Pros & Cons
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- Simple and intuitive interface
- Advanced messaging capabilities
- Many powerful integrations
- Helpful AI features
- Easy admin management
- Extensive integration support
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- Somewhat expensive
- Some video chat shortcomings
Slack Specs
| Android App | |
| API Available for Customers | |
| Audio Calls | |
| Free Account Offered | |
| Free Version | |
| Guest Accounts | |
| iOS App | |
| Price Per Month | $7.25 per user, billed annually |
| Price Per Person Per Month | $7.25 per month, billed annually |
| Video Calls |
Slack is a powerful and intuitive collaborative messaging platform for the workplace that makes email feel woefully antiquated. It puts every chatting feature you can imagine into an attractive and customizable interface, making it seamless to communicate with individual coworkers or larger groups across your organization. You even get audio and video meeting capabilities, along with thousands of integration options. The app can now even use AI to develop workflows for action items under discussion and summarize long chat discussions. While it carries a premium price, Slack earns our Editors' Choice award thanks to its accessible, friendly design and unbeatable collection of messaging capabilities.
Pricing: A Little High, But There's a Good Free Plan
Slack's perpetually free plan is quite generous. It allows you to set up a custom workspace and take advantage of all core messaging features, such as creating channels and sharing files. This tier supports 1:1 meetings and external messages, 90 days of message history, and up to 10 integrations. You should try the free version before you start paying for a monthly subscription because it very well might be sufficient for your group's needs. Just keep in mind that you can manage posting permissions only for your workspace's main #general channel.
I tested the Pro plan ($7.25 per user per month, billed annually), which removes the limitations on app integrations and messaging history, and introduces group meetings (Huddles) and external messages. This plan unlocks AI-generated summaries of channels and threads, along with action items, key takeaways, and transcripts from meetings. Canvases (collaborative whiteboards), customizable sidebar sections, lists, and templates (organizational spaces for projects and processes) become available here, too.
The Business+ plan ($15 per user per month, billed annually) allows you to control posting permissions for all channels and introduces more AI features. For instance, you can ask the AI to generate a workflow that involves tasks you chatted about with your team, get summaries of shared files, and search for details about conversations and files using natural language. Slack will even provide a daily digest of activity on the channel from the previous day. This level also guarantees a four-hour response time for customer service inquires. An Enterprise+ plan (contact the company for pricing) includes Slack Atlas (an employee directory), along with plenty of extra AI and security features.
Slack's Pro plan is more expensive than Microsoft Teams' standalone Essentials plan ($4 per user per month, billed annually), but Teams makes you pay extra ($30 per user per month) for Copilot AI features. You also need the Teams Premium add-on ($10 per user per month, billed annually) to unlock the service's best AI and customization features. Of course, Teams becomes a better value if you pay for the Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan ($12.50 per user per month, billed annually), since it includes both Teams and desktop versions of the company's office suite apps. For a full breakdown of the differences between the two, check out our head-to-head comparison.
Interface and Ease of Use: Customizable and Straightforward
Slack is extremely easy to configure. In just a few minutes, you can create a custom workspace and invite people to start collaborating. I didn't run into any roadblocks with the setup process. The service's appearance and layout make messaging almost fun. The interface's default purple color is distinctive, and you can quickly switch it to a new color or an entirely different theme. You can also adjust the font and enable a dark mode.
The main interface is straightforward and free of clutter. Your channels and direct message conversations appear in a customizable list on the left-hand pane, while message content takes up the rest of the space.
Slack minimizes roadblocks when it comes to adding new users. All you need to do is send out a simple invite to the person in question. Microsoft Teams, for comparison, makes you dive into some admin settings to do the same. With Slack, it's no problem to add temporary channels for certain users, as well as to create both private and public channels. Slack also provides user-friendly documentation, whereas Microsoft Teams' vast technical resources can feel too enterprise-focused and overwhelming.
As for support, you can create an online ticket or email Slack directly (feedback@slack.com). At the Pro level and above, you can also chat with a live agent during business hours (2 a.m. through 5 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday); online support is available 24/7. During one test chat about making a channel private, the agent I reached resolved my issue in just a few minutes.
Messaging Experience: Approachable and Comprehensive
Even though Slack has been around for over a decade, it still feels fresh and vibrant. You can quickly add emoji, format text, and even jump into an audio or video meeting with a click. Channels help you create focused spaces for communication with people across all teams within your company. Microsoft takes a more structured approach with Teams, prompting you to set up teams of users (such as Accounting or Marketing) and channels specifically for those members. Which method is best depends on the needs of your organization.
