Team chat apps with tasks built in: Chanty, Ryver, Basecamp, ClickUp Chat and Atrix compared
Five team chat apps with task management built in, compared on what 'built in' really means, October 2026 prices and free-plan limits: Chanty, Ryver.
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Five team chat apps ship task management inside the same product as of October 2026: Chanty and Ryver, which bolt a task list onto chat; Basecamp and ClickUp, which are project tools with chat added; and Atrix, which puts chat beside work, docs, CRM and calendar in one workspace. They differ on one practical question, which this post answers for each: can a message become a tracked task without leaving the conversation, and what does the task get once it exists?
We moved our own company's chat into the same workspace as our work tracker two years ago, so this comparison is written by people who did the migration and still argue about whether every chat message should become an issue. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026.
What "tasks built in" actually means
The phrase covers four very different things. Before comparing products, decide which one you want.
- A task list inside the chat app. Tasks have a title, an assignee and a due date. No board, no sprint, no project. This is what Chanty and Ryver mean.
- Chat inside the project tool. The task system is complete (boards, lists, cycles) and the chat is a channel system added to it. This is Basecamp's Campfire and ClickUp Chat.
- Message to task in one click. Whatever the task system is, you can turn a chat message into a task without copying text. Chanty, Ryver and ClickUp have this; Basecamp and Atrix do not have a one-click conversion today.
- One database underneath. The task, the chat channel, the doc and the customer record are rows in the same system, so a task can link to the deal it came from without an integration. This is what Atrix means and, to a lesser degree, ClickUp.
Most teams that search for "chat with tasks" want the first thing and discover within a quarter that they needed the second.
The five tools compared, October 2026
| Tool | What it is | Message to task in one click | Task depth | Free plan | Entry paid price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chanty | Chat first, task list added | Yes, per Chanty's site | Tasks with assignee, due date, Kanban board | Up to 5 members | $3 per user per month yearly, $4 monthly (Business) |
| Ryver | Chat first, task list added | Yes | Personal and group task managers, assignees, due dates, task stream | 14-day trial only | $69 per month flat for up to 12 users (Starter), $129 for up to 30 |
| Basecamp | Project tool with Campfire chat | No | To-dos, cards (Kanban), schedule, message board, per project | Up to 3 users, 1 project | $29 per month flat for up to 5 users (Freelancer) |
| ClickUp Chat | Project tool with chat | Yes | Full ClickUp: lists, boards, sprints, docs | Chat is a limited trial on Free; 90-day history | $9 per user per month yearly (Core) |
| Atrix | All-in-one workspace, chat is one module | No | Full work module: 5 views, cycles, labels, milestones, plus pages, CRM, calendar | None; 7-day trial with card | $39 per month flat, 5 seats (Builder) |
Prices as shown on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026. Ryver and Chanty prices were taken from their own pricing pages; the Chanty page could not be loaded directly on the day, so its figures are from Chanty's own worked example (five people, $180 a year or $20 a month).
Chanty and Ryver: chat first, tasks added
Both are good at the thing they were built for. Chanty is cheap, simple and has a free plan for five people, which makes it the obvious pick for a small team that wants Slack-style chat and a to-do list without a Slack-style bill. Its Business plan adds a Kanban view of the tasks. Ryver's flat pricing is unusual: $69 a month for up to twelve users is $5.75 a person at full occupancy and $23 a person if only three of you use it.
The limit is task depth. Neither has cycles, milestones, a backlog, or a timeline. When a team starts shipping software or running client projects, the task list fills with three hundred items and there is no way to plan a fortnight. At that point the team adds a project tool, and the chat-with-tasks feature becomes the second, untracked backlog it was meant to prevent.
Basecamp and ClickUp: project tools with chat
Basecamp's Campfire is a chat room per project, plus a company-wide one, and its to-dos, cards and schedule are the task system. There is no "turn this message into a to-do" button; you write the to-do and link back. Basecamp's fixed tiers (Freelancer $29 for 5 users, Pro $79 for 10, Pro Plus $99 for 15, Pro Unlimited $199 a month billed yearly) mean the chat costs nothing extra, which is the point.
ClickUp Chat is the deepest of the five on the task side because it is all of ClickUp. A message becomes a task with its assignee and list, and the task has everything ClickUp tasks have. The catch is that chat on the Free plan is a limited trial with 90-day history, so a real team is on Core at $9 per user per month yearly, and ClickUp's AI runs on pooled credits with extra packs at $10 per 10,000.
Atrix: chat beside work, one database
Atrix's chat has public and private channels, direct and group messages, threads, reactions, pins, mentions that reach your phone, file attachments and no message history limit on any plan. It sits in the same workspace as the work module (five views, cycles with burndown, labels, milestones), pages, the CRM and the calendar.
What it does not have, as of October 2026, is a one-click "message to issue" button. You create the issue in Work and paste the message link, or do it from a connected assistant over MCP with the work write scope. We are telling you this because the brief for this post said "verify in-product" and that is what we found. What it does have is the thing we actually wanted when we left Slack: the channel about a customer is next to that customer's deal, project and pages, and nobody has to copy a name between four tools.
The price is $39 a month flat for five seats on Builder and $149 for fifteen on Studio. There is no free plan.
How to choose in five steps
- Count the tasks, not the messages. If your team has under fifty open tasks and no need for sprints, a chat-first tool with a task list (Chanty, Ryver) is enough.
- Decide where planning happens. If you plan work in cycles or sprints, pick a project tool with chat (Basecamp, ClickUp, Atrix), because the chat-first tools cannot plan.
- Test the message-to-task path yourself. Take a real message, turn it into a task, and see what the task is missing. In Chanty it is missing a project; in Basecamp and Atrix the button is missing.
- Price the team at twelve months. Flat tiers (Ryver, Basecamp, Atrix) are cheaper when seats are full and expensive when they are not. Per-seat tools (Chanty, ClickUp) grow one seat at a time.
- Check the history limit. Slack-style 90-day limits on free plans (ClickUp Chat on Free) mean decisions in chat disappear. Chanty's free plan and all Atrix plans keep history without a limit.
FAQ
Which team chat app has the best task management?
ClickUp Chat, because the task is a full ClickUp task with lists, boards and sprints. Atrix is close on task depth and adds pages, CRM and calendar, but lacks a one-click message-to-issue button as of October 2026.
Is there a free team chat with tasks?
Chanty is free for up to 5 members with task management. Basecamp's free plan covers 3 users and one project. ClickUp's Free plan limits chat to a trial. Atrix has no free plan.
Can I turn a Slack message into a task?
Not inside Slack itself without an integration. Chanty, Ryver and ClickUp have a native message-to-task action; Basecamp and Atrix do not, and you create the task and link the message instead.
What is the cheapest chat and task tool for five people?
As of October 2026: Chanty Business at $3 per user per month on yearly billing, $15 a month for five; Basecamp Freelancer at $29 flat for up to 5; Atrix Builder at $39 flat for 5 seats including docs, CRM and calendar; ClickUp Core at $45 for five on yearly billing.
Does Atrix chat work on the phone?
Yes. Atrix for Phone is on the App Store with Android in beta, mentions arrive as push notifications, and you can reply from the lock screen.
Next step
See what Atrix team chat includes and how it sits next to the work module with its five views and cycles.
Sources
Checked on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026: Chanty, Ryver, Basecamp, ClickUp.