The 10 best Relevance AI alternatives are Dock, Gumloop, Zapier Agents, n8n, Microsoft Copilot Studio, CrewAI, Dify, Lindy, Sintra and Clay, and they fit different needs. Gumloop is the closest like-for-like builder, n8n, CrewAI and Dify suit technical teams that want control or self-hosting, Copilot Studio suits companies already on Microsoft 365, and Lindy, Sintra and Clay each cover one slice of the work. When a company wants agents to run the work instead of building and maintaining every agent itself, we think Dock is the better fit, because you hire specialists who already know a job and work as a team with roles and approvals. We build Dock, so weigh our view accordingly.
Coding already made this shift. Developers now direct coding agents that write, test and ship the code. Business work is next. On an AI-native platform, agents do the sales, marketing and ops work end to end, and there is very little software left to operate. You set direction. The agents run the work. This post sorts the 10 alternatives by whether you build the agents or hire them.
Why founders look for a Relevance AI alternative
Relevance AI is a serious product. It raised a $24 million Series B led by Bessemer in May 2025, its homepage shows case studies from Canva, Autodesk and Lightspeed, and its Invent tool turns a plain-language description into an agent. The reasons people leave come from Relevance AI's own pages.
You build the agents. The Relevance AI homepage says agents are "Built and customized by your team," and pitches Invent as "Your 24/7 AI solutions engineer." A founder who wanted prospect research done by Monday ends up owning a small software project: prompts, tools, triggers, testing, and fixes when a connected app changes.
The bill counts people. The pricing docs list Pro at $19 a month billed annually ($29 monthly, 2 build users) and Team at $234 a month billed annually ($349 monthly, 5 build users and 45 end users). Plans are sized by how many people build and use agents, not by how much work gets done. The same docs say "The Free plan is retired for new signups and existing accounts." The public pricing page now shows one plan, Enterprise, with a "Talk to sales" button and the line "For companies looking to decouple growth from headcount via an AI Workforce."
Then it counts runs. On top of the plan, Relevance AI meters Actions and Vendor Credits. Its packaging FAQ says "Each time a tool runs, it counts as an action" and "If the Tool fails, this will still count as one Action." Extra Actions cost $80 per 1,000. The same page says model costs pass through with no markup, and you can bring your own model keys to skip Vendor Credits.
Seats for the people who build, a meter for every run, and a team member whose job is to keep the agents working. That is the shape of the old model. Our guide to AI agents for business covers the shift in more detail.
Building agents is still operating software
A builder moves the work from doing the task to building the thing that does the task. Someone still designs the agent step by step, picks the tools, writes the prompts, sets the triggers and keeps the agent working when an app changes its API or a field gets renamed. The canvas is newer. The job is the same one people had with workflow software: operate the tool.
The new model starts from the work instead. You describe the outcome you want, and agents who already know the job do it. You manage direction and quality, not nodes.
Three questions separate the two models quickly:
- Who does the work? You, building and maintaining agents, or agents who arrive knowing the job?
- What does the bill count? People and runs, or the agents working for you?
- Where does the work land? In one builder's account, or in a place the whole team can read?
Our piece on AI-native agents vs agents bolted onto work tools makes the same argument about project boards.
How we picked
We started from the pages ranking for "Relevance AI alternatives" and "Relevance AI competitors" this month, kept the tools a founder would realistically shortlist and added Microsoft Copilot Studio, which comes up whenever a company already runs on Microsoft 365. Relay.app, which still appears on older lists, shut down in September 2026, according to a notice on its homepage, so we left it out.
We checked every price on the vendor's own site on October 17, 2026. Anything we could not confirm there, we left out. Then we sorted the picks into three groups: agents you hire, builders and automation tools you operate, and single-purpose tools.
Where Dock is the better fit
Relevance AI is a capable builder. These are the reasons we think hiring agents suits a company that wants recurring work run without someone on the team building and maintaining each agent.
Each agent owns a job. Each Dock agent has a name, a role, a reporting line and permissions. Agents hand work to each other, share a Company Brain, and bring sensitive actions to a person for approval. With Relevance AI, agents are "Built and customized by your team," so someone on your team designs each one and keeps it running.
You can pick the model for each job. Dock agents run on Claude models first and by default, with models from OpenAI and other labs a menu pick for any agent. Builders like Relevance AI and Gumloop let you bring a model too; the difference is that you build the agent around it.
