The confirmed dates
- Free accounts: Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 23:59 PT. Free users have 30 days from the announcement. On this date, free accounts and all associated data are permanently deleted.
- Paying customers: Monday, September 14, 2026 at 23:59 PT. Paid workspaces have 60 days, plus an additional 25,000 steps and 10,000 AI credits per month during the wind-down, and priority support for transition questions.
- Refunds: annual customers receive an automatic prorated refund for the unused part of their billing period, within about five business days.
- New signups and free-to-paid upgrades are closed ahead of the shutdown. Existing workflows keep running until the relevant deadline.
One nuance worth knowing: some summaries of the announcement swap the two dates. The authoritative wording on relay.app (the primary source) gives free users 30 days (August 15) and paying customers 60 days (September 14). An earlier docs.relay.app version had the two dates reversed; the homepage announcement is authoritative. If you are on a paid plan, you have the later date, but do not plan around the extra month; the export itself has its own deadlines built in, covered next.
What to do before your deadline
1. Export your workspace early, not on the last day
In the Relay dashboard, choose Export workspace data. Two timing details catch people out: generating the export can take up to 24 hours for larger workspaces, and the emailed download link is only valid for 48 hours. Treat the export as an early task, whichever deadline applies to you.
2. Know what is in the export
The zip contains a folder for each workflow, sequence, MCP server, and table:
- prompt.md: a plain-language description of the workflow, written to be pasted into another tool or an AI assistant. For rebuilding, this is the most useful file.
- workflow.json: the exact structure of the workflow. No other tool imports it natively; Relay recommends letting an AI interpret it.
- Run history: a CSV of past runs (up to 100,000 rows) plus a JSON file per run, including inputs, outputs, and AI chat history.
- Table data: CSVs of any Relay tables.
Screenshots of workflow layouts are not included in the zip; if the visual arrangement matters to you, capture those manually from the workflow editor.
3. Note your credentials
App credentials and tokens are deleted with your workspace. Nothing sensitive leaves in the export, which also means you will re-authenticate every integration in whatever tool you move to.
Why this shutdown is different from most
Relay is the human-in-the-loop automation product. Its signature idea is that a person can sit inside the workflow: review the AI's draft, approve the step, then let it run. Relay officially recommends Zapier, Make, and n8n as replacements, and all three are excellent workflow builders. But in each of them, approval is an optional step you have to add and maintain, not the default way the product works. Teams that use Relay precisely because nothing goes out without sign-off should evaluate replacements on that one question first.
The replacement options, honestly
- Zapier fits if app coverage is what you need most: thousands of integrations and a mature builder. It has published its own Relay migration guide. Approval-style steps exist but are off by default.
- Make fits complex multi-step scenarios at a low entry price, and is offering Relay customers a white-glove migration. Human approval requires workarounds.
- n8n fits technical teams: node-based, code-friendly, self-hostable. Approval means wiring up wait steps yourself.
- AI assistants (Relay's own suggestion for one-off automations): tools like Claude or ChatGPT can run incidental tasks from a prompt, without a standing workflow at all.
- flo.space, this site, fits B2B teams whose Relay workflows existed to draft and send business communications with an approval step: invoices, customer replies, order updates, payment reminders. AI prepares each action from Gmail, QuickBooks, Google Drive, Google Sheets, and Dropbox shared links, and every action waits in an approval queue until a person sends it. It is not a workflow builder, and it is in early access. The comparison page covers where it does and does not fit.
Migration checklist with dates
If you are on a free plan (deadline August 15, 0 days)
- Today: request your workspace export. Generation takes up to 24 hours and the download link is valid for 48 hours.
- August 11–12: list your workflows, mark each still needed, nice to have, or dead. Migrate only the first group.
- August 12–13: pick a replacement per workflow. One tool rarely covers everything; splitting is fine.
- August 14: rebuild must-have workflows and run each once end to end.
- August 15: after your data is deleted, revoke Relay's access in your connected apps' security settings.
If you are on a paid plan (deadline September 14, 0 days)
- This week: request the export and download it within 48 hours.
- By August 24: triage your workflows.
- By September 1: pick a replacement per workflow.
- By September 10: rebuild and test end to end.
- After September 14: revoke Relay's access in connected apps.
Common questions
Free accounts have access through Saturday, August 15, 2026 at 23:59 PT. Paying customers have access through Monday, September 14, 2026 at 23:59 PT. After each deadline, accounts and all associated data are permanently deleted.
Yes. Relay says annual customers will automatically receive a prorated refund for the unused remainder of the current billing period, within about five business days of the announcement.
The full workspace export is a zip with a folder per workflow, sequence, MCP server, and table. Each workflow folder contains a plain-language prompt.md you can paste into another tool, a workflow.json with the exact structure, a CSV of run history, and a JSON file per run. Generating the export can take up to 24 hours, and the download link expires after 48 hours.
No tool has a native importer for Relay workflow JSON; Relay itself says the JSON needs AI interpretation first. Relay recommends giving the workflow.json and prompt.md files to an AI assistant, and both Zapier and Make have published Relay migration guides. flo.space asks for the same two files during early access onboarding and configures equivalent approval-gated actions from them.
Relay treats human approval as a first-class part of automation: a person can review and approve steps before they execute. Zapier, Make, and n8n can add approval-like steps, but they are optional additions rather than the core model. If that approval step is why you use Relay, check specifically how each replacement handles it before you commit.
If the approval step is what you are replacing
flo.space prepares invoices, replies, and orders from the tools you already use, and nothing sends until you approve it. Join early access and bring your Relay export to onboarding.