Relay Review
Relay is a financial technology company that holds US small business deposits at its partner bank, Thread Bank, and adds up to 20 checking accounts, cards, bill pay, invoicing and direct QuickBooks Online and Xero sync.
Independently scored, one dimension at a time. Every dimension is sourced, and we say whether a claim is published, reported, or estimated.
Plan prices, the per-plan fee table and a rate footnote dated 9/17/2026 are all on the public pricing page, read 11 October 2026. Gaps remain: the Scale price is a limited-time discount with no end date, currency exchange is published only as "As little as 1%", term loan costs appear only in an offer, and two Relay pages disagree on whether same-day ACH on Scale is unlimited.
The help center says the online application takes about 10 minutes and most applications are reviewed within 1 to 2 business days (updated 11 August 2026). Relay publishes document lists by entity type, a switching checklist and a First-30-Days plan, and says the QuickBooks Online feed takes about five minutes to connect. Leaving is slower: closure runs through the support team and history is unavailable afterward.
Published coverage includes checking, savings, debit cards, an invitation-only charge card, bill pay, invoicing, ACH, same-day ACH, domestic wires, international wires in 10 currencies, mailed checks, cash deposits and term loans of $1,000 to $250,000 through Fundbox. The help center says Zelle is unsupported and lists no real-time payment rail. There are no multi-currency balances or line of credit, and payroll is an invitation-only beta (help article read 11 October 2026).
Relay's help center (updated 11 August 2026) documents six preset team roles, five advisor levels, custom roles with per-account permissions, and payment approval rules with multiple steps on every plan. Two-factor authentication is required and the security page states SOC 2 Type II; no SSO or SOC 1 report is listed, and the session log covers 30 days. Disclosure is plain: every page names Thread Bank, and the security page names Unit as the layer between Relay and the bank.
The help center lists live chat and phone support on weekdays from 9am to 8pm Eastern, a 24/7 virtual assistant, and priority routing on the Scale plan (articles updated April and August 2026). Relay says 80 percent of inquiries were resolved in the first reply, based on its January 2025 data (vendor-claimed). Trustpilot showed a 4.3 TrustScore across 3,757 reviews on 11 October 2026, with 12 percent at one star. A dedicated account manager is listed only as an accountant partner program benefit.
Direct QuickBooks Online and Xero connections sync settled transactions every few hours and exchange bills, vendors, categories and receipts, per help articles updated 11 August 2026. Gusto, Plaid and Yodlee cover payroll and other apps, and statements export as PDF, CSV or OFX. There is no NetSuite or Sage Intacct connector, no API and no webhooks, and card activity needs a separate connection from the bank feed.
Each business gets 20 checking accounts (50 on Scale), 2 savings accounts and unlimited users, per the pricing page read 11 October 2026. One login can hold several businesses, but each is a separate application with separate accounts, and accounts are in US dollars only. The deposit agreement (last updated September 1, 2026) sets limits by tier, for example $750,000 a day for outgoing ACH on the Default tier, and lets Relay reassign tiers.
Relay's help center says it does not currently offer a public API (updated 11 August 2026), and no Relay MCP server was found on relayfi.com, the public MCP registry or GitHub on 11 October 2026. In-product AI is limited to bill detail extraction, AI-assisted categorization rules and a support chatbot that hands off to staff. An outside agent can only work from exports and the accounting sync.
Clear pricing and real approval controls for small firms; no API, and only QuickBooks Online or Xero.
Written by the Audit Friendly research team. No vendor edits, no sponsored placement.
Relay is a money-management layer on top of a Thread Bank deposit account. A business gets up to 20 checking accounts with their own account numbers, rule-based transfers between them, cards with vendor and category limits, bill pay with multi-step approval rules, invoicing, and separate logins for staff and outside accountants. Plans cost $0, $30 and $90 a month (published, checked 11 October 2026), and the full fee table is public.
Relay stops where a mid-market finance stack starts. There is no public API, no NetSuite or Sage Intacct connector, no multi-currency balance and no real-time payment rail on the published list. Each legal entity is a separate application with separate accounts. Relay sets transaction limits by account tier and can change the tier. Closing the account goes through support and ends access to its history.
Before moving an operating account, get these confirmed in writing: the limit tier and the daily ACH and wire limits for the business; how long the $90 Scale price lasts; whether same-day ACH on Scale is unlimited or capped at 10 a month; which QuickBooks Online or Xero sync features the chosen plan includes; and how statements can be obtained after closure.