The memory belongs to the company. What the agents learn lives in Dock's Company Brain and shared workspaces, not inside one model's chat history or one builder's account, so the company keeps it when you switch models or people move on.
The work runs on a schedule. Cloud agents run 24/7 on their own machines, on schedules, with 2,000+ platforms built in plus the apps you connect. Shawn Dej, CEO of YourStory AI, runs an eight-agent sales org in Dock that works 400+ schools and 150+ community colleges. Every send waits for his OK, which he gives by text.
Pricing counts people once. Dock is per person: $20, $100 or $200 a month with 5, 10 or 20 always-on agents, as of October 2026. Relevance AI plans count build users and end users, then meter every tool run as an Action, failed runs included.
Where Dock is not the right pick
- You only want one helper for the people you have. Lindy, one shared helper in Slack and your tools, is simpler.
- You want to design and wire every step yourself. Relevance AI, Gumloop, n8n, CrewAI or Dify gives you more control over each step, and n8n, CrewAI and Dify can be self-hosted.
- You need compliance paperwork today. Dock is a young company. SOC 2 Type II is not yet attested, and Dock is not HIPAA-eligible. If you need a completed SOC 2 report or a signed BAA now, look elsewhere. Lindy's Enterprise plan offers a signed BAA.
- Your team lives entirely in Microsoft 365. Copilot Studio builds agents inside the suite you already run, with Microsoft's identity and admin controls, and that may be enough.
Won't the big AI labs just build this?
They might. The labs are strong and moving fast, and they may well add team features. Today, what each lab ships is built around its own models and one person's account. Our bet is that a company will want a team of agents with roles and a reporting line, a memory the business owns, and the freedom to use whichever lab's model is best for each job. That is the layer Dock builds: the team, the memory and the approvals live in Dock, and the models underneath can change as the labs improve. Better models from the labs help Dock agents too. This is our reasoning, not a certainty.
Is the category crowded? Yes. Most products in it are builders you configure, like Relevance AI, Gumloop, Zapier Agents and n8n, or helpers for one person. Dock aims at a narrower job: a team that runs specific work end to end, like lead generation, follow-ups and collections.
Relevance AI alternatives compared
| Tool | Model | Price (checked Oct 17, 2026) | Who does the work | Where agents run |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dock | Hire agents | $20, $100 or $200 per person per month, with 5, 10 or 20 agents always on | Agents hired from the Agent Marketplace, coordinated by a Chief of Staff | Your Mac or the cloud |
| Gumloop | Builder | Pro from $37/month, 14-day trial | You build and maintain each agent | Gumloop's cloud; VPC optional on Enterprise |
| Zapier Agents | Builder on automation | Agents free on every plan; Pro from $19.99/month billed annually | You design each agent beside your Zaps | Zapier's cloud |
| n8n | Workflow builder | Starter €20, Pro €50, Business €667 per month billed annually; Community Edition self-hosted | You assemble workflows node by node | n8n's cloud or your own servers |
| Microsoft Copilot Studio | Builder | $200 per 25,000 credits a month, or pay as you go | You build agents inside Microsoft 365 | Microsoft's cloud |
| CrewAI | Code framework | Open-source framework is free; hosted Basic free (50 runs/month); Enterprise custom | Your developers write and host the agents | Your code, CrewAI's cloud or your VPC |
| Dify | Builder | Sandbox free; Professional $590 and Team $1,590 per workspace per year | You build each AI app | Dify Cloud or self-hosted |
| Lindy | One shared helper | Free $50 in credits for 7 days; Team from $29.99 per active user per month for 3,000 credits ($49.99 for 5,000) | One shared helper in Slack and your tools, with 1,500+ integrations | Lindy's cloud |
| Sintra | Single-purpose helpers | $15.60/month on a 12-month plan; $48.50 on a 1-month plan | Marketing and admin helpers | Sintra's cloud |
| Clay | Single-purpose data tool | Free; Launch $167/month; Growth $446/month | Prospect research and enrichment | Clay's cloud |
The new model: hire agents that run the work
1. Dock
Dock is a team of business agents you hire rather than build. Agents run recurring work in sales, marketing and ops on a schedule, and your people set the strategy and approve what goes out. Dock's homepage headline is "Hire agents for business work," and the product works that way. Your Chief of Staff builds a team of agents for sales, marketing and ops, and you run it from your phone. Where Relevance AI has your team build and customize each agent, Dock has you hire specialists who already know a job. Dock is backed by Y Combinator.
