to design every workflow step by step, Sistava gives you pre-built AI employees that already know how to do the job, with thousands of integrations, team hierarchy, and durable execution built in.

Platform details

Official website

What does Relay.app actually do?

Relay.app is a workflow automation platform with AI steps built in, positioned in the same neighborhood as Zapier and Make but with first-class language model actions and human-in-the-loop approvals as primitives. Workflows are multi-step, can branch and loop, and treat AI calls as ordinary steps rather than bolted-on extras. The AI Agent Builder lets users create agents that can summarize content, extract data, and make contextual decisions inside a workflow, then pause for a human approval before doing something risky. Available models include OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, and Groq-hosted open models, and users can bring their own API key if they prefer. Relay sits between traditional iPaaS and full agent platforms. It is more AI-native than Zapier, more visual than a code framework, and more workflow-shaped than a workforce platform. For buyers whose work is mostly orchestrating tools across SaaS apps with a few AI judgments in the middle, that shape fits. For buyers who want an employee that picks up tasks and runs the whole loop, platforms like Sistava model the work differently.

How much does Relay.app cost?

Relay.app uses a tiered model based on users, workflow steps, and AI credits. The Free tier includes 1 user, 500 AI credits per month, and up to 200 steps per month. Professional is $38 per month with 1 user, 5,000 AI credits, and 750 steps, or $19 per month if billed annually. Team is $138 per month with 10 users, 5,000 AI credits per user, shared workflows, and 2,000 steps, dropping to $69 per month on the annual plan. Enterprise is custom. Extra AI credits can be bought separately, from around $19/month for 10,000 credits up to roughly $1,199/month for 1,000,000 credits. All integrations are included on every plan, which is a meaningful difference from competitors that gate premium connectors behind higher tiers. AI steps are powered by built-in credits or a bring-your-own API key, so heavy AI use can be funded externally to keep the Relay plan price stable. Compared to per-minute voice platforms like Bland or Synthflow, Relay's cost shape is steps-and-credits, which fits multi-step automations better than voice-only use cases. Compared to workforce platforms like Sistava that meter on credits across an employee's full day, Relay's step counter is the right unit when work is bounded automations rather than open-ended agent execution.

When does Relay.app beat the alternatives?

Relay.app wins when the job to be done is a workflow that crosses several SaaS tools and benefits from AI judgment at one or two specific points. A typical example is a deal-stage change in HubSpot that triggers an AI summary of recent emails, a Slack approval, and a Notion update. Doing that on Zapier requires hacks; doing it on Relay is the native shape. Human-in-the-loop is the second deciding factor. Built-in approval steps, manual data inputs, and conditional branching make Relay safe to use for workflows where an AI mistake would be expensive. The free tier with 500 AI credits and 200 steps also makes it cheap to validate the shape before committing. Relay loses when the work is too open-ended for a fixed workflow graph. An agent that researches a lead, writes a custom outreach, books a meeting, and adjusts based on the reply is a workforce-shaped problem, not a workflow-shaped one. Platforms like Sistava treat that as an employee taking a task; Relay would model it as a long chain that breaks the first time the lead does something unexpected.

Where does Relay.app fall short?

Relay.app is a workflow platform, and the workflow abstraction is also its ceiling. Long-running, open-ended agent work where the next step depends on what the last step learned does not fit neatly into a directed graph of steps. Users hit that ceiling whenever the task is closer to research than to orchestration. The second gap is operational visibility. Step-level logs and run history exist, but Relay does not provide an employee-style dashboard where a buyer can see what was attempted, what succeeded, and what to fix. For workflows that is enough; for autonomous work it is not. Third, the credit and step accounting becomes its own management overhead at scale. Teams running thousands of executions per month spend real time tuning step counts and credit budgets. Buyers who want a flat monthly cost for an agent that does a job tend to prefer workforce platforms like Sistava, where the unit of measurement is the work product rather than the step count.

How does Relay.app handle AI inside workflows?

Relay.app treats AI calls as first-class workflow steps rather than add-ons. Inside any workflow, users can drop in a step that summarizes text, extracts structured data from an email, makes a categorical decision, or drafts content using OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, or Groq-hosted Llama and Mixtral models. The AI Agent Builder layer is one level above that. Users can compose agents that combine multiple AI calls with deterministic steps and human approvals, then reuse the agent across workflows. This is closer to a workflow library of AI judgments than to an autonomous employee, and the framing is intentional. Workforce platforms like Sistava draw the line differently: the agent is the unit, and workflows are how the agent organizes its own work behind the scenes. Both shapes are valid; the question is whether the buyer's mental model is workflows with AI inside (Relay) or employees who run their own work (Sistava).

Comparison