Slack changed how teams communicate, and for a lot of businesses it’s still the default choice. But since Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021, prices have climbed more than once — Slack Pro has moved from around $6.67 to $7.25 a user per month, and the Business+ tier now runs about $12.50 a user per month. For a 20-person team, that’s over $1,700 a year just for the Pro plan; for a 50-person team, it’s well past $4,000 a year. On top of that, Slack’s free plan now limits message history to 90 days, with older messages eventually deleted for good — a real limitation for small teams trying to stay on the free tier long-term.
None of that makes Slack a bad product. But for small teams watching every dollar, there’s now a strong lineup of alternatives that cover the same core job — channels, direct messages, file sharing, and video calls — for less money, or for nothing at all.
1. Microsoft Teams — Best If You Already Pay for Microsoft 365
If your business already uses Microsoft 365 for email and Office apps, Teams is close to a no-brainer. It’s included in most Microsoft 365 Business plans starting around $6 a user per month — a bundle that also gets you Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — which makes Slack a genuinely redundant cost for teams already paying for that ecosystem. Teams also offers a free tier with chat, file sharing, and video meetings for up to 100 participants, though it’s capped at 5 GB of team storage and doesn’t include meeting recordings or phone system integration.
Microsoft even provides a migration tool that imports channels, messages, and files directly from Slack, preserving content and timestamps (though not a perfect one-to-one replica of your old workspace). For any team whose center of gravity is already inside the Microsoft ecosystem, this is usually the fastest and cheapest switch to make.
Best for: Teams already on Microsoft 365 who want to consolidate tools.
2. Discord — Best Free Option for Small Teams
Discord started as a gaming chat platform, but its free tier is genuinely the most generous team-communication offer available in 2026 — no gimmicks. It includes unlimited message history (no 90-day cutoff like Slack), unlimited users, voice channels, video chat, screen sharing, and file sharing, all at zero cost. What Slack charges $7.25 a user per month for, Discord gives away entirely.
It’s not purpose-built for business — there’s no formal SSO, compliance tooling, or audit logs on the free tier, and the interface still carries some gaming-community DNA (server names, “boosts,” and so on). But for a small team under roughly 20–25 people with no regulatory compliance requirements, that’s rarely a dealbreaker. Discord makes its money from optional Nitro subscriptions (roughly $3–$10 a month) for individual perks like custom emojis and larger uploads, not by gating basic team functionality behind a paywall.
Best for: Small, budget-conscious teams under about 25 people.
3. Google Chat — Best for Google Workspace Users
Google Chat is the mirror image of the Microsoft Teams pick: if your team already runs on Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs, Chat is built right into that ecosystem at no extra cost beyond your existing Workspace subscription (plans generally start around $7 a user per month if you’re not already subscribed). It integrates natively with Gmail and Drive, so sharing a document or jumping from a chat thread into a live collaborative doc happens without switching apps or hunting for the right link.
Its message history is unlimited on paid Workspace plans, and video meetings run through Google Meet, which most teams already know how to use. The main limitation is that Google Chat doesn’t offer a genuinely standalone free plan the way Discord does — it’s really a companion to a Workspace subscription rather than an independent product.
Best for: Teams already using Google Workspace for email and docs.
4. Mattermost — Best Self-Hosted, Open-Source Option
Mattermost is the pick for teams that care about owning their data outright. It’s open source and self-hosted, meaning your messages live on your own servers rather than a vendor’s cloud, which matters for security-conscious teams or regulated industries with data-residency requirements. All-in costs for self-hosting typically run in the $12–$35 a month range for infrastructure, dramatically cheaper than Slack’s Business+ tier for a team of any real size, though it does require someone with the technical know-how to set up and maintain the server.
Mattermost also includes a strong Slack importer, so migrating existing channels and history is more straightforward than starting from scratch. For teams that want Slack’s general feel — channels, threads, integrations — but with full control over where the data lives, Mattermost is the closest match on this list.
Best for: Security-conscious or regulated teams that want full data control.