Roles you can fill today include Lead Researcher, Signals Analyst, Content Writer, SEO Analyst and Reputation Manager. You hire them from the Agent Marketplace, which is open to every account. Every account starts with a Chief of Staff who coordinates the other agents, and you can reach them by email and iMessage.
Each agent has a name, a role, a reporting line and permissions, and what the agents learn goes into the Company Brain, so the company keeps it. The agents work in shared workspaces alongside the people on your team, so a colleague can open what an agent produced, check it and pick it up. In Dock's words: "An agent works in the workspaces its owner can access inside the same company, at the owner's permission level, plus any workspace it's added to directly. Inheritance never crosses into another company." You choose whether each agent runs on your Mac or in the cloud, and which model they use, from the major labs. Agents reach thousands of platforms on your business credits, so many jobs need no new vendor accounts. Sensitive changes like plan changes, removing people or sending an email campaign wait for a person's approval.
Price: per person per month, per the Dock pricing page. Starter is $20 with 5 always-on agents and 10,000 business credits. Standard is $100 with 10 agents and 20,000 credits. Scale is $200 with 20 agents and 50,000 credits.
Does well: there is nothing to build. A specialist arrives knowing the job, and the work lands in a workspace the whole team can read, so nothing sits in one builder's account.
The catch: Dock is younger than Relevance AI. Its security page says SOC 2 Type II is "not yet attested," and Dock is not HIPAA-eligible. Local agents need a Mac, so a Windows team should plan on cloud agents.
Best for: founders and business owners who want recurring sales, marketing and ops work run by agents, with people approving what goes out.
The old model: agent builders and automation tools
Every tool in this group asks the same thing of you that Relevance AI does: design the agent, connect their tools, test them and keep them working.
2. Gumloop
Gumloop calls itself "the multiplayer AI agent builder. Anyone at a company can build agents with any AI model and any integration, while IT controls access." You describe a task and Gumloop produces an agent that connects to your apps and runs on triggers.
Price: the Gumloop pricing page lists Pro from $37 a month after a 14-day free trial, with 20,000 credits a month, unlimited seats and teams, and bring-your-own model keys. Enterprise is custom.
Does well: unlimited seats mean the bill does not grow as people join, and shared credentials let a team build on the same connected apps.
The catch: it is the closest like-for-like Relevance AI replacement, which means you still build and maintain every agent. Spend is credit-based, so a heavy month costs more than the headline.
Best for: teams that want to build agents themselves, with unlimited seats.
3. Zapier Agents
Zapier Agents sits on top of Zapier's automation platform. The Agents page says they can "perform tasks across 9,000+ apps."
Price: per the Zapier pricing page, Agents bill in activities, separate from task usage. Agents Free includes 400 activities a month, and Agents Pro includes 1,500 a month, from about $33.33 a month billed annually. That is separate from Zapier Pro, which starts at $19.99 a month billed annually ($29.99 monthly) for 750 tasks.
Does well: the widest app coverage on this list, and agents can use the connections your Zaps already have.
The catch: you design each agent, and agents sit beside Zaps as a second product to learn. A paid run stops at 40 activities and asks before continuing (10 on Free), so long jobs need a person to keep them going.
Best for: teams already running on Zapier who want agents across its app catalog.
4. n8n
n8n is a workflow automation tool with AI agent nodes, popular with technical teams because you can self-host it.
Price: the n8n pricing page lists Starter at €20 a month, Pro at €50 and Business at €667, all billed annually, with 2,500, 10,000 and 40,000 workflow executions. Business is self-hosted only. "All plans include unlimited users & workflows and every integration," and a self-hosted Community Edition is on GitHub.
Does well: a full workflow run counts as one execution however many steps it has, which makes cost easier to predict than per-action billing.
The catch: agents are workflows you assemble node by node, and self-hosting means your team owns updates and uptime.
Best for: teams with an engineer who wants full control, or who need to self-host.
5. Microsoft Copilot Studio
Copilot Studio is Microsoft's tool for building agents inside Microsoft 365 and beyond.
Price: the Copilot Studio pricing page sells packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month, or pay as you go through an Azure subscription. Users with the Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on ($30 per user per month, paid yearly) can build internal agents within Microsoft 365 at no extra cost.
