Slack alternatives for small teams: what the 90-day limit costs and which chat apps replace it

Slack's free plan and prices as of October 2026

From slack.com/pricing, in US dollars per user per month:

Two details on the page are worth knowing:

• The 90-day window is not the whole story. Older messages are hidden, not usable, and the retention row says Free Slack deletes data after one year. Upgrading within that year brings back the previous twelve months.
• The monthly discount is time-limited. Slack advertised 50% off monthly Pro and Business+ for the first three months, for teams that buy online within seven days of creating the workspace. It does not apply to yearly plans.

What a small team actually pays for Slack

At five people, Pro yearly is $435 a year. That is not a large number on its own. The reason small teams feel it is that Slack is rarely the only per-seat tool: it sits on top of a project tracker, a wiki and often a CRM, each priced per person. Our tool sprawl breakdown works through that stack.

Where Slack is still unmatched

Before switching, be honest about what you would give up.

• Integrations. Slack's page says it has over 2,600 apps. If your deploys, alerts, support tickets and sales notifications all arrive in Slack channels, no alternative here replaces that without rework.
• Shared channels with other companies. Agencies and startups that work in a client's or partner's Slack get a lot from Slack Connect. Leaving Slack does not remove those invitations.
• Huddles and polish. Quick group audio calls, canvases, lists and Workflow Builder are mature. The alternatives below either lack them or do less.

If two of those three describe you, the cheapest fix is often to stay on Slack Pro and remove a different tool instead.

Slack alternatives compared

Note on Chanty: its pricing page refused automated requests on the day we checked, so we could not confirm its current prices or free-plan limits on chanty.com. Third-party listings describe a free plan for small teams and a low per-user Business plan; check the vendor page before you decide.

Google Chat: the one you may already pay for

If your company email is on Google Workspace, you already have Google Chat. Business Starter was listed at $7 a user a month on a one-year commitment in October 2026, with an introductory 10% off for up to 20 users; Standard was $14 and Plus $22. Chat gives you spaces (channels), direct messages, threads and Meet calls a click away, and you can assign tasks from a space.

The trade-off is depth. Integrations exist but are thinner than Slack's, and the experience is best in a browser tab next to Gmail rather than as a standalone app. For a team that mostly needs "somewhere to talk that is not email," it is the cheapest option because it is already paid for.

Chanty: cheap Slack-style chat with tasks

Chanty looks and feels the most like Slack of anything here. Public reviews and listings describe channels, direct messages, audio and video calls on paid plans, and a built-in task list with a Kanban board; we could not load its own pages to confirm the current plan details. It is aimed squarely at small teams that want Slack's shape without its bill.

We cover Chanty in more depth in our comparison of team chat apps with tasks built in. The short version: it is a good chat app with a light task list, not a project tool. Teams that ship software or run client projects usually add a tracker within a quarter.

Discord: free, with caveats

Discord is free, keeps history with no time limit, and its voice channels are better than anything else here for drop-in audio. Some small developer teams and open-source projects run on it happily.

It was built for communities, not companies. It does not offer the admin, compliance and identity controls a business chat tool usually has, so you cannot, for example, require company sign-in or manage everyone's account centrally. It is also full of personal servers, which makes focus harder. Use it if your team is already there and nobody needs business controls; do not pick it to save $7 a seat.

Chat inside your project tool: Basecamp, ClickUp and Atrix

The other route is to stop treating chat as its own product and use the one built into your project tool. This removes a seat price and, more usefully, puts the conversation next to the work.

Basecamp has Campfire, a chat room per project plus company-wide ones, and message boards for longer announcements. Pricing is flat: Freelancer $29 a month for up to 5 users and 3 projects, Pro $79 for 10 users, Pro Plus $99 for 15, and Pro Unlimited $199 a month billed yearly ($329 monthly) for unlimited users.

ClickUp Chat lives inside ClickUp, so a message can become a task in a click. On the Free plan chat history is 90 days, the same limit as Slack Free, so a working team is on Core at $9 a user a month yearly.

Atrix, our product, has public and private channels, direct and group messages, threads, reactions, pins, file attachments and mentions that reach your phone (team chat), with no message history limit on any plan. It sits in the same workspace as work tracking, pages, calendar and CRM. Its limits: no huddles or voice calls, no shared channels with other companies, no one-click message-to-issue button yet, and nothing like Slack's app directory; integrations run through the MCP server, the REST API and webhooks. There is no free plan. Builder is $39 a month for 5 seats and Studio $149 for 15 (pricing).

How to choose in five questions

1. Do critical alerts and workflows arrive in Slack? If yes, stay on Slack Pro.
2. Do you work inside clients' Slack workspaces? You will keep a Slack account either way; decide whether your internal chat needs to be there too.
3. Are you already paying for Google Workspace? Try Google Chat for two weeks before buying anything.
4. Do you also pay for a separate project tool? Look at Basecamp, ClickUp or Atrix, where chat comes with the tasks.
5. Do you need voice drop-ins more than anything? Discord or Slack Pro, depending on whether you need business controls.

How to move a small team off Slack

1. Export what you can. On Free and Pro, owners can export messages and file links from public channels; Free only exports file links from the last 90 days. Private channels and DMs need Business+.
2. Decide what history matters. Most teams need a handful of decisions, not every message. Copy those into your wiki before you move.
3. Map channels to the new tool. Recreate only the channels people actually used in the last month.
4. Move integrations first. Point alerts and notifications at the new tool, or at email, before people move.
5. Set a switch date and keep Slack read-only. Two weeks of overlap is enough. After that, a pinned message in every Slack channel saying where the team went.

FAQ

What happens to Slack messages after 90 days on the Free plan?

They are hidden from search and view, not immediately deleted. As of October 2026, Slack's pricing page says Free Slack deletes data after one year, and upgrading brings back the previous twelve months of history.

Is there a free Slack alternative with unlimited history?

Discord keeps history with no time limit and is free. Google Chat with a personal Google account is free too, with history governed by your settings. Basecamp and Atrix keep full history but are paid, and ClickUp's free plan limits chat history to 90 days.

What is the cheapest Slack alternative for a small team?

If you already pay for Google Workspace, Google Chat costs nothing extra. Otherwise the cheapest paid options per person are low-cost chat apps such as Chanty, or a flat-priced tool such as Basecamp at $29 a month for up to 5 users.

Can I get Slack-style integrations in another chat app?

Partly. Google Chat, ClickUp and Basecamp have integrations and APIs, and Atrix has an MCP server, REST API and webhooks. None has a directory close to Slack's 2,600-plus apps, so list the integrations you rely on and check each one before switching.

Does Atrix have huddles or video calls?

No. As of October 2026 Atrix chat has channels, direct and group messages, threads, reactions, pins and file attachments, but no voice or video calls. Teams that rely on huddles usually keep Slack or pair Atrix with a meeting tool.

Next step

If your chat is mostly about your own work, see how team chat in Atrix sits next to tasks and docs, or read the full Atrix vs Slack comparison.