Relay.app is shutting down. Free workspaces stop working on August 15, 2026 at 23:59 PT and paid workspaces on September 14, 2026 at 23:59 PT, after which accounts and all associated data are permanently deleted. If you still have workflows in Relay, export them before your date and rebuild only the ones that earned their keep.
What is happening to Relay.app?
Relay.app published an announcement on July 16, 2026 confirming the product is closing. This is a full shutdown, not a pivot or an acquisition, and the company has published firm deletion dates. The announcement gives no reason for the decision, but it is unusually clear about logistics: new signups and free-to-paid upgrades were switched off immediately, paid subscriptions were cancelled the same day, and every workspace keeps running until its wind-down date.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| July 16, 2026 | Shutdown announced. New signups and free-to-paid upgrades turned off. Paid subscriptions cancelled, with no further charges. |
| From July 16, 2026 | Data export available. Paid workspaces receive an extra 25,000 steps and 10,000 AI credits per month during the wind-down, at no charge. |
| August 15, 2026, 23:59 PT | Free accounts stop working. The account and all associated data are permanently deleted. |
| September 14, 2026, 23:59 PT | Paid accounts stop working. The account and all associated data are permanently deleted. |
Two details matter more than the rest. First, workflows keep running right up to the deadline, which is why so many teams have not noticed yet: nothing has broken, so nothing has prompted action. Second, deletion is permanent and applies to the whole workspace, so a workflow you never exported is simply gone. Annual customers receive a prorated refund for the unused remainder of the billing period, processed through Paddle, typically within five working days.
How to export your Relay.app data before it is deleted
Do this first, even if you have not chosen a replacement. Export is available now and takes minutes; choosing a platform can take weeks, and the deadline does not move. Relay lets you take out:
- Workflows, Sequences and MCP servers as JSON, plus AI prompts, so the logic can be rebuilt elsewhere.
- Run history, which is worth keeping as evidence of what a workflow actually did and how often.
- Tables as CSV files.
The JSON export will not import cleanly into another product, because no two automation tools share a workflow format. Treat it as documentation rather than a migration file: it tells you every trigger, branch and field mapping you had, which is exactly what you need when rebuilding. Relay is also offering technical support throughout the wind-down at support@relay.app, with priority support for paying customers on business-critical workflows. If you have something complex, that support is free and expires with the product, so use it.
The best Relay.app alternatives in 2026
Relay sat in an unusual spot: workflow automation with AI steps and genuine human-in-the-loop approvals. Very few products occupy exactly that position, so most migrations involve a trade. The table below covers the five realistic destinations, with pricing checked against each vendor's own page rather than a roundup.
| Alternative | Entry price | How it meters | Setup effort | Best for the Relay user who |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gravity | Free tier ($0/month, one agent); paid from $20/month with $20 of usage included | Plan fee with usage included, extra usage purchasable | Minutes | Wants the result, not a canvas to maintain |
| n8n | Community edition has no license fee; n8n Cloud Starter is 20 euros/month billed annually | Workflow executions (2,500 on Starter, unlimited steps) | High if self-hosted | Has engineering time and wants to own the stack |
| Zapier | Professional plan from $19.99/month (checked 13 August 2026) | Tasks | Low | Needs the widest app catalogue above all else |
| Lindy | From $29.99/month per user, no free plan (checked 13 August 2026) | Per seat plus credits | Low | Mainly ran inbox, calendar or meeting assistants |
| Make.com | Free tier available; paid tiers moved to credit metering in July 2026 | Credits (changed from operations) | Medium | Liked Relay's visual canvas and branching |
One caution while you shop: several platforms changed how they charge during 2026, so older comparison articles are unreliable. Lindy cut its entry plan and moved to per-seat plus credit metering, and Make.com switched from operations to credits. Check the vendor's own pricing page on the day you decide, and treat any roundup that does not carry a check date as out of date. We keep a wider cost breakdown in our guide to the cheapest AI agent platforms.
Which alternative fits your Relay.app workflow?
Match the replacement to the job the workflow was doing, not to the product's marketing category.
- If the workflow ended in a human approving something, that approval step is the hard part to replace. n8n and Make can both model it with a wait step; Zapier handles simpler cases. Be honest about whether the approval was genuinely needed or was just insurance against a flaky automation.
- If the workflow was really "do this task for me", you probably do not need a workflow builder at all. An agent platform takes the instruction and returns the finished work, which removes the canvas maintenance that made Relay's shutdown painful in the first place. See Gravity vs Relay for the direct comparison.
