Relay
A support desk that doesn't charge per agent seat.
Useful when replacing: an alternative to Zendesk
Pricing · USD
Own it
$99 once
Run it yourself or use optional managed hosting.
Hosted by us · optional
$9/mo
Cancel any month — it keeps running, because you own it. Or self-host and pay $0 forever.
$99 and it's yours as-is: MIT licensed, unlimited seats and tickets. Deploy it today, or add hosting and updates for $9/mo — cancel any month and your support desk keeps running, because you own it. Want your docs ingested, your channels wired, your macros built? That's a Build Sprint. Zendesk charges per agent, every month, forever.
Inside Relay
The problem
Support desks charge per agent, so growing your support team is punished by your tooling bill. Conversations with your own customers sit in someone else's database, exportable only through their API limits.
How Relay solves it
Point it at your docs and it starts answering
Setup is handing Relay what your team already knows: help-centre articles, PDFs, past ticket exports, Notion or Confluence pages, an FAQ in a spreadsheet. It ingests all of it, and the deflection agent starts drafting replies grounded in that material — citing which document it used. No taxonomy project, no six-week 'knowledge base implementation'.
Every channel, one queue
Email, chat widget, and API-ingested tickets in a single triage view with SLAs and assignment rules. When the agent isn't confident, it hands to a human with the conversation and its sources attached.
Unlimited seats, forever
Flat price, and your thousandth agent costs what your first did. Put your whole company in the support queue if that's your culture — the tooling bill won't punish you for it.
Your customer data, at home
Self-hosted on your infrastructure. Support history is customer data — treat it that way. Your tickets and documents never leave your network and are never used to train anyone's model, including ours.
Delivery terms — stated precisely
How Relay is delivered, what you control, and where the boundaries sit.
Source included · MIT
Run it yourself or use optional managed hosting.
Data and hosting
Deploy in your cloud or use the stated optional managed-hosting plan. Data location and operator access are agreed before production use.
Compliance boundary
Residency, controls, and regulatory requirements are implementation decisions documented in the selected plan or delivery scope.
Rented vs. owned
The rented way
an alternative to Zendesk
- Metered pricing that scales with your success, not the value
- Your data sits in their database, exportable only through their API
- Prices rise once you're integrated and can't leave
- Switching is a migration project nobody will approve
The Relay way
$99 once — and then it's yours
- One price, paid once — hosting is $9/mo and optional, or $0 if you run it
- Self-host in your infrastructure, or use the optional managed plan under its stated data terms
- Source included · MIT — the exit terms are stated on this product
- Stop paying and nothing switches off. Leave with a git clone, not a support ticket
Built on
More to run your business
Relay — the questions buyers ask
Who owns the code and IP?
For a Build Sprint, the repository, deployment assets, and work-product IP described in the SOW are handed over to you. Pre-existing products retain the licence shown on their product page; hosted services remain services. We state that boundary before work starts.
What happens if a sprint misses its scope?
We finish it. Fixed price means the risk of estimation is ours, not yours — a missed scope item is completed without a new invoice. Changes you request are re-scoped explicitly, so the line between 'our miss' and 'new ask' stays honest.
How do time zones work with a pod in India?
Every engagement includes 4+ hours of overlap with US or EU working hours. Async by default — written updates, weekly clickable demos — and meetings only when they earn the slot. You'll never chase a status report.
How is our data and code kept secure?
Work happens in your repos and your infrastructure wherever possible — we hold the minimum access needed, revoked at handover. NDAs are standard on request, and everything we self-host for you runs behind your keys, not ours.
How fast can you actually start?
Scoping takes a day; most sprints start within a week of sign-off. Pods are deliberately small and senior, so your start date is confirmed in the sprint plan — not left floating.
Do we need a retainer afterwards?
No — that's the point. A sprint ends with handover docs and training. If you want us to keep maintaining what we built, that's an optional flat monthly add-on you can cancel any month, because the software keeps working without us.
Own Relay, don't rent it.
See the price, deploy on your infrastructure, keep the code. Or scope a sprint and we'll customise it and hand it over.