Slack
Slack is Salesforce-owned team-messaging software (acquisition closed July 2021, ~$27.7B); founded 2013 by Stewart Butterfield. Per slack.com/pricing (checked July 2026): Free is $0 and caps message/file history at the most recent 90 days visible in search, with anything over a year old permanently deleted, plus a 10 app-integration ceiling; Pro is $7.25/user/mo billed annually ($8.75 monthly); Business+ is $15/user/mo annually ($18 monthly); Enterprise+ is custom-quoted. All three paid tiers include unlimited message history. AI (Slackbot agent, thread/conversation summaries, workflow generation, daily recaps) is now bundled per tier rather than sold as an add-on; Business+/Enterprise+ add Enterprise Search. Slack reports 200,000+ paid organizations in 150+ countries and use by roughly 77% of the Fortune 100. Current version/status: Continuously-updated SaaS, no version numbers; AI features re-bundled by plan tier since Q2 2025 (checked July 2026). License: proprietary SaaS. Pricing: Free $0 (90-day visible message history, 10 app-integration cap); Pro $7.25/user/mo annual ($8.75 monthly); Business+ $15/user/mo annual ($18 monthly); Enterprise+ custom quote — all paid tiers include unlimited message history. Maintained by Salesforce (acquired Slack Technologies, deal closed July 2021).
Pick Slack when your team leans on deep third-party integrations (Salesforce, Jira, Google Drive, thousands of apps) and can absorb $7.25-15/user/month. Skip it for a cash-strapped startup — Pumble's free tier gives unlimited users and unlimited message history at $0, where Slack's free tier hides anything past 90 days. Skip it too if you already pay for Microsoft 365 Business Basic ($7/user/mo) — Teams rides along at near-zero marginal cost. Since the Salesforce deal, Slack enforces a roughly 9% year-over-year price bump at renewal, a pattern enterprise buyers openly flag in procurement writeups. The platform's own long-running unsolved complaint is notification overload and channel sprawl — AI recap features are a band-aid on that, not a fix.
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