Zapier, Workato, and Relay.app compared: pros, cons, & pricing

Thumbnail for this article comparing Zapier to Workato and Relay.app

When comparing Zapier vs. Workato vs. Relay.app, there’s no simple answer to which automation solution is the best—it all comes down to your specific needs.

As a team that deeply understands the power of workflow automation, we know how important it is to find the tool that will match your requirements to a T.

And although we’d love to meet as many different users’ needs as possible, our solution isn’t the best fit for everyone.

So, in this unbiased review, we carefully compare Workato, Zapier, and our own solution, Relay.app, to give you a clear idea of what each software can and cannot do.

In a nutshell, our findings show that:

Relay.app is an excellent pick if you want to add a human touch to automations while keeping all the benefits of automating and streamlining processes.
Zapier is for you if you want a user-friendly tool with a vast library of pre-built automations.
Workato is an excellent choice for technical teams who need extra customization options.

Read on for a detailed breakdown of each tool’s key features, integrations, pricing, and use cases, and decide for yourself.

👀 Not much of a reading type? Try Relay.app for free - no credit card is required.

Features - Relay.app vs Zapier vs Workato

While all three solutions excel at workflow automation, they differ in specific functionality, execution style, ease of use, etc.

So, let’s dive straight into the features that distinguish Relay.app, Zapier, and Workato from other workflow automation tools.

Relay.app Features

Relay.app provides users with the best of both worlds.

We combine human insight and precision with the speed and efficiency of automation, enabling individual and multiplayer experiences with equal ease.

All combined with a highly intuitive user interface (our team worked on Gmail at Google).

Customers choose Relay.app over tools like Zapier and Workato for advanced features like these:

Human-in-the-loop
1-Click AI assistance
Collaborative playbook creation

1. Human-in-the-Loop

There’s no denying that automation is terrific for boosting productivity and saving valuable time on tedious tasks—if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.

However, there are critical tasks you simply can’t delegate to technology, no matter how “smart.”

Certain matters require human judgment, assessment, and insights that no solution can have.

Having that in mind, we created a feature that lets you keep all the benefits of automation without giving up on adding a touch of human intelligence to the winning formula.

There are 4 distinct Human-in-the-Loop functionalities:

Completing tasks—The automated workflow will pause until a task is manually completed by the assigned person. For example, after a deal is closed according to a CRM update, the sales manager is assigned a Task to create a contract draft. Once the manager drafts the contract, the workflow continues, and the document is shared with the other parties' legal counsel for review.
Manual data inputs - This option adds a dash of originality and personalization to a certain workflow step. For instance, your Outreach Manager could be assigned to write personalized email subjects for each lead, instead of sticking to the same old generic automated email chain.
Approvals - Some decisions must be approved by a senior executive before the workflow can continue. In deal-closing business workflows, leave it to the manager to approve a contract once it has been automatically created. When approved, the workflow sends the customer a Docusign and waits for completion.
Human decisions - While Relay.app can set up complex conditional steps, there are instances when you’ll want a person to decide what to do based on the context. This is perfect for customer support requests when a support team member decides whether to email the customer or create a support ticket in Zendesk.

Why is the Human-in-the-Loop feature Important?

Traditional automation platforms do only what they were created for - automating various operations from start to finish, excluding actual humans from the entire process.

This allows mistakes and glitches to go undetected while significantly reducing customization and personalization options.

In the end, this means that some of the time you’ve saved on using these solutions will have to be spent on:

Checking your workflows every now and then to ensure everything is going as it should.
Pausing automations to add manual changes.
Opting to manually run sensitive processes to stay in control, personalize, etc.

When was the last time an automated support email was more relevant than one tailored by a support rep?

With the Human-in-the-Loop feature, you’ll have peace of mind, knowing that Relay.app will notify you or assigned team members whenever you want a human to take charge. At the same time, you'll enjoy the perks of automating repetitive tasks, tedious business processes, and more.

Here’s a simple example to help you better grasp how it works 👇

2. 1-Click AI

Relay.app slack message with AI summaries

AI is another productivity booster that has gained traction over the past few years. However, mastering it often requires knowing how to fine-tune it by giving it appropriate prompts.

With Relay.app’s 1-Click AI feature, there’s no need to go full prompt engineer mode because we’ve included pre-built AI tools to help you manage everyday tasks, such as:

Summarizing things like meeting notes, Notion content, and more.
Generating in-context sentences and whole paragraphs in your emails and other types of content.
Guiding your automation through conditional logic paths intuitively.
Detecting errors in workflows and helping you fix them, etc.

