Slack’s Standard package costs $6.67 per person per month when billed annually. It adds unlimited apps, increases the storage to 10GB per member, and enables screen sharing. You also have access.
Slack is one of the most popular team chat apps available today, boasting over 10 million users and 85,000 paying customers.
Over 100 countries utilize Slack to improve their work communication experience. While the freemium plan works well for most uses, those looking for massive Slack communities of 10,000+ participants will need to upgrade.
- The process of allocating resources to shorten the critical path and thus remove or reduce slack time from the PERT chart is termed as crashing. However, crashing a project should be done with caution as it is a cost intensive way of speeding up the process and involves heavy overhead costs, which could radically affect the total project budget.
- Slack is where team communication happens. When your team needs to kick off a project, hire a new employee, deploy some code, review a sales contract, finalize next year's budget, measure an A/B test, plan your next office opening, and more, Slack has you covered.
The price of Slack can add up pretty quickly if you take an interest in their premium options. Although there are more expensive chat apps available, there are also cheaper ones.
If you came here with the question, “How much does Slack cost?” you’re in luck. Below we have covered Slack pricing options and weighed Slack free vs. paid plans.
What is Slack’s Pricing?
Let’s cut to the chase.
There are four tiers to Slack pricing: Free, Standard, Plus, and Enterprise Grid.
The Free plan costs $0 and includes:
- Access to the last 10,000 team messages
- Up to 10 integrations with other apps
- One on one video calls with your teammates
Upgrading to the Standard plan will cost $6.67 per person per month for a year-long subscription, and $8 a month when paying monthly. In addition to the Free features, you will get:
- Access to your group’s entire message history
- Unlimited integrations with other apps
- Video calls with up to 15 teammates
- Secure collaboration with guests within Slack
For even more goodness, you can upgrade to the Plus plan. Each team member pays $12.50 per month with a year-long subscription, or $15 month-to-month. You will get all the benefits of the Free and Standard plans plus:
- SAML-based SSO and real-time Active Directory sync for advanced identity management
- Compliance requirements for all messages
- 24/7 assistance with 99.99% guaranteed uptime and support team access with a 4-hour response time
The Enterprise Grid plan has variable pricing depending on the size of the corporation and the requirements. However, it includes everything in the Free, Standard, and Plus plans, and:
- Enterprise-grade security and compliance
- Large scale collaboration and support for up to 500,000 users
- Streamlined administration, centralized controls, and customizable policies
- Tailored support with a designated customer service account and team
Something to note is that Slack has not changed their prices since its launch in 2014. Furthermore, they have always had a Freemium plan that covers most user needs.
Below we will break down the facets of each plan, starting with the Free plan.
Slack Free Plan
By creating a Freemium plan, Slack allows small teams to try out their SaaS for an unlimited period. At no point will they be required to pay for the services. There are plenty of great features, two-factor authentication secures every user’s data.
Nevertheless, this $0 price does not come without severe limitations.
While these will not be a bother for small team collaborations, even smaller businesses would be better off paying for one of the premium plans.
10,000 Message Search Limit
10,000 seems like an enormous number, but it harshly limits communication. Once your Slack channel has hit 10,000 messages, the oldest ones will get deleted, and you will lose access to them.
Most teams will send about 3,000 messages a week, meaning they will run out of searchable records within a month. Teammates will not find messages sent a few weeks ago, and some necessary data may be lost.
Upgrading to the Standard plan will let you keep all messages but at the cost of $8 a month or $80 a year per person.
Up to 10 App Integrations
Considering the approximately 1.500 apps available for Slack integration, capping them at ten can be quite limiting.
To stay within these bounds, teams must install and delete integrations to maintain their Free status. While not the end of the world, this can get rather tedious, especially if you need to switch between apps frequently.
One on One Video Calls
The Free plan does not include the option to have team calls or conference meetings. You can call only one person at a time.
Those looking for simple team collaboration may not worry about this, but businesses should.
Also, you can only make video calls on the desktop version. The mobile version only makes audio calls, even on paid plans.
Slack Standard Plan
Slack recommends their Standard plan for small- and medium-sized businesses. An annual payment of $6.67 per user per month will remove the Free plan’s restrictions while adding the previously mentioned features.
The Standard plan grants unlimited searchable messages and app integrations. You can make group calls with up to 15 participants. In these calls, you can screen share, add guests, and share channels.
Another feature is the option to log in with Google instead of making a separate Slack account. Lastly, you have priority customer support, though it is not around-the-clock.
A problem with this pricing is how much it adds up. With 50 employees, you will be paying at least $333.50 a month, or $4,002 annually.
These prices make a hefty investment for many companies, so keep this in mind when looking to upgrade your Slack.
Slack Plus Plan
If you have a large business and need extensive administrative control, the Slack Plus plan is your best option. For an annual payment of $12.50 per person per month, you will get the Standard features and a few others.
There is more customization of message retention and archival preferences, and you can keep a deletion log and export data. Administrators will have greater control over their Slack channel.
With SAML and other SSO providers, you ensure the security of your channel.
Furthermore, if Slack encounters technical difficulties, you will be reimbursed for time lost and access a 24/7 support team.
