ActiveCampaign vs Relay.app

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing and marketing automation platform headquartered in Chicago. Jason VandeBoom founded it in 2003 as on-premises software before it moved to SaaS. Its core job is to send the right email, SMS or WhatsApp message at the right time based on what a contact does, using a visual automation builder with branching logic.

The automation builder handles multi-step journeys with waits, conditions, goals and split tests, triggered by site visits, purchases, form fills, tags or CRM events. Campaigns use 250+ templates and, on Pro, predictive sending, conditional content and attribution. Since 2025 the Active Intelligence layer adds AI agents that build segments, automations and brand kits, a conversational workspace, and a remote MCP server; every plan includes 500 AI credits a month. Plans are priced by contacts: Starter ($19/month for 1,000 contacts billed monthly) covers email and automation, Plus adds landing pages, generative AI and SMS, Pro adds advanced segmentation and three seats, and Enterprise adds SSO, HIPAA support and custom objects. CRM pipelines, WhatsApp and transactional email are add-ons.

ActiveCampaign suits SMBs, ecommerce stores and agencies that need deep automation without HubSpot pricing. Mailchimp is easier for simple newsletters, Brevo and MailerLite are cheaper at large lists, and HubSpot is stronger as an all-in-one CRM.

Buying tip: prices rise steeply with contact count, so clean inactive contacts before upgrading. The 14-day trial needs no card, and annual billing saves roughly 17 to 21%.

Relay.app was a workflow automation tool built around a simple observation: many real business processes cannot be fully automated because a person needs to approve, review or add information at some point. Relay let teams build automations that connected apps like Zapier or Make, but with first-class human-in-the-loop steps that paused a workflow, assigned a task to a teammate and continued once it was done. The service shut down in September 2026, and its Free, Professional and Team plans are no longer offered.

Workflows were built in a clean visual editor with triggers and actions across popular tools such as Gmail, Slack, Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, HubSpot, Salesforce, Asana and calendar apps. Human steps included approvals, manual data entry, review of AI output and assignments with due dates and reminders. AI steps, powered by leading language models, could summarize meeting notes, extract structured data from emails or documents, categorize requests and draft replies, without users managing their own API keys. Templates covered common processes such as client onboarding, content approval and meeting follow-ups.

Relay.app appealed to small and mid-sized teams in operations, marketing, sales and agencies that wanted automation with oversight and an approachable interface. Former users now need a replacement: Zapier has by far the largest app catalog, Make is cheaper and more flexible for complex branching at volume, and n8n can be self-hosted for technical teams who want full control.