3. Collaborative Playbook Creation

You know the saying “No man’s an island”?

This is particularly true in business operations and projects that require joint efforts.

It often happens that a particular team member should manage specific workflow steps without disrupting the entire automated process.

This is one reason why Relay.app is many teams’ favorite choice, as it allows for frictionless and intuitive collaboration on shared projects.

Dynamic role assignments make it easy to assign tasks to adequate team members, ensuring that every task is delegated to the right person on your team.

This way, you’ll be able to streamline processes like:

Assigning tasks to the right Account Manager.
Forwarding customer support requests to the appropriate representative.
Getting approval from specific decision-makers before sending contracts to clients.

Your imagination is the only limit here. Thanks to Relay.app’s functionality, any collaborative scenario can be configured.

Zapier Features

Zapier is one of the first automation tools to appear on the market, disrupting how people think of workflow management, productivity, and efficiency.

It boasts a very user-friendly interface and thousands of app integrations.

Some of Zapier’s key features include:

1. A vast library of pre-made automation templates. These templates can easily be tweaked to fit your purpose and deployed within minutes.

2. The option to create tables and interfaces. Tables allow you to store, manage, pull, and consolidate data from various apps and sources through a single point of reference while simultaneously enabling the automation of processes.

With interfaces, you can build data-capturing forms, simple apps, web pages, and more without coding. You can also integrate interfaces with tables and plug them directly into Zapier’s automation platform.

3. A drag-and-drop no-code visual workflow builder that makes creating workflows super simple and easy, regardless of how tech-savvy you are (or aren’t).

4. Conversational AI workflow builder that will create workflows based on text prompts like “Send new invoices to a Slack channel.”

Workato Features

Workato is a cloud-based automation platform geared at technical teams (think various IT-related departments) that excels at creating completely automated systems at scale.

Features that help Workato do its magic are:

1. A depository of ready-made automations called “Recipes.”

Similarly to Zapier, Workato has a community library of automation templates where users freely share their recipes with other users. This lets you avoid building workflows from scratch, provided you find the automation you need.

2. Integrated AI-powered tools such as Copilot. Copilots are generative AI models that allow you to create, customize, and change workflows and app integrations by describing what you want to do in plain English.

💡 Remember, though, that coding expertise is necessary for creating integrations this way.

3. The option to build custom connectors, in addition to having a library of pre-built connectors.

Connectors allow Workato to interact with a particular app through triggers and related actions. Its SDK platform helps create custom connectors for complex integrations. Reiterating – you must have appropriate coding experience or app development.

Integrations - Relay.app vs Zapier vs Workato

Relay.app

Relay.app integrates with a wide range of popular applications, including all the crucial ones, such as:

HubSpot
Google Suite apps (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Forms, etc.)
Jira
Slack
OpenAI
Salesforce, and more

Most importantly, all the integrations are seamless and easy to deploy and support across workflows.

However, since we’re the new kid on the block, we don’t have as many integrations as Zapier and Workato.

Still, we find that most Zapier and Workato customers leverage the same apps and don’t need tens of thousands of connectors.

Zapier

Zapier, being a pioneer of workflow automation, integrates with probably the broadest range of applications of all automation tools.

It has over 7,000 apps, including Stripe, Notion, Shopify, Airtable, etc.

Workato

Workato also has a relatively rich depository of app integrations, although it cannot compare to Zapier’s.

It includes more IT and DevOps apps than most other tools, such as Fullstory, LoyJoy, Oracle Fusion, etc., and apps geared at sectors including HR, finance and accounting, operations, and more.

As mentioned before, Workato also allows the creation of custom connectors. It enables universal connectors such as HTTP, Data Parser tools, and more, to help users build their own integrations.

It’s an excellent option for developers who need more room for customization.

Integrations in a nutshell

Regarding the sheer number of integrations, Zapier leads in automation software, probably since it’s been on the market the longest.

Workato doesn’t have as many integrations but compensates by offering users with technical expertise the option to create custom integrations. It also includes niche IT apps in its library.

Finally, Relay.app has fewer integrations than these two platforms, but constantly adds new ones and has key advanced features that make long-tail app libraries irrelevant.

Pricing - Relay.app vs Zapier vs Workato

Price can often be a deciding factor when choosing the right automation software since no one wants to break the bank. It’s not an issue at first, but can quickly become one as you scale your processes.

Therefore, in the following section, we’ll break down each tool’s pricing in detail.