Slack Pricing: Free vs Paid - Is it worth paying for Slack ?

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Slack Pricing Free vs Paid
troopmessenger.com/blogs/slack-pricing
You can use the free version of Slack for as
long as you like and theres no limit to the
number of members who can be invited. Thats
what Slacks pricing page reads once you get
started. In all their PRs and advertisements',
Slack has time and again claimed that their free
tier offers an unlimited number of users. In
short, Slack unapologetically mentions that there
is no limit. You can add as many people as you
want to. But is it really true?
Is Slack Misleading people about its Free
Unlimited Plan? We came across a couple of
Slack users who have reported that theres a
limit with a freemium plan, despite what Slack
says. For Example, David Chen, who wanted to
build a massive Slack community of 10K users,
found that the service starts fizzling out around
5000 users, and poops out completely after
onboarding 8,500 users. Quincy Larson added 8462
users to his Slack channel, and after that, the
channel stopped accepting new users.
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8462 sure is a great number for a medium-sized
community - but its a limit, which Slack has
disguised so far, and done nothing to
disclose. Users hoping to build a 10k community
through freemium plans should look for a Slack
alternative. This brings us to our next question
Should you Pay for Slack? Slack is a great
office collaboration tool, without any doubt. For
many businesses operating virtually, Slack has
offered benefits they cant live without. Slack
is where work happens. It has the most
user-friendly UI and UX, and it is relatively
easier to navigate through. And then, to top it
all, Slack offers 1000s of integrations and apps.
In a literal sense, it is a process automation
heaven. If you implement enough apps, youll be
able to complete 95 of your work requirements
inside Slack. Thats cool, right? But heres
the thing - there are as many as 20 Slack
Alternatives that are offering similar
features. Some of these alternatives are cheaper
than Slack while some others are more
expensive. Since most of the Slack alternatives
are doing pretty much the same job, it is natural
to wonder whether or not it is worth paying for
Slack? And thats the intent behind writing this
article. Sit tight and read as we tear-down
slacks pricing plans, and help you make a
better decision
Tearing Down Slacks Pricing Freemium Vs Paid
Plans
The secret of Slacks pricing model is very much
evident on their pricing page.
Slack Pricing Teardown of Freemium Plan Model
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Ideal For Individual Use, Small Groups Pricing
US0 When a new customer joins Slack, they have
multiple options to choose from. It is free as
long as you want a Slack Workspace with an
unlimited number of people. In the free slack
pricing plans, you dont have to pay a penny but
you are restricted with limited
features. Onboarding your team on Slack for free
sounds cool. But this freemium plan has
limitations

• 10k searchable messages
• This may seem enough for very small teams or
  members who dont use team chats that often. But
  even for small-sized teams, the 10k limit is
  insufficient.
• If you're a team of 10 people, who generate about
  2k messages a week, chances are you wont be
  able to restore any of the conversations after a
  month.
• Imagine you need to report a document you shared
  with your colleague for two months, but not
  being able to refer back to it because youve
  reached the 10k
• limit. Youll have to upgrade to a standard plan
  to reveal search message history.
• 1-to-1 video calls
• If your slack workspace works on the freemium
  plan, forget about conducting team conferences
  because you cannot do more than 1-to-1 video
  calls.
• You cannot host big meetings or webinars. Now
  that can be a real bummer!
• 10 apps integrations
• Integrations make Slack better and more powerful
  than others. Slack has been constantly adding
  new tools and with paid plans, you Slack
  integrates with almost every popular tool.
• With Freemium, youve access to 10 integrations.
  If you want to use the 11th app, youll have to
  delete old integration and stay in the limit of
  10 apps.

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4. Two-factor authentication Whether you choose
a freemium or a paid plan, Slack wont let its
users compromise with security. For an added
security layer, all Slack users can turn-on 2FA
for their Slack account. This means that if your
password is stolen or compromised, youll have
peace of mind that only youll be able to log in
again. Freemium Plan Verdict If you can
compromise with limited searchable messages and
limited integrations, Slack can be a great pick
for small-sized teams. Slack Pricing Teardown of
Standard Subscription Model
Ideal For Small and Medium-Sized
Businesses Global Pricing US6.67 per active
user per month billed annually. Or US8 per
active user per month billed monthly. Pricing
(For Indian Customers) US2.67 per active user
per month billed annually Or US3.20 per active
user per month billed monthly. If you can spend
US2.67 per active user per month, you can get
rid of the above limitations, and enjoy
additional features. You can avail benefits like
Unlimited message archive, Group calls (up to 15
participants) with screen sharing, Unlimited
apps, Guest accounts, and shared channels.
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• Full archive Theres no 10k messages limit with
  the Standard plan. Your teams entire message
  history is now in one place and the entire
  conversation is searchable.
• Unlimited apps Again, Standard Subscribers of
  Slack educational pricing can integrate
  applications beyond the number 10. Integrate
  Slack with as many as 1000 tools from different
  categories and bring all your work into one
  place. You dont have to miss out on anything.
• Google authentication A standard plan makes it
  easy for Slack users to log in to their
  Workspace. Hence, it reduces the password load.
  Those who use G Suite can have their team
  members sign in to Slack Workspace using their
  existing Google sign-on.
• Guest access Slacks Standard pricing plan makes
  it easy for companies to connect with vendors,
  retailers, and people from outside the company.
  Such people can be given guest access and
  invited to one or multiple Slack channels.
• Additional Benefits of Standard Plan
• Custom retention policies Forward emails into
  Slack Priority support
• Group voice and video calls User groups
• Custom profiles Screen sharing
• Slack Pricing Teardown of Plus Subscription Model

