Slack alternatives
At a 10-person team, Slack costs $87.50 a month. 2 team chat apps cost less, from $0 (Microsoft Teams). The closest match, Microsoft Teams, covers 90% of what Slack does. Each one shows how much of it it covers, capability by capability, next to the price.
What Slack does
Core: Built-in team chat, Guests and shared channels, App integrations ecosystem.
Important: Threaded conversations, Searchable message history, Built-in video meetings, Bots and workflow automation, AI summaries and answers, Built-in docs and tasks, Desktop and mobile apps, SSO and user provisioning, Retention and compliance controls.
Also has: Screen & camera recording, End-to-end encryption (partly), Public community hosting (partly).
Alternatives to Slack at a 10-person team, best match first
- Microsoft Teams: free free version member cap and storage pooling unstated (Teams free version, which covers 10 members (no member cap published)). It covers 90% of Slack; missing or partial: Desktop and mobile apps (partly), SSO and user provisioning (partly), Public community hosting. Free plan: Free version for anyone, incl. small business: unlimited chat, 5 GB cloud storage per user, group meetings up to 60 minutes, up to 100 participants..
- Zoho Cliq: $18/mo Third-party prices; vendor page prices not readable (Standard plan: $18/month flat for up to 25 users, monthly billing). It covers 68% of Slack; missing or partial: Guests and shared channels (partly), App integrations ecosystem (partly), Threaded conversations (partly), Searchable message history (partly), AI summaries and answers (partly). Free plan: Free plan with chat, channels and video meetings; search capped at 10,000 messages..
Prices at every size
- Slack: a 10-person team $87.50/mo, a 50-person team $437.50/mo, a 25-person team with SAML SSO $450/mo (Pro storage allowance not stated; Business+ would be $180)
- Microsoft Teams: a 10-person team free, a 50-person team free, a 25-person team with SAML SSO $100/mo (free version member cap and storage pooling unstated)
- Zoho Cliq: a 10-person team $18/mo, a 50-person team $100/mo, a 25-person team with SAML SSO $18/mo (Third-party prices; vendor page prices not readable)
Prices are total USD per month on monthly billing (annual-only plans divided by 12) for the cheapest plan that runs a team's chat with full, unlimited searchable message history: 10 or 50 members, and 25 members signing in through SAML single sign-on. A free plan counts as $0 only when it covers the team with no message-history, member or storage cap it would hit.
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Everything about Slack's own prices and price hikes: Slack.