Slack Enterprise Grid Plan
The Slack Enterprise Grid plan is best for megacorporations. The price varies based on a multitude of factors, but it may be worth the extra cost.
You will get unlimited workspaces, additional collaboration with other teams, data accessible by the entire company, and even more security.
Conclusion
While not the most inexpensive team chat app, Slack has various useful features, even in the free version.
Because of their freemium option, you can try out Slack’s features with no strings attached instead of jumping right into a paid plan.
If you value security and collaboration, no matter what size your company or team is, there is a Slack plan for you.
October 24, 2019
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Slack took over modern office communications partly because it's free to start. Any team can sign up for Slack and use all of its core features for free. That's how it slowly got adopted in companies from the bottom up, as smaller teams joined Slack, then got their wider division to start using it, and suddenly it was the way everyone talked at work.
Slack's free plan is generous—and nearly a fourth of the teams who shared their Slack pricing with Capiche still use Slack's free plan. As long as your team doesn't have more than 10,000 messages, or doesn't need to view older messages, you're free to use Slack for free as long as you want.
But once you need to pay, what should your team expect to pay? The average team pays around $9.71 per user per month for Slack—though depending on your team's needs, you could pay a third less.
Here's what we've learned from over sixty teams who shared their Slack pricing:
For most teams, Slack's default prices work out best. The best way to save is to use a Slack annual plan, which charges you upfront for the year but gives a ~17% discount.
But it doesn't hurt to ask. If you have more unique circumstances, or are using Slack in a large company, you may be able to negotiate from 30-60% off, based on what others have shared:
“We are a large financial company. Our initial quote was $12/user/month, and we got them to drop it to $6.50/user/month.”
“Unable to negotiate a discount, but we were able to be 'reimbursed' (with credit) for bot users that used 'real' accounts.”
“Our company with a little less than 3000 people were quoted $1 million dollars per year (~$27 per person per month). We used their free plan until they were going IPO, where they needed the sale, then lowered it to $10 per person per month.”
“We have negotiated a deal of 60% off on our total pricing on Slack.”
“We are a team of 10 engineers. We explained our story of zero profit and no funding. They provided a discount of 30% off pricing.”
If Slack's paid plans still don't fit your budget, these teams shared ways they’ve saved on Slack:
Invite freelancers as guests: “We work a lot with freelancers and couldn't justify the price to have them join so we decided to create larger channels with channel guests or multi channel guests.”
Stick with the free plan: “Having over 50 people was never enough to get a discount, so we are forbidding storing important information in Slack messages and then using the free version.”
Slack includes free, Standard, Plus, and Enterprise plans—but turns out, there are also other plans available for the asking if you have unique needs:
“On Business Plus, $208.70 per user (850 Users, annual plan). It's an unadvertised tier between business and enterprise that gives some additional features, including the eDiscovery API for compliance.”
“Enterprise Select level license, $240 per seat, 80 seats. Not a well known or advertised service level, specifically designed for regulated firms without major IT staff.”
What can you expect to pay for Slack’s standard plans—and is the annual discount worth it? These team’s real pricing help show what your team can expect:
Slack Costume
“$26k/yr for Slack for ~150 users. Only discount was paying annually in advance, nothing on the basis of volume of seats.”
“We're paying $1120/year for 14 active users. It's a lot but we definitely rely on Slack. This is the one SaaS app that I feel like we're getting true value out of.”
“We are paying $0 for 4 users. We are still in the free tier, which is great.”
“We pay $115 a month for 8 users.”
“220 employees, paying £63 yearly per user. We initially were paying monthly, but annual pricing was more efficient.”
“Our team of around 25 pays $8/month per user.”
“$31,295.64 for a year contract with 390 users with a year contract.”
“For the 'Standard Plan' - $1,404.80 total annual ($1,280 for 16 users and $124.80 sales tax). The plan fluctuates monthly when people are added or removed. It does a good job of automatically doing this.”
“We pay $247.73/month for 29 users, totaling about $7k/year.”
“Our team of around 350 is paying $12.50/user/month on their Plus plan (list price). We've looked into Enterprise but they haven't made it easy or quick to get a quote.”
“Our team of 25 people pays $200/month for the standard plan. You can save more if you go with an annual contract however we have stuck to the monthly plan at this time. However, some months we have more active users than other months, causing this price to fluctuate.”
“We pay for 8 users a total of $693.76 annually. We are on the Standard plan and are billed annually.”
“$400/yr for 5 active users, didn't negotiate. We get billed immediately when we add new users to the team, paying retail pricing on those.”
“Team of couple of dozens, we're using it for free.”
“We have had great success at setting up 'SlackOps' with Slack's Standard $6.67 per person, per month plan with our 52 person team.”
“34 people for 2550€ per year for the standard license”
“$6.67 per user per month. It's Slack, we would be useless without it.”
Click here to share this article: The average team pays around $9.71 per user per month for @Slackhq.
Have other questions about Slack? Ask Capiche's software experts community at capiche.com/slack/ask. Or check out over 100 other products' pricing at capiche.com/products.
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