- If you were on Relay's free plan for light personal automation, your deadline is today and your cheapest landing spots are a free tier elsewhere or self-hosted n8n.
- If you had heavy branching and many connected apps, Zapier or Make will feel most familiar. Our Zapier alternatives and n8n alternatives guides cover the trade-offs, and Zapier vs n8n compares the two head to head.
- If your workflows were mostly AI drafting in your inbox, Lindy is the closest fit, though the lack of a free plan makes it a poor landing spot for hobby use. See Lindy alternatives if the pricing does not work.
What a Relay rebuild actually involves
When we mapped a typical Relay setup onto the alternatives, the interesting finding was how few workflows deserved to be rebuilt. A mature Relay workspace tends to hold a handful of workflows that run constantly, a long tail that fired a few times a year, and several that were built once and quietly failed without anyone noticing. The run history export is the fastest way to tell these apart, which is why we recommend exporting it even if you never open the JSON.
The rebuild itself is rarely a like-for-like port. Relay's step model does not map onto Zapier's tasks or n8n's nodes, so the work is closer to rewriting from a spec than to importing a file. That is genuinely annoying, but it has an upside: most people discover that a workflow they maintained for a year was doing something they can now describe in one sentence. Where that is true, describing the outcome to an agent is faster than reassembling the steps, and there is no canvas left to maintain the next time a vendor changes direction.
The lesson worth carrying forward is about concentration risk rather than any one product. Relay gave four weeks of notice to free users and eight to paid ones, which is more than many shutdowns offer, and it still cost every user a rebuild. Keeping an export of your automation logic, and knowing which workflows actually run, turns that from an emergency into an afternoon.
A migration checklist you can finish this week
- Export everything today. Workflows, Sequences and MCP servers as JSON, run history, and tables as CSV. Do this before choosing a replacement.
- Check your deadline. Free workspaces end August 15, 2026 at 23:59 PT. Paid workspaces end September 14, 2026 at 23:59 PT.
- Rank workflows by run count, using the run history. Rebuild the top few and let the tail go.
- Confirm your refund if you were on an annual plan. Prorated refunds are processed through Paddle, usually within five working days.
- Reconnect and test integrations on the new platform before the deadline, not after. Credentials and webhooks are the usual source of migration surprises.
- Use Relay's transition support at support@relay.app while it exists, especially for business-critical workflows.
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does Relay.app shut down?
Free accounts stop working on August 15, 2026 at 23:59 PT. Paid accounts stop working on September 14, 2026 at 23:59 PT. After each date, the account and all associated data are permanently deleted.
Will my Relay.app workflows keep running until then?
Yes. Existing workspaces keep working during the wind-down window and workflows continue to run until the deadline. This is why many teams have not acted yet: nothing appears broken until the account is deleted.
Can I get a refund from Relay.app?
Paid subscriptions were cancelled effective July 16, 2026, so there are no further charges. Customers on annual billing receive a prorated refund for the unused remainder of the current billing period, processed through Paddle, usually within five working days.
Can I import my Relay.app workflows into another tool?
Not directly. Relay exports workflows as JSON, but no other platform reads that format, so the export works as documentation for a rebuild rather than as an import file. Keeping the AI prompts and run history makes the rebuild considerably faster.
What is the cheapest Relay.app alternative?
Self-hosted n8n is cheapest at scale if you can run a server, because the community edition carries no license fee and you pay only for hosting. For people who do not want to run infrastructure, a free tier is the cheapest managed start: Gravity's free tier covers one agent, with paid plans from $20 a month that include $20 of usage.
Is there a direct replacement for Relay's human-in-the-loop approvals?
There is no exact equivalent, which is the main reason Relay had loyal users. n8n and Make can reproduce the pattern with wait and approval steps. It is worth asking whether the approval was protecting against a genuine business risk or compensating for automation you did not fully trust, because the answer changes which replacement makes sense.
Sources
- Relay.app. "An important update on Relay.app." relay.app, announced 16 July 2026, accessed 15 August 2026.
- Relay.app Docs. "Relay.app is shutting down" and data export guidance. docs.relay.app, accessed 15 August 2026.
- n8n. "Plans and Pricing." n8n.io/pricing, checked 15 August 2026.
- Zapier and Lindy entry pricing checked against each vendor's own pricing page on 13 August 2026; see our cheapest AI agent platforms breakdown for the full working.
- Related reading: Gravity vs Relay, best Zapier alternatives, best n8n alternatives, best Lindy alternatives, AI agent pricing explained.