A Look at Slack Pricing: A Brief Tour of Slack’s Plans

Slack offers a number of different plans to its customers. Slack pricing varies by plan and to be clear: the free version of Slack is the least expensive.

Slack Free Plan
This starter plan allows organizations and their employees to try Slack for free. The free version lets you take advantage of a decent amount of Slack’s functionality, but members under this plan can only view the 10,000 most recent messages in the workspace. Old messages cannot be accessed, even in search results. Furthermore, Slack limits workspaces to ten third-party apps. If you try to add the eleventh, you will get this message:
Workspaces on free subscriptions can only install 10 apps and your workspace has reached its limit. You can add [App Name] if you upgrade your workspace or remove one of your existing apps.
The free version of Slack does not entitle you to use all third-party apps for free forever; There is no version. Apps do not fall under the Slack pricing model. They work under completely different plans.
Slack does not impose a time limit on free plans; It does not expire.
When it comes to upgrade options, as of this writing, there are these three:
1. Standard plan
2. Plan Plus
3. Enterprise network

Slack Standard Plan
Slack is marketing its less expensive paid option, the Standard plan, to small and medium-sized businesses. To be fair, though, nothing prevents groups or divisions in major companies from going down this path.
Features on this premium plan include guest accounts, single sign-on, multiple workspace channels, and unlimited search. (If there are 257,123 messages in your workspace, you can search for them all.) Slack also throws in conference calls, screen sharing, and unlimited apps.
For this plan, Slack charges $6.67 per person billed annually and a little more per user on a monthly basis.

Slack’s Plus Plan
Perfect for large businesses or those with advanced management tools, Slack’s Plus plan includes all the features of the Standard plan. It also has a guarantee of at least 99.99 percent uptime, enhanced security, data export functionality, custom message retention, higher user storage limits, and 24/7 email support. For this plan, Slack charges $12.50 per person billed annually and a little more on a monthly basis.
Yes, Premium Slack plans lift the restrictions of the 10 apps. However, don’t expect to be able to use all third-party apps for free.

Slack Network for Enterprise
Enterprise Grid is Slack’s newest, most powerful, and most expensive offering. The Industrial Strength, All You Can Eat Plan is ideal for huge organizations that have done everything on Slack. Notable clients include IBM, Target and The New York Times. Enterprise Grid appeals to businesses that require more granular security features, unlimited licenses, phone support, an astounding 1TB of storage per member, and other powerful features.
Slack does not list the price for the Enterprise Grid plan on its website. With that said, it’s fair to assume two things. First, the annual fee is substantial. Second, this cost varies based on the number of users in the company. In fact, a company with 20,000 employees may eventually save money by purchasing Enterprise Grid. Think about the total monthly fee per user that they will incur by paying for their Slack Plus plan.
People tend not to marry their spouses without first dating them. Along the same lines, it’s usually wise to try one of Slack’s other premium plans before subscribing to Enterprise Grid.
Change your Slack plan
Slack allows its customers to easily upgrade and downgrade their plans.

Upgrade your Slack plan
To upgrade from a Slack plan to a more powerful plan, follow these steps:
1. Click on the main menu.
2. From the drop-down menu, select Settings and Management and then Workspace Settings.
Slack launches a window or tab in your default browser.
3. Click the rocket icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
Slack offers a popup with all the options as well as a link to compare plans.

4. Select your desired plan and follow the additional instructions.
Slack walks you through the upgrade process. Once you are successful, you will receive an email from Slack and a Slackbot message to confirm the upgrade.
Upgrading your organization’s Slack plan is twofold. That is, you cannot upgrade yourself to a paid plan while keeping the other members on the free plan. This arrangement makes sense because Slack is a team tool, not an individual tool.

Downgrade your Slack plan
Your company can downgrade its Slack plan. Depending on your new plan, you will
>> You lose access to some of its Slack features.
>> Use remaining Slack features to a more limited extent.
>> Need to change channel access for existing guests.
To downgrade, follow the same instructions as above but select a “lower” plan.
There are more specific consequences to downgrading your Slack plan.

Slack pricing structure
What if Slack magically solved every conceivable workplace and employee problem, but it costs $1 million per employee per year? (Don’t do that.) Even if Slack could brandish his magic wand, few other employers would consider it because it would be so expensive. Perhaps professional sports teams can justify this cost.
Fortunately, Slack is remarkably affordable — something that appeals to cost-conscious organizations. Due to Slack’s powerful functionality, the juice is worth more than the squeeze.

Get started quickly with Slack
Slack is one of many software vendors that are embracing the free business model. As such, potential customers can start using Slack and its many features within minutes and at no cost. Employees unlock additional goodies when employers promote.
Many participants in the business world have seen how CEOs are actively resisting new technologies. The reasons vary, but near the top of the list is sometimes a reasonable fear of being locked up in long-term contracts and expensive consulting assignments. As you read these words, your multi-year IT projects remain alive and well.
Once again, Slack runs on a different paradigm. Companies can start operating almost immediately. Even better, Slack doesn’t require long-term commitments; Management can choose to renew the tool every month. What if, for whatever reason, Slack doesn’t deal with your organization? After all, no software vendor bat 1.000. The financial damage is minimal, especially compared to traditional software purchases and implementations.

You only pay for the Slack you use
Slack has wisely adopted the SaaS model. Because of this decision, its clients can allocate their capital more efficiently. The advent of cloud computing means that organizations can run Slack without owning any hardware and maintaining it themselves.

This dynamic represents a radical change in 25 years. As a result, if only 50 employees in Speaker City need Slack’s premium features, Slack charges the company for just 50 seats. Speaker City’s CIO won’t need to buy expensive servers and software, let alone hire IT support people to keep the lights on.
There are popular alternatives to Slack – some of them are open source. However, it is not entirely accurate to think of open source tools as free. As the popular saying goes, think free speech, not free beer.

Review of accounting considerations
Those with accounting backgrounds should be able to distinguish between the following:
1. Buy and publish a SaaS tool, such as Slack
2. Procurement and dissemination of software has been the norm for 25 years
Organizations generally treat Slack and the like as an operating expense (OPEX). This means that the business needs to spend this money to operate now and on a daily basis. At the other end of the spectrum are capital expenditures (CAPEX), which are the expenditures incurred by businesses to realize a potential benefit in the future. Bean counters, corporate chiefs and chief financial officers (CFOs) generally prefer the flexibility and lower costs of OPEX to CAPEX.