- Owner-led US small businesses that split cash across many purpose-named accounts, including firms running Profit First allocations.
- Companies whose bookkeeper or outside accountant needs a separate login, bill pay rights and a QuickBooks Online or Xero sync.
- Teams of roughly 5 to 50 people that want approval rules on ACH, wire and check payments without buying a separate AP tool.
- Finance teams on NetSuite or Sage Intacct, or any team that needs an API, webhooks or an agent connector.
- Groups that need multi-currency balances, non-US entities, or one consolidated view across many legal entities.
- Businesses in industries Relay lists as unsupported, including cryptocurrency, cannabis, money services and firearms sales.
The jobs a finance team actually hires Relay for
Jobs, mapped to how finance teams actually buy.
Split every deposit into purpose-named accounts
Each account has its own account number, and transfer rules move a dollar amount or a percentage between accounts on a schedule. Relay calls itself the official banking platform for Profit First and ships a ready-made template. Scale raises the cap to 50 accounts.
Put approvals in front of outgoing payments
Rules can trigger on payment method, initiator, bill attachment, amount, vendor or source account, with one or several approval steps and any-or-all approver logic. They cover ACH, domestic and international wires and checks, and Relay's help center says they are available on all plans (updated 11 August 2026). Payment details lock once submitted.
Give an outside accountant a separate login
Advisors are invited by email and work under Super Admin, Admin, Manager, Bill Payer or Read Only. Only Super Admin can send payments. Accounting firms use a Partner Portal to reach every client account with one set of credentials.
Code spend before it reaches the ledger
Relay imports the chart of accounts, lets staff categorize bills and receipts in the app, and syncs them to the ledger. Settled bank transactions reach QuickBooks Online every few hours. Rules can apply a category, vendor or note automatically on Grow and Scale.
Pay overseas suppliers from the same account
Local Network wires in EUR, GBP, CAD and AUD cost $1.50 to $5, and SWIFT wires cost $20 to $25, plus currency exchange. Only a team member who owns 25 percent or more of the business can initiate them, per a help article updated 11 August 2026.
Cover a short cash gap with a term loan
Relay Capital offers appear in the app based on account activity and are repaid in fixed weekly payments. The loans are provided by Fundbox or its bank partner Lead Bank. Cost is shown in the offer and is not published.
Watch the same task in each tool
Forget the 40-row feature grid. Pick a finance workflow and see how this tool and its closest peers actually do it, with our verdict on who wins for whom.
Compare on what matters
What it actually costs
Here's what it really costs: published rates where a vendor lists them, aggregated quote data where they don't, plus a path to your own number.
20 checking accounts, 2 savings accounts, unlimited users, debit cards, bill intake, invoicing, and QuickBooks Online and Xero connections (published, checked 11 October 2026). Payment approval rules are on all plans per the help center (updated 11 August 2026), while the top plan card on the pricing page lists multi-step approval rules under Grow.
Everything in Starter plus lower payment fees, batch vendor payments, line item categorization, spend approval requests, bookkeeping automation, recurring invoices and client surcharging. A 14-day trial is offered.
Everything in Grow plus 50 checking accounts, bill payment automation, priority support and partner offers. The page labels $90 as "Discounted for a limited time" and gives no end date.
Starter, Grow and Scale respectively; standard ACH is $0 on every plan. The Scale plan overview separately says 10 same-day ACH transfers are included per month.
Starter, Grow and Scale respectively. Incoming domestic and international wires are listed at $0.
Uses the recipient country's local payment network; EUR, CAD, AUD and GBP only. Provided by Community Federal Savings Bank with Nium, per the site footnote.
Trackable wires in 10 currencies per the help center. Currency exchange is extra.
Published wording on the pricing page for every plan; the Grow plan article says "starting at 1.00% margin". The exact margin by currency is not published.
ACH debit is 1, 0.75 or 0.5 percent by plan, capped at $10. An incoming wire paid against an invoice costs $5 on every plan.
Cash deposits at Allpoint+ ATMs are listed at $0; Green Dot retail deposits carry the retailer fee.
The card is a charge card issued by Thread Bank, offered by invitation, with no annual fee. The late fee applies monthly until the balance is repaid.
