# VisualAutomate

> VisualAutomate is a workflow automation platform. Build automations and AI workflows on a drag-and-drop canvas, connect 700+ apps and services, with 2,700+ ready-made steps, and watch every run live with its logs.

## Figures

- Accounts you can connect: 713 (700+)
- Apps with ready-made steps: 504
- Steps in those apps: 2,775, plus built-in steps for AI models, video and audio, email, files, stored values, HTTP, webhooks and code
- Figures are read live from the product's own catalogue; where a number and a page disagree, this file is the newer.

## What it is

VisualAutomate is a workflow automation platform. You build an automation by dragging steps onto a canvas and drawing connections between them: each step is a small module that does one thing, and the lines between them decide what runs, in what order and under which conditions.
When you run a workflow it executes on our infrastructure, in a secure environment. You watch it step by step, with the output and logs of each step. Workflows connect to the services you already use through credentials you store once, and you pay for what your steps use. A workflow that only calls services waits for no machine to boot, and you can run many of them side by side.
Free to start, no credit card. Start building at https://www.visualautomate.com/auth/login.

## How it works

1. **Connect an account.** Sign in to the services the workflow should act as (mailbox, CRM, spreadsheet). The authorisation happens on their side; what comes back is stored encrypted in a vault we run, is never shown back to you and never reaches the browser. Hundreds of apps, or any API over plain HTTP.
2. **Draw the steps.** Drag steps onto a canvas and join them. Put conditions on a connection so a path is only taken when the data says so, and give a step a second route for when it fails. Loop over a list and the steps after it run once per item. No deployment step: a saved canvas is the live one.
3. **Choose what starts it, then watch it.** A run writes a log as it goes, step by step, with what went in and what came out. A failing step is retried on its own, and you can re-run one step rather than the whole workflow.

## Four ways a workflow starts

- **Press Run:** for workflows you supervise, and while you are building. Anyone with the editor role or above.
- **On a schedule:** every hour, every morning, the first of the month. The scheduler starts exactly one run per due schedule, so a slow run cannot pile up behind itself.
- **From a webhook:** give the URL to anything that can send an HTTP request; the payload arrives as the first step's input. Each project has its own signing secret, checked before a run starts.
- **When mail arrives:** the Outlook step that waits rather than sends. New mail in the connected mailbox becomes a run, with the message and its attachments in hand.

## Connections and steps

A connection is an account you authorise once; there are hundreds. A step is what you drag onto the canvas. The built-in steps are weighted towards AI, video and email. Anything else can be called over HTTP, or written as your own step. Every app that can be connected is listed at https://www.visualautomate.com/integrations.

## AI steps

Four verbs, whichever model you like. The OpenAI and Gemini families are the same four steps on purpose, so swapping model is swapping a step, not rewriting the workflow. Keys stay yours, on the step, so a run bills to your account with the provider.
- **Ask** (OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama): a prompt in, an answer out, with standing instructions and a temperature you can hold at zero.
- **Classify** (OpenAI, Gemini): your own categories; the result is a value you can branch a connection on.
- **Extract** (OpenAI, Gemini): name the fields you want and get them back as fields.
- **See, speak and hear** (OpenAI, Gemini, Whisper): read an image, generate one, text to speech, and transcribe audio.
A model step is a step: it has an error output like every other, so a rate limit is a branch you drew rather than a run that stops halfway.

## Assistants (MCP)

Put workflows, app actions and read-only lookups in a toolbox, and connect an assistant to it (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code). A toolbox is a named set of tools with its own address and keys; the assistant sees only what is in it. Claude and ChatGPT sign in and you choose the toolbox on the consent screen; Cursor and Claude Code take the toolbox's key as a header. Built-in reads show workflows, how one is built, recent runs, credits and connected apps, never the values typed into a step and never a token. Every call is a real run, with a log, and credits settle on what it cost. Two MCP steps on the canvas also let a workflow list the tools of any MCP server and call one.

## Key-value state and files

- **Key-value state:** every workflow has its own store, reached from inside a step (get, set, delete, list, optional TTL), per workflow or per account. It survives the run, so a cursor, a dedupe set or a counter is there on the next run. It can be read and edited from the dashboard.
- **Files and CDN:** a store per workflow and one per account, served from our CDN. The media steps read and write it directly. Uploads from the browser go straight to storage on a signed URL.