Does well: agents inherit Microsoft's identity and admin controls, which security reviewers already understand.
The catch: it is a builder, and a Microsoft-shaped one. The bill counts seats, then credit packs, then Azure usage, and agents for outside channels need a standalone plan.
Best for: companies on Microsoft 365 that want to build agents inside it, under Microsoft's admin controls.
6. CrewAI
CrewAI is "an open-source Python framework" for multi-agent workflows, released under the MIT License, with about 60,000 stars on GitHub.
Price: the framework is free. The CrewAI pricing page lists a hosted Basic plan free with 50 workflow executions a month and a visual editor, and Enterprise at custom pricing.
Does well: full control over how agents reason, hand off and use tools, with no platform meter if you run it yourself.
The catch: developers build, host and maintain everything, so it is a software project staffed by engineers.
Best for: engineering teams that want to write multi-agent systems in code.
7. Dify
Dify bills itself as "The Platform for Production-Ready Agentic Workflows," with knowledge pipelines that prepare your files, websites and documents for AI apps to answer from, per the Dify homepage.
Price: the Dify pricing page lists Sandbox free (200 message credits, one time), Professional at $590 per workspace per year (5,000 credits a month, 3 members) and Team at $1,590 per workspace per year (10,000 credits a month, 50 members). The Community Edition is free and self-hosted.
Does well: per-workspace pricing keeps the bill flat as people join.
The catch: you build every app. Dify's own page pitches the Community Edition at "open-source enthusiasts, individual developers, and non-commercial projects," so check its source-available license before running a business on it.
Best for: teams that want to build AI apps that answer from their own documents.
Single-purpose tools and assistants
These three skip most of the building, and each covers one slice of the work.
8. Lindy
Lindy is one shared helper for your team that works in Slack and your tools, with 1,500+ integrations, and you can also text it over iMessage. You describe what you want in plain language.
Price: the Lindy pricing page starts you with "$50 in free credits. No credit card required," valid for 7 days. Team starts at $29.99 per active user a month for 3,000 credits ($49.99 for 5,000), and "Every active user in your workspace is billed." Credits pool across the team and do not roll over; top-ups are $10 per 1,000. Enterprise is custom and adds SSO, SCIM, HIPAA compliance and a signed BAA.
Does well: fast to start, with approvals built in so actions with outside impact wait for a person.
The catch: the bill counts people, then credits. Lindy's own page puts everyday asks at 2 to 250 credits and big builds at 1,000 to 2,500, so monthly spend is hard to predict. It is one shared helper for the people you have rather than a team of agents.
Best for: a quick helper in Slack or iMessage, with approvals built in.
9. Sintra
Sintra sells ready-made "AI Employees": 12 named helpers, including Buddy (business development), Emmie (email marketing), Seomi (SEO) and Soshie (social media), per the Sintra homepage.
Price: the Sintra pricing page shows a 12-month plan at $15.60 a month, a 3-month plan at $23.60 and a 1-month plan at $48.50, each with all 12 helpers and 250 monthly credits, plus a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Does well: the cheapest way on this list to get ready-made helpers, with a shared workspace and team invites.
The catch: the plan cards list "15+ integrations" and 250 monthly credits for advanced actions. That covers content and marketing help. It is lighter on operational work like reconciling payments or running outbound.
Best for: marketing and admin help on a small budget.
10. Clay
Clay is a go-to-market data platform. Its research agent, Claygent, is described on the Clay pricing page as "Clay's AI agent with access to web research," and it pulls enrichment data from 150+ providers.
Price: the Free plan includes 500 actions and 100 data credits a month. Launch is shown at $167 a month and Growth at $446, built from separately priced actions and data credits. Every plan includes unlimited seats.
Does well: research and enrichment are its core, so data coverage goes deeper than a general builder's.
The catch: it does one job, and you still set it up and run it yourself. Support tickets and invoices need another tool. For the wider sales picture, see our guide to an AI sales agent.
Best for: deep prospect research and enrichment.
Relevance AI vs Dock: build or hire
Both sell the idea of an AI workforce. The difference is whether you build it or hire it.
With Relevance AI, your team designs each agent, connects its tools, tests it and keeps it working. The plan counts build users and end users, and the meter counts every tool run, failed ones included.