Loans of $1,000 to $250,000 provided by Fundbox or its bank partner Lead Bank, repaid weekly. No rate or fee schedule is published.
What it actually takes to go live
Relay's site states: "Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC." (https://relayfi.com/, checked 11 October 2026). The security page adds a third party, Unit, described as the "money movement layer" between Relay and Thread Bank. On insurance the site says: "Your deposits qualify for up to $3,000,000 in FDIC insurance coverage when Thread Bank places them at program banks in its deposit sweep program." It also says: "FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank." and "Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through FDIC insurance to apply." Ask how records are reconciled between Relay, Unit and Thread Bank, and how account access works if any one of the three has an outage.
Relay's help center says: "Relay does not currently offer a public API." (article updated 11 August 2026, checked 11 October 2026). No MCP server from Relay appeared in the public MCP registry or on GitHub on 11 October 2026. Data leaves through the QuickBooks Online and Xero syncs, Plaid and Yodlee connections, and statement exports. Teams that script payments, pull balances into a forecast or want an agent to prepare payment runs will need manual steps or a different platform. Mercury, a peer, publishes an API and a beta MCP server whose docs list read tools plus payment requests that a person approves in Mercury (docs read 11 October 2026).
The help center (updated 11 August 2026) says a Relay account cannot be closed in the app. The balance must be $0, pending items settled, and a request sent to the Customer Experience team. After closure the business loses access permanently, including transaction history and any statements not already downloaded, and a closed account cannot be reopened. Export PDF, CSV or OFX statements for every account and confirm the ledger sync is complete before asking.
The integrations page lists QuickBooks Online, Xero, Gusto, Plaid, Yodlee and Collective (checked 11 October 2026). The QuickBooks Online bank feed carries settled checking and savings transactions only; card activity needs a separate integration, and QuickBooks Desktop is unsupported. A help article updated 11 August 2026 limits the QuickBooks Online bill pay integration to Grow and Scale, while the pricing table shows the integration on all plans. A company that later moves to NetSuite or Sage Intacct would be left with statement exports.
The pricing page shows Scale at $90 a month with $120 struck through and the label "Discounted for a limited time" (checked 11 October 2026). No end date is given. The fee table and the same-day ACH help article show Scale paying nothing per same-day ACH with no monthly cap, while the Scale plan overview (updated 11 August 2026) says both "Same-day ACH: no per-transfer fee, unlimited" and "10 same-day ACH transfers included per month". Currency exchange on international wires is published only as "As little as 1%". Get the discount period, the same-day ACH allowance and the exchange margin for the usual currencies confirmed before choosing the plan.
The deposit agreement (last updated September 1, 2026) defines five account tiers and says tiers and limits can be reassigned at any time without prior notice. On the Default tier the published limits are $750,000 a day and $1,500,000 a month for outgoing ACH, and $500,000 a day and $1,000,000 a month for domestic wires; the Basic tier, which can apply to businesses with foreign beneficial owners, is lower. Only a business owner can request an increase, and Relay says requests are reviewed within one business day. A help article updated 11 August 2026 also says only team members who own 25 percent or more of the business can initiate international wires, which stops a controller or AP lead from sending them.
Scored on what an outside agent can actually reach: the documented API, how it authenticates, and whether the vendor ships an MCP server.
Exists: No. Relay's help center states that it does not currently offer a public API (article updated 11 August 2026). No first-party MCP server is documented on relayfi.com, and searches of the public MCP registry and GitHub on 11 October 2026 found no server from Relay.
Scope: None for outside agents. Data leaves Relay through the QuickBooks Online and Xero syncs, Plaid and Yodlee connections, and PDF, CSV or OFX statement exports. Payments can only be created by a signed-in user with two-factor authentication, and payment approval rules sit in front of ACH, wire and check payments when an admin has configured them.
Turnkey: Not applicable. There is no token, connector or admin setting to give an agent. Plaid and Yodlee links ask for the Relay username and password, which is a reason to keep agents away from them.
In-product AI, per Relay: uploaded or emailed bills have vendor and amount extracted; expense rules can be created "with an AI assist"; the Relay Bot is a generative AI chatbot trained on help documentation that hands off to staff and is not built to move money; and the Scale plan is described as "AI-powered automation and insights". Relay publishes no accuracy figures for any of these. Cash Insights, launched 14 May 2026, reports past inflows and outflows; its help article (updated 11 August 2026) lists forecasted cash as not included, while the Scale plan card on the pricing page lists "Cash flow insights & forecasts" (checked 11 October 2026).
