prices verified july 2026 · 3 workflows · monthly billing

Zapier vs Relay.app — pricing & features compared

Zapier vs Relay.app logo

Relay.app

At most of the volumes we track, Zapier is the lower-cost option — though Relay.app now publishes a full volume ladder (real priced tiers on its Professional and Team tracks, up to 1,000,000 steps a month), and at the top of our tracked range that ladder actually comes in below Zapier. Relay.app's genuine strength is different: human-in-the-loop steps — approvals, manual tasks, hand-offs — and AI actions are built into the editor as first-class features, with AI-credit allowances included alongside steps. See the price table below for exact figures — the fit comes down to whether you're automating people-driven approval workflows or high-volume data plumbing across a very broad app catalog.

Price by volume

What you'd pay per month

Cheapest qualifying plan for each tool, including overage, at four typical volumes.

runs / month	Zapier	Relay.app
1,000	$73.5 ✓Professional 2k	$98Professional 3k
5,000	$193.5 ✓Professional 10k	$198Professional 10k
20,000	$433.5 ✓Professional 50k	$498Professional 40k
100,000	$1,149Professional 200k	$938 ✓Professional 200k

~ = estimated custom-tier pricing (vendor quotes individually; calibrated against public list prices). Assumes 3 workflows, monthly billing, cheapest qualifying plan. Prices verified July 2026 — see the price changelog.

Zapier vs Relay.app — monthly cost by volume
runs/mo	Zapier	Relay.app
1,000	$74/mo	$98/mo
5,000	$194/mo	$198/mo
20,000	$434/mo	$498/mo
100,000	$1,149/mo	$938/mo

Get the number for your exact volume.

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Where they differ

Feature differences that matter

Only the rows where Zapier and Relay.app actually differ — identical capabilities are left out.

Feature	Zapier	Relay.app
Integrations	9,725+ app connectors	186+ app connectors
Free tier	100 tasks/mo · Unlimited (within task limit)	200 steps/mo · 5
Steps per workflow	2 steps (free)	Unlimited
Execution timeout	15 min	n/a (not published)
Log history	15 min delay (free)	n/a (not published)
API access	✓	✗
Code steps	✓	✗
License	Proprietary (cloud)	Proprietary (SaaS)

Same on both: overage model · eu data residency · self-hosting · ai features · multi-user · webhooks.

Trade-offs

Pros & cons

Zapier

9,725 app connectors — most of any tool
Easiest for non-technical users
Huge ecosystem

Most expensive per op
Free tier severely limited
No self-host

Relay.app

Human-in-the-loop approvals as first-class steps
AI steps with all major models + bring-your-own key
Triggers and data transforms don't consume steps
Volume upsell ladder scales to 1M steps/mo within both Professional and Team tracks

Entry tier is tiny (200 free / 750 Professional) — needs a paid volume upsell to scale
Professional and Team have separate, non-interchangeable volume ladders (upgrading volume doesn't require Team's higher seat count, but Team's ladder is consistently pricier per step)
One-off step/AI-credit top-ups (short-term spikes) are annual-billing only; no metered pay-as-you-go overage beyond the 1M/mo ladder top

FAQ

Common questions

At most of the volumes we track, Zapier is the lower-cost option — see the price table above for the exact figures at each level. Relay.app publishes a full volume ladder on both its Professional and Team tracks, in real priced tiers up to 1,000,000 steps a month, so the Relay.app figures shown are list prices, not estimates — and at the highest volume we track the ladder comes in below Zapier. Prices are taken from each vendor's public pricing page.

Relay.app meters steps: every step a workflow executes consumes one from the plan's monthly allowance, and AI actions additionally draw from a separate AI-credit allowance. In Zapier, one task = one action step — triggers and filters don't consume tasks. Multi-step workflows scale multiplicatively on both; the metering details are what differ.

Through a published volume ladder: both the Professional and Team tracks come in real priced tiers up to 1,000,000 steps a month, and above that Relay.app moves to a custom-quoted Enterprise tier. Two billing details worth knowing: annual billing runs at roughly half the month-to-month rate — a steeper annual discount than most tools, so check the billing toggle when comparing — and one-off step and AI-credit top-ups for usage spikes are only available on annual billing; monthly-billing customers upgrade tiers instead.

No — both are cloud-only. If self-hosting is a requirement (data residency, GDPR posture, or cost control at high volume), look at n8n or Activepieces instead — both have self-hostable editions we track.

Try them

Both have free tiers — test with your real workflow

Zapier

100 free tasks a month on 2-step Zaps — fine for checking whether your apps are supported.

Visit Zapier →

Relay.app

200 free steps plus 500 AI credits a month — enough to pilot an approval workflow end-to-end.

Visit Relay.app →

An objective cost comparison from each vendor's public pricing pages (July 2026) — not a recommendation; rankings reflect price only, so verify current pricing before deciding. We currently run no affiliate links — every outbound link here is plain, and affiliate status never affects the comparison. See our affiliate disclosure.

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