Slack is hired to do one job: give a team a place to talk in channels and keep what was said. That job is easy to describe and hard to move, because the history and the habits live there. Below: the published plans, the open-source option we verified, and a procedure for moving without losing records.
Chat holds the company's working memory: who decided what, where the file went, why a customer was refunded. People search it every week, which makes the history the lock-in, not the software.
Add the apps and alerts that post into channels, the guests from other companies, and a habit that no one wants to retrain, and a seat price that looks small becomes a decision nobody owns.
Seat counts also drift. Contractors and former staff keep accounts, and a plan billed per seat bills for all of them. Compare the invoice against payroll before deciding anything else.
Only alternatives we have checked. An open-source project is listed with the license its repository reports, on the date shown; one whose license could not be read as a single standard id is not offered as open source. Read the license guide before running any of them.
| Alternative | Kind | License | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zulip | Open source | Apache-2.0 | Zulip repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
Each feature below is what the product's own page or README says, linked to where we read it on the date shown. Pros and cons are limited to what those pages state and to what the path itself changes. We do not rank products on quality.
| Plan | Price as published | Includes | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slack Free | $0 | 90 days of message history and up to 10 app integrations, as listed | Slack pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Slack Pro | $7.25 per user per month billed annually; $8.75 billed monthly | Unlimited message history and apps, as listed | Slack pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Slack Business+ | $15 per user per month billed annually; $18 billed monthly | Unlimited message history and apps, as listed | Slack pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Slack Enterprise+ | $45 per user per month, annual only as shown | Unlimited message history and apps; the page directs buyers to sales | Slack pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
List prices as printed on the vendor's page on the checked date, per user per month, in US dollars and excluding tax. A limited-time new-team discount was also printed and is left out. Prices may differ at checkout.
Chat is the stickiest everyday tool because the history and the habits are the product. The decision is not which tool is cheaper per seat, it is whether your people will actually move their conversations and whether the old history needs to stay searchable.
A smaller team may already pay for chat inside a suite it holds, such as Microsoft 365. A team with strong feelings about data location may prefer to run its own. Zulip is the open-source option we verified and it asks for real server work.
Samples are made up and are not Slack's prices. Type in the figures from your own invoice or order form.
The honest yearly cost of running open-source software yourself, set against the bill it replaces, with the seat count where it stops paying.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
Chat moves best when you move the habit first and the history second. In outline:
Count channels, active posters over the last 90 days, guests, and connected apps. Mark channels that nobody has written in recently as candidates to archive instead of move.
Decide what must stay searchable and for how long. Write it down with the person who owns legal and finance records.
Run the vendor's export, open it, and check public channels, private channels and files are all present. Store it somewhere you control.
Pick the destination, create the channel structure, and move the alerts and app connections for one team first. Run it for two weeks.
Move the rest on an announced date. Post the new address in the old channels and have managers confirm each person has signed in.
Switch the old workspace to read-only where the plan allows, check the alert integrations land in the new place, and compare the list of people against payroll.
Wait for a full month with the export kept, then end the plan inside the contract's notice window.
Run the vendor report for QuickBooks Online or Xero, then open the free audit.
General information, not legal advice. See cancelling without penalties. Last reviewed Oct 25, 2026. Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify them.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned. Slack is one of the lines worth a look.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
| Self-hosting, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, tooling | 720.00 |
| Admin and restore-test time | 2,640.00 |
| Total | 3,360.00 |
| One-off set-up (not in the yearly total) | 1,200.00 |
The saving holds only if the time is real. Price the admin hours at what that person's time costs the company, not at zero.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.