5. Pumble — Best Slack-Like Free Plan for Business Use
Pumble is essentially a Slack clone built with one deliberate advantage: unlimited message history on its free plan, something Slack charges for. The free tier supports unlimited users with 10 GB of storage, plus channels, threads, direct messages, and voice and video calls — a genuinely complete package for a small business team that doesn’t want to pay anything to get started.
Paid plans start at roughly $2.49 a user per month for the Pro tier, adding screen sharing, guest access, and integrations with time-tracking and project-management tools like Clockify and Plaky. Because it was built specifically as a business communication tool (unlike Discord’s gaming roots), it reads and feels more “professional” out of the box, which matters for teams that want something client-facing or investor-facing without extra polish work.
Best for: Small teams that want a Slack-like experience without paying for it.
6. Chanty — Best Budget Paid Option
Chanty positions itself as one of the most affordable paid Slack alternatives, with plans starting around $4 a user per month. Its free plan supports unlimited message history for up to five users, which makes it a genuinely usable option for very small teams before you ever need to pay. Beyond messaging, Chanty includes a built-in task management view called Teambook, letting small teams track to-dos without a separate project management app.
It won’t match Slack’s 2,700+ integrations or its more mature workflow automation tools, but for a five-to-fifteen-person team whose needs are “reliable chat plus basic task tracking,” Chanty covers that ground at a price that barely registers on a monthly budget.
Best for: Very small teams that want built-in lightweight task tracking alongside chat.
7. Zoom Team Chat — Best If Video Calls Are Your Priority
If your team’s real bottleneck is video meetings rather than text chat, it’s worth knowing that Zoom bundles a genuinely capable team chat feature directly into its existing meeting platform, often at no additional cost if you’re already paying for a Zoom plan. Channels, direct messages, and file sharing all live alongside the video conferencing your team may already rely on daily, which removes the need to run two completely separate tools for meetings and messaging.
It’s not as feature-rich as Slack for pure asynchronous chat — the integration ecosystem is smaller, and search and threading are less refined — but for teams that live in video calls more than text threads, having both under one login and one bill is a meaningful simplification.
Best for: Teams whose communication centers on video meetings more than async chat.
8. Flock — Best for a Slack-Style Feature Set at a Lower Price
Flock is a lesser-known but capable Slack alternative that closely mirrors Slack’s own feature set — channels, threads, video calls, and shared to-do lists — at a lower per-user price point, typically in the low single digits per user per month for paid tiers, with a usable free plan for very small teams. It includes built-in productivity tools like polls and reminders that Slack requires third-party apps for.
Its app marketplace and third-party integration count are considerably smaller than Slack’s, so heavy automation users may find gaps. But for a small team whose needs are core messaging plus a few built-in extras, without the overhead of connecting a dozen external tools, Flock covers the basics cleanly and cheaply.
Best for: Teams that want Slack’s feature set without Slack’s price tag.
How to Choose the Right Slack Alternative
The fastest filter is your existing software stack. If you’re on Microsoft 365, Teams is essentially free money left on the table if you’re still paying for Slack separately. If you’re on Google Workspace, the same logic applies to Google Chat. If you’re not tied to either ecosystem and just want the cheapest capable option, Discord’s free tier is hard to beat for teams under 25 people, and Pumble is the closer “professional” equivalent if Discord’s gaming-adjacent branding feels off for client-facing use. If data control and compliance matter — healthcare, finance, legal, or any regulated space — Mattermost’s self-hosted model is worth the setup effort.
The one scenario where switching away from Slack genuinely costs you something is if your team has built serious workflow automation on top of Slack’s 2,700+ integrations, or relies on Slack Connect to communicate across organizations. In that case, it’s worth honestly auditing how much of that automation your team actually uses before assuming the switch pays for itself. For most small teams, though, the honest answer is that Slack’s premium features go largely unused, and one of the alternatives above will cover 90% of the day-to-day job for a fraction of the cost.