Relay, kept current
NerdWallet's editor's note of 12 August 2026 says North One's website redirects to Relay and that Relay had not responded to requests about a possible acquisition (reported). The redirect was still in place on 11 October 2026.
Relay announced custom roles that set permissions account by account and said they are included on all plans. Branded invoices and a reusable product catalog were announced three days earlier.
Relay announced a $50 million investment from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund to fund customer acquisition, and cited more than 150,000 customers and $1.3 billion in managed deposits through Thread Bank.
The Federal Reserve Board announced that its written agreement dated May 25, 2010 with Thread Bancorp, Inc., the holding company of Relay's partner bank, was terminated on May 6, 2026.
Relay announced term loans of $1,000 to $250,000 based on account activity, with funds in one to two business days after approval. The loans are provided by Fundbox or its bank partner Lead Bank.
The FDIC's list of December 2025 enforcement actions, published 30 January 2026, shows Thread Bank, Rogersville, Tennessee under orders terminating consent orders; the list does not name the order. Banking Dive reported a consent order dated 21 May 2024 that covered the bank's fintech partner program.
Relay FAQ
Relay publishes three plans: Starter at $0 a month, Grow at $30 a month and Scale at $90 a month, shown as a limited-time discount from $120 (published, checked 11 October 2026). There is no minimum balance and no per-user charge on any plan.
Transaction fees depend on the plan. Standard ACH is $0. Same-day ACH is $1 on Starter, $0.50 on Grow and $0 on Scale. Outgoing domestic wires are $8 on Starter and $5 on Grow and Scale. International wires are $5, $3 or $1.50 on the Local Network and $25, $22 or $20 over SWIFT, plus currency exchange that the site describes as "As little as 1%".
A company sending 10 domestic wires and 20 same-day ACH payments a month would pay about $100 on Starter, $90 on Grow and $140 on Scale, plan fee included (Audit Friendly estimate from the published fee table).
Invoice payments carry their own fees: 2.9 percent plus $0.30 for cards, and 1, 0.75 or 0.5 percent capped at $10 for ACH debit, depending on plan. The savings rate also varies by plan; the site lists it in a footnote dated 9/17/2026.
Closure cannot be done in the app. Relay's help center (updated 11 August 2026) says to move the balance to $0, let pending transactions settle, then ask the Customer Experience team to close the account. Relay says it does not charge a closure fee. An open Relay Visa Credit Card account closes through a separate process first.
Download everything before asking. Statements export as PDF, CSV or OFX from the Statements page, and the help center states that after closure there is no login and no way to retrieve history or statements. A closed account cannot be reopened.
The closing guide does not mention a payee or vendor export. Vendors and bills synced to QuickBooks Online or Xero stay in the ledger, so confirm the sync is current before closing.
Relay serves US corporations, LLCs, general partnerships and sole proprietors. Owners can be citizens or residents of many countries as long as the business has an operating presence in the United States, per the FAQ page (checked 11 October 2026). Relay does not open personal, escrow, trust or 401(k) accounts.
Excluded industries listed by Relay include cryptocurrency, firearms or weapons sales, credit repair, privately owned ATMs, money services, unlawful internet gambling and cannabis. The documents guide adds debt collection, payday lending and others, citing Thread Bank policy.
The application takes about 10 minutes and most are reviewed within 1 to 2 business days, according to the help center (updated 11 August 2026). It needs an EIN, formation documents, and ID and personal details for every owner of 25 percent or more. Relay says about 92 percent of complete applications were approved in 2024 (vendor-claimed).
No. Relay's help center states that it does not currently offer a public API (updated 11 August 2026), and there is no first-party MCP server or agent connector. Searches of the public MCP registry and GitHub on 11 October 2026 found none from Relay.
An agent can still help around the edges: reading exported PDF, CSV or OFX statements, or working in QuickBooks Online or Xero on the transactions, bills and receipts that Relay syncs there. It cannot read live balances, add payees or start a payment.
Every payment has to be created by a signed-in person with two-factor authentication. If approval rules are set, ACH, wire and check payments wait for the named approvers. Do not give an agent a Relay username and password to work around this.
Relay alternatives
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