Missive
Relay.app
| Feature | Relay.app | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $14/mo | Free / from $16/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | agencies, startups, support-teams, remote-teams | operations-teams, agencies, small-businesses, compliance-teams |
| Founded | 2015 | 2021 |
| Shared Inboxes | ✓ | ✗ |
| Team Chat | ✓ | ✗ |
| Collaborative Writing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Assignments | ✓ | ✗ |
| Labels | ✓ | ✗ |
| Integrations | ✓ | ✓ |
| Workflow Builder | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ai Steps | ✗ | ✓ |
| Human Approvals | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multiplayer Editing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Conditional Logic | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Missive Pros
- Elegant interface
- Team collaboration
- Multi-channel
- Good integrations
✗ Missive Cons
- Learning curve
- Smaller ecosystem
- Limited automation
✓ Relay.app Pros
- Human-in-the-loop approvals
- AI steps built in
- Collaborative workflows
- Clean modern interface
✗ Relay.app Cons
- Fewer integrations than Zapier
- Newer platform
- Limited advanced logic
The Verdict
Missive is built for agencies and startups, with a focus on shared-inboxes and team-chat. Relay.app targets operations teams and agencies and leads with workflow-builder and ai-steps.
Pricing is close: Missive starts at $14/mo versus $16/mo for Relay.app — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Both tools are a solid fit for agencies — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.