With Dock, you hire. Specialists from the Agent Marketplace arrive knowing a job, a Chief of Staff coordinates them, and their work lands in shared workspaces your people can read and check. They run around the clock in the cloud, each on the model that suits its job, and what they learn stays in the Company Brain. You pay per person, from $20 a month with 5 agents always on. You set direction from your phone and approve what goes out. The agents run and grow the business. The argument for hiring over headcount is in hire agents, not headcount.
If you have an engineer who wants to build custom multi-agent systems in code, a builder is the right tool. If you want agents to run recurring work for the company, Dock is built for that.
How to choose: old model vs new model
| The job | Old model: you build and operate it | New model: you hire agents who run it |
|---|---|---|
| Prospect research | Build a research agent in Relevance AI or Gumloop, or run enrichment tables in Clay | Hire a Lead Researcher and a Signals Analyst |
| SEO and content | Wire a workflow in n8n or Zapier, or use a marketing helper in Sintra | Hire an SEO Analyst and a Content Writer |
| Reviews and brand mentions | Assemble a workflow in n8n or Copilot Studio | Hire a Reputation Manager and a Brand Mention Monitor |
| What the bill counts | Build users and end users, then every run (Relevance AI Actions, Lindy credits, Copilot credit packs) | People on your team, with 5, 10 or 20 agents always on and business credits |
| Who keeps it working | You, every time a connected app changes | The agents do the job; you set direction and review the work |
| Where the work lands | Inside one builder's account | Shared workspaces your whole team can read |
If you are still deciding between rules and agents at all, our piece on AI agents for automation explains where if-then rules keep winning.
More comparisons: Gumloop alternatives, n8n alternatives, Zapier alternatives, Lindy alternatives, monday.com AI agents alternatives.
FAQ
What is the best Relevance AI alternative?
It depends on what you want. Among builders, Gumloop is the closest like-for-like replacement, and n8n suits a team with an engineer who wants to self-host. If you want agents that run the work instead of agents you build, we think Dock is the better fit: you hire ready-made specialists for sales, marketing and ops into shared workspaces, coordinated by a Chief of Staff, from $20 per person a month with 5 agents always on. We build Dock, so weigh our view accordingly.
Is Relevance AI free?
No. Relevance AI's documentation says the Free plan is retired for new signups and existing accounts, and its public pricing page shows only Enterprise with a "Talk to sales" button.
How much does Relevance AI cost?
Relevance AI's docs list Pro at $19 a month billed annually or $29 monthly with 2 build users, and Team at $234 a month billed annually or $349 monthly with 5 build users and 45 end users, plus custom Enterprise pricing. Usage is metered in Actions, where every tool run counts even if it fails, and Vendor Credits for model costs. Extra Actions cost $80 per 1,000.
What is the best free or open-source Relevance AI alternative?
n8n, CrewAI and Dify all have free self-hosted versions: n8n's Community Edition, the MIT-licensed CrewAI framework and Dify's source-available Community Edition. All three are builders, so someone technical has to build the agents and host and maintain the software. Clay and Zapier also have free plans with monthly limits.
Relevance AI vs n8n: which is better?
Both are builders, so both leave you operating software. Relevance AI is a hosted, no-code agent builder billed per Action. n8n is a workflow automation tool with AI agent nodes that you can self-host, billed per full workflow run, with unlimited users on every plan. n8n gives an engineer more control; neither does the work for you.
Do I need to build my own agents?
Only if you choose a builder. Relevance AI, Gumloop, n8n, Zapier Agents, CrewAI, Dify and Copilot Studio all expect you to design each agent, wire them to your apps and fix them when something changes, so you are still operating software. With Dock you hire specialists from the Agent Marketplace who already know the job, a Chief of Staff coordinates them, and you set direction and review the results.
Won't OpenAI or Anthropic just build this?
They might. The labs are strong, moving fast and may well add team features. Today, what each lab ships is built around its own models and one person's account. Dock is betting that a company will want a team of agents with roles and a reporting line, a memory the business owns, and the freedom to use whichever lab's model is best for each job. That is our reasoning, not a certainty.
In short: Gumloop, n8n or another builder if you want to build agents yourself, Copilot Studio if you live in Microsoft 365, Clay for prospect data alone, and Dock if your company wants agents running the work. If you would rather hire agents than build them, Dock is ready when you are. Get started.