## Who it is for (examples built from steps that exist today)

- **Sales and CRM:** a new lead in the CRM before anybody opens the email (Webhook, ChatGPT extract, HubSpot search contacts, HubSpot create a deal, Slack); enrich a company before the first call.
- **Support:** every ticket sorted before a person opens it (ChatGPT classify, Zendesk, Linear, Slack); answer a question that has been answered forty times from the help centre, and send nothing when the match is not good enough.
- **Finance:** yesterday's payments in the sheet every morning (Stripe, Google Sheets, Slack); chase invoices nobody has chased.
- **Media:** turn one recording into a week of clips (FFmpeg probe, trim, reframe, subtitles); make a recording searchable (extract audio, Whisper, ChatGPT extract, Notion).
- **Operations:** stock that says something before it runs out (Shopify); onboard somebody without a checklist nobody follows (Slack, Notion, Linear, Outlook).
- **Engineering:** an alert becomes an issue with the context attached; glue two systems that will not talk.

## Frequently asked questions

**What am I billed for?**
It depends on the run. A step that only calls a service costs one credit each time it runs, with no machine involved, so ten steps are ten credits and a step over a list of forty is forty. A run that includes a step running code gets a sandbox and is charged for the time it is up, rounded up. Either way every run records what it cost, and the figure is on the run itself rather than only on an invoice at the end of the month.

**How fast is it?**
Fast enough that you stop noticing it. A run starts the moment you press run or something triggers it, and a step typically takes around half a second. Bigger jobs, like working through fifty items, take a few minutes, and most of that is waiting on the services in between. You can run the same workflow many times side by side, and you see every step update live while it goes.

**Where does my data go, and how is it protected?**
A run happens on our infrastructure. A run that only calls services needs no machine; a run with a step that runs code gets an isolated sandbox created for it and destroyed afterwards. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and that is only the first layer: credentials sit in a vault under a separate key and are never shown back to you or sent to your browser, every run is kept apart from other customers' runs, an AI assistant can only reach the toolbox you connect it to, and sessions end on their own. What a step sends onward goes wherever you told it to. Run logs are kept so you can read them, and are yours to delete.

**What if I need something that is not in the box?**
Call it over HTTP: the HTTP Request step reaches any REST API with your own headers, body and auth. If you will do it more than once, write your own step in Node.js. A manifest.json says which fields the canvas draws and which account the step acts as, an execute function says what it does, and you drag it onto the canvas like any other. Keep it to yourself or publish it for other people to install.

**Is there a free plan, and what is the catch?**
Five workflows and a hundred runs a month, with no card and no time limit. The catch is the numbers: it is enough to build something real and find out whether it works, and not enough to run a business on.

**Can I see what somebody else changed?**
Yes. Every change to a workflow is written into an append-only book: who did it, when, and to which step. Settings are recorded by name and by fingerprint rather than by value, so reading the book never means reading somebody's API key.

## How it runs

- A workflow made only of steps that call a service starts no machine and costs one credit for every step it runs.
- A workflow with a step that runs code gets an isolated sandbox, created for the run and destroyed afterwards, and is billed for the time it is up.
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Stored credentials are held under a separate key and are never shown back.
- Starting a workflow: by hand, on a schedule (an interval, chosen days of the week, or once), by webhook, or when something arrives.

## Plans

- Starter: $0 forever. Get started with VisualAutomate for free.
- Professional: $20 per month. For professionals who need more power, custom plugins, and AI capabilities.
- Scale: $99.99 per month. For teams and businesses that need unlimited workflows, high parallelism, and priority support with SSO.
- Enterprise: $299.99 per month. Custom enterprise deployment with unlimited everything, dedicated support, SLA guarantees, and custom integrations.

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.visualautomate.com/): what it is and what it does
- [Integrations](https://www.visualautomate.com/integrations): every app that can be connected, searchable, with its ready-made steps
- [Pricing](https://www.visualautomate.com/pricing): plans, limits and how credits are charged
- [Trust](https://www.visualautomate.com/trust): where data is stored, who handles it, and what is and is not certified
- [Privacy](https://www.visualautomate.com/privacy)
- [Terms](https://www.visualautomate.com/terms)
- [Documentation](https://www.visualautomate.com/docs): building a step