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Ideal For Large-Sized Businesses that require
advanced admin control Global Pricing US12.50
per active user per month billed
annually. Pricing (For Indian Customers) US5
per person per month billed annually. Or US6
per person per month billed monthly. Slack has a
Plus Plan for large businesses and companies with
a requirement of business-level features that
can help the teams grow. Apart from all the
benefits of a standard subscription, Slacks
Plus users can avail exclusive features like
Keep a little, keep a lot With a plus plan,
Slack users get the option to customize their
archival preferences and message retention.
Theres more to control as compared to the
standard plan.
Though custom message retention settings, they
get a flexible option when it comes to deciding
how many messages you want to keep, and how much
history you want to delete. Theres also an
option to keep a tab of deletion logs and message
edit. 1. Data exports Data export feature is
great for companies who have got legal
obligations to archive messages, or businesses
operating in a regulated industry.
Team admins of leaders, on Slack Plus Plan, can
request access to the entire teams message
history. The history can be either direct
messages between team members or conversation in
the private channels.
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2. SSO and provisioning With Plus plan, you get
to Integrate Slack workspace with your existing
SAML 2.0 identity provider. This is suitable for
companies that wish to ensure secure access to
their team.
Apart from SAML, Plus members also have a
built-in connection to many SSO providers. There
is also an option to use a custom or own SAML
solution.

1. 99.99 uptime With 99.99 uptime, Slack is
   operational irrespective of the time zone. For
   the plus subscribers, Slack assures providing a
   guaranteed uptime, an industry- leading standard
   of server availability, and a financially backed
   service level agreement (SLA).
2. 24/7 support With the standard plan, you get
   priority support, which means your queries will
   be catered before the queries made by freemium
   subscribers.

And with the Plus plan, you can reach the support
team anytime, and have access to 24/7 coverage
and guaranteed response, in the shortest time
possible, from their customer experience
team. Slack Pricing Teardown of Enterprise-Grade
Model
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Ideal For Very Large Sized Businesses that
require advanced admin
control Businesses operating in highly regulated
industries Enterprises requiring unlimited
workspace with a centralized control Pricing
Theres no standard or flat rate for slack
enterprise grid pricing. It depends on the
specific requirements and other factors. Youd
need to contact the Slack Sales team to get an
estimate. 1. Scale with unlimited
workspaces Considering the nature of large
enterprises, a single Slack workspace might be
insufficient.
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Hence, Slack for business pricing is specially
designed to provide multiple teams of an
organization with a focused and separate place to
work.
Unlimited workspaces in Slack provide teams and
their members access to the people, appropriate
information and apps which matter the most to
their projects. 2. Build bridges between
teams With an Enterprise plan, businesses can
centralized control to create communication
structures. The structure mirrors the way your
organization works.
Channels from different workspaces can be shared
when needed, and you can also collaborate with
outside vendors whenever required. 3. Find
information across your company As an admin of
all workspaces of your organization, you can also
enable members of any team or selected workspace
to find the data, content, information, and
people they need to get work done with.
You can provide them with access to direct
messaging, organization-wide search, and
announcement channels. 4. Fine-tune your
security settings From a single view and
centralized control, the chief administrators of
all workspaces can manage security, structure,
policy, and compliance for the whole organization.
The same can be done for specific workspaces. In
short, the organization admin has complete
control of the security and compliance of any or
all workspaces.
And If you are looking for a cheaper Slack
Alternative Like I mentioned earlier, there are
as many as 20 Slack Alternatives that are
offering similar features. Some of these
alternatives are cheaper than Slack while some
others are more expensive. One of the best Slack
Alternatives I can recommend is Microsoft Teams
and Troop Messenger.
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Conclusion If youre looking for a cheaper team
communication tool that helps you automate your
workflow as well, then Troop Messenger can be a
decent choice. By the way, you can try out Troop
Messenger right now. For free! Just sign up and
you get to Experience a 30-Day Enterprise Free
Trial. Final Words Slack pricing tiers aren't
the best, but with the features and extensive
integration it has got to offer, itd be unfair
to say its not worth it.
The real power of Slack lies in its integrations
and apps. With Slack, you can do so much more.
If your work requires team collaboration, you
should pay for Slack, because eventually theres
so much for you and your team.
Slack and its integrations will save your team
time and increase productivity. So if you are
looking to improve the time efficiency and
productivity of your team, Slack is the right
tool.
And if youre looking for a communication tool,
then you can opt for Troop Messenger, and avail
similar benefits.
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