Rills

What Rills is

Rills is a visual workflow automation platform built around human approval. Its FAQ gives the shortest description: "Rills is supervised AI workflow automation." AI agents read context and propose actions such as refunds, replies and CRM updates, and each consequential step waits in a mobile approval queue until a person approves or rejects it. The site says it is for "the person who owns automation at a growing company": the one who sets up the AI tools, hears first when one misfires and whose name is on every send. The footer tagline puts it the same way, calling Rills "the approval layer for AI automation." On funding, the company's blog says Rills has taken no outside investment and runs lean, so the bar it has to clear is customers covering the bill.

What you build and how

You build workflows in a visual builder. The FAQ says most people start from a template and adjust it: "pick a trigger, add steps, decide what needs your approval." Steps fall into a few kinds. Triggers start a run, actions do the work, logic branches on conditions, AI steps classify, draft or summarize, and review steps pause the flow for a human.

The homepage walks through an example with 5 steps and 1 review:

1. A Stripe charge is captured, which is the trigger.
2. An AI step classifies the refund reason.
3. A logic step checks whether the amount is over $50 or the customer is a repeat.
4. A review step puts the decision in your queue, which the page says takes about 5 seconds to answer.
5. An action step issues the Stripe refund.

The design principle is stated plainly. The homepage says the path through your workflow is deterministic, because AI "runs inside individual steps, classifying intent, drafting copy, summarizing context," while the route itself is static: "You can read it, edit it, and trust it." The AI step in the example diagram carries the label "claude."

Templates

Templates are the starting point. The homepage describes them as "paper drafts, not prescriptions," each with a default, an editable confidence threshold and an approval card that names the right details. Five are shown, each with a rough credit cost:

• Stripe refund triage drafts a refund with reasoning, flags repeat customers and waits for your tap before charging back, at about 2 workflow credits.
• Gmail and HubSpot inbox triage sorts pricing replies from intros and drafts responses with case studies attached, at about 4 credits plus 1 AI call.
• Shopify and Slack order escalation catches damaged-shipment claims, posts a draft refund and reorder to an ops channel and escalates to you above $200.
• Notion and Airtable lead enrichment pulls firmographic data, scores fit against your ideal customer profile and queues a personalized intro draft for review.
• Linear and GitHub bug-report routing reads the issue, picks the owner and drafts the first triage comment, which you approve before it posts.

A "Browse all templates" link leads to the rest.

The approval queue and confidence scoring

The approval layer is the product's center. Approvals are made from a phone, and every decision lands in a decision record that, in the company's words, shows "your boss, your client" or any other reviewer "exactly what AI did and who approved it." The blog says the record exists on every plan, with a 90 day minimum retention. A workflow that is paused waiting for you costs $0 "whether you respond in five seconds or five days." The homepage shows an approval journal for one day, with entries such as a Stripe refund approved, a Gmail reply paused, a HubSpot lead tagged automatically and a Notion sync run without review.

Confidence scoring then decides how much you review. Every run gets a score. Runs above your threshold go through without review and the rest wait for you. The homepage says "Autonomy is earned, not assumed," and that a step runs on its own only after it keeps matching your judgment. When you keep approving runs that fall below your threshold, Rills suggests adjusting it, but "you accept the change, it never happens on its own." The queue screenshot shows scores such as 82%, 76% and 58% on outbound email drafts, with the lowest one flagged "Needs your OK." You can also approve with edits.

The company points at outbound as the first use: "Let AI run your outbound. Nothing sends until you say so." The templates show it also covers refunds, inbox sorting, order escalations, lead enrichment and bug triage.

Integrations, code and data

The FAQ lists "350+ integrations including Gmail, Slack, Stripe, Shopify, HubSpot, Notion, Airtable, and Google Sheets," plus inbound webhooks and a generic REST connector "for anything else." When you outgrow no-code, you can add custom JavaScript or Python to any step. Those steps run in an isolated sandbox with no access beyond what you grant, and credentials are encrypted at rest and never exposed to the code. The blog mentions tables inside Rills, says you can import CSV tables where a workflow needs them, and says workflows export as JSON and table data as CSV at any time, with no support ticket. Rills is a workflow tool rather than an app or site builder.

Plans, trial and setup help

Pricing is credit-based. The FAQ says "Plans start at $19/month. You only spend credits on actions: AI calls and external API operations. Logic, branching, and every human approval are free." That is the core of the company's pricing argument: adding a review step never raises your bill, and the blog repeats that approvals and logic steps are always free. The homepage does not break down plan tiers beyond the starting price.

There is a 14-day trial with no credit card required. The company says most people fork a template and run a first workflow "within 90 seconds of signing up." The homepage also offers hands-on setup: share a process, source material or a rough brief, and Rills says it will review the request and, when it is a fit, prepare an approval-ready first workflow for you to inspect before anything runs. You reconnect your own integrations, and nothing runs until you approve it.

The blog describes a free rebuild service for teams arriving with a workflow from another tool. Send a plain-language description or an AI-prompt export, and a person rebuilds it on Rills using the company's agent, Ford, then returns a private link plus a video walkthrough, "usually within two business days." It needs no account, and a free 30-minute session is offered for those who prefer to rebuild live.

The footer lists free tools, among them a pricing calculator, a payback calculator and an AI agent cost calculator, along with documentation, a help center and a status page. Its legal links include Security, a DPA and GDPR pages, and the blog says data return and deletion terms are contractual in the Data Processing Agreement that applies to every account.

Who it suits and who it doesn't

Rills suits an operations lead, a founder or a small growth team that wants AI to draft outbound emails, refunds, replies and CRM updates but wants a person to sign off on the risky ones. The phone queue helps when the approver is not at a desk, and the decision record helps when a client or manager asks who approved what. It also suits teams that are nervous about agents deciding their own route, since the path is fixed and the AI works inside single steps. Teams that worry about vendor lock-in get JSON and CSV exports at any time.

It is a weaker fit if you want a fully unattended pipeline with no review step, though confidence thresholds let routine runs go through. It is not an app or site builder, so there is no hosting or front end to publish. Credits are charged for AI calls and external actions, so a high-volume automation should be priced against the credit allowance of the plan you pick before you commit.