Slack is available via dedicated desktop (macOS, Linux, and Windows) and mobile (Android and iOS) apps, as well as on the web. I tested the experience on all platforms except Android. What stood out to me most was how fast Slack feels. No matter what I did, from chatting with colleagues to hosting video meetings to sharing files, I didn't encounter any lag or slowdowns.
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You can quickly schedule a message to send later by selecting from default options, such as “tomorrow at 9 a.m.,” or specifying a custom time. Slack practically invented status updates, which let your team know where you are and what you are doing. For instance, you use text and emoji to let others know that you are commuting to work, out sick, or just working remotely. A preinstalled integration with Google Calendar can even set your status automatically when you are in a meeting.
Slack popularized or invented some messaging conventions that streamline communication. You can start a thread for any message, for example, which Slack then pulls out into a separate section in the left-hand menu for easy finding. You can also add a plethora of reactions to messages, conduct polls with other coworkers to make a key decision, and tag people using @mentions for a faster response. Templates are extremely useful because they let you create a channel that includes relevant documents for planning the likes of campaign strategies and project management with just a few clicks. Slack includes about 55 templates.
But the best features in Slack are the ones you barely notice—for example, you can add people to a current conversation almost like you are group texting. You can also tap and hold on a message to forward it. Other bonuses include the ability to pin a message in a channel for easier access later and set up reminders for certain actions.
Yes, notifications can be overwhelming at times, but Slack now lets you schedule the times at which you receive them. You can also configure whether a direct message, keyword, or mention triggers a notification. You don't have to worry about missing something important if you have the Business+ plan, which, as mentioned, uses AI to summarize what occurred in the channel over the past day.
Audio and Video Calling Experience: Good Enough
Every audio and video chat I conducted with Slack worked perfectly. The audio and video quality were great, and I didn't run into any connection issues or other glitches. To start a quick meeting with someone, just mouse over their name and click the Huddle button in the pop-up. Alternatively, you can click the plus button in the lower left corner > Huddle and then specify the person or people you want to meet with. It's also possible to start a huddle with everyone in the channel by opening the channel and clicking the headset icon in the upper-right corner. Your video feed is off by default, but you can quickly turn it on once the Huddle launches. Teams doesn't make creating meetings as simple.
That said, Microsoft Teams goes much further with its videoconferencing capabilities. It supports webinars, for example, and (along with RingCentral Video) has a commuter-friendly car mode that minimizes distractions in the video meeting interface.
AI Features: The Best Ones Require Higher-Tier Plans
As mentioned, Slack's most powerful AI features are available starting with the Business+ plan, not the Pro tier I tested. In any case, the AI summarization capabilities I did get to try were extremely helpful when I came across an extended chat about a new project. With one click, I could see what everyone discussed. If you are worried about keeping up with all the conversations that go on in as free-form a messaging app as Slack, this could be a huge time-saver. I found these summaries more helpful than any of the Copilot AI features in Microsoft Teams. For example, although Copliot can summarize a meeting, you don't get detailed action plans and workflows that kick-start the next steps in a process.
Integrations: Extensive Support
The Slack Marketplace offers an astounding 2,600 integrations that cover every productivity and workplace app imaginable—I had a hard time finding an app that wasn’t available. For instance, you can connect to Box or Google Drive for cloud storage (although Slack itself provides unlimited file storage even for the free tier). Slack also works seamlessly with the Salesforce products (the parent company of Slack). Otherwise, you get integrations for the likes of Asana, Zapier, Zoom, and, yes, even Microsoft Teams. The integrations are slightly more extensive and varied than Teams, which offers about 2,500 options.
Administration Experience: Surprisingly Simple
You won't have any issues configuring Slack, no matter your level of prior technical knowledge, since all the setup steps seem like an extension of the app's Preferences section. As mentioned, you can quickly invite new users via email, who just need to register and join. Even tasks such as adding new channels or making an existing one private are highly intuitive.
All of this means that you can get up and running with Slack more quickly than with Microsoft Teams, which requires you to dedicate more time to configuring various functions. With Teams, you have to know a little about Microsoft Exchange and the Microsoft ecosystem to effectively deploy the service. Slack doesn’t require any previous knowledge.
Is Slack Safe to Use?
Slack's privacy and security policies are easy to read. Like any company that handles potentially sensitive data, Slack has been a target for hackers in the past—a leak in 2024 involved Disney. I appreciate that the service supports multi-factor authentication and SSO.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Slack)
Slack
Slack's advanced messaging features, comprehensive integration support, variety of helpful AI tools, and welcoming interface make it the business communication app to beat.