Which team chat tool should your company pick in 2026, and what will it cost once every seat is counted? This guide compares the best team chat tools on price, fit and the limits that only show up after launch, and it names the pick outright.
Slack wins the general case because its search, integrations and workflow builder fit almost any team, while Microsoft Teams wins outright for any company already paying for Microsoft 365.
This guide compares ten chat tools on price per seat, message history, guest access and self-hosting, then works out the monthly bill at three headcounts, so the pick matches your headcount and your existing software rather than a feature list.
How the Best Team Chat Tools Handle Search, History and Guests
The three questions that separate these tools are how far back search reaches, how guests and outside partners are handled, and whether the data lives on your servers or someone else’s. That is the first filter this guide applies to the best team chat tools.
A free plan that hides messages after 90 days looks generous until a new hire cannot find the decision from last quarter, and that single limit drives more upgrades than any missing feature.
– Message history limits on the free and entry plans, because search is where chat pays for itself. – Guest and external access, since clients and contractors need in without seeing everything. – Integrations with the tools your team already opens every day. – Self-hosting and data control for regulated or security-conscious teams.
The 10 Tools at a Glance
Ten tools cover the whole market, from the two giants through Google Chat and Discord to the self-hosted options, and the table below shows the entry price for each. The table below compares the best team chat tools side by side.
| Tool | Starting price | Best for | Free option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slack | About $7.25 per user a month | chat-first companies that want the deepest integrations | Free plan |
| Microsoft Teams | About $4 per user a month | companies already running Microsoft 365 | Free plan |
| Google Chat | From about $7 per user a month | teams that live in Gmail, Docs and Drive | No free plan |
| Discord | Free | communities and informal teams that need voice channels | Free plan |
| Mattermost | Free self-hosted | regulated teams that must host their own chat data | Free plan |
| Rocket.Chat | Free self-hosted | teams that want open-source chat with video built in | Free plan |
| Twist | About $6 per user a month | remote teams that prefer threaded discussion over live chat | Free plan |
| Flock | About $4.50 per user a month | small teams that want chat plus tasks in one place | Free plan |
| Chanty | About $3 per user a month | small teams that want the cheapest paid chat with task management | Free plan |
| Zulip | About $6.67 per user a month | technical teams that want topic-based threaded chat | Free plan |
Best Pick by Job
A startup and a regulated enterprise need different chat tools, so the table below matches each team shape to its pick, with the monthly cost beside it.
| Job | Pick | Why it wins | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Startup, chat-first culture | Slack | Best integrations and search | About $7.25 per user a month |
| Microsoft 365 company | Microsoft Teams | Already in the licence | About $4 per user a month standalone |
| Google Workspace team | Google Chat | Chat, Meet and Docs in one bill | From about $7 per user a month |
| Regulated team, self-hosted | Mattermost | Data stays on your servers | Free self-hosted, paid from about $10 |
| Tightest budget, small team | Pumble | Unlimited history on the free plan | About $2.49 per user a month |
The 10 Tools in Detail
Each tool below suits a different kind of team, so read the ones that match your stack before comparing prices, because the cheapest seat is rarely the cheapest decision. Start with the tools that match your job, then check the price, because the best team chat tools differ more on fit than on features.
1. Slack
Slack is the benchmark for team chat, with channels, threads, huddles, a workflow builder and thousands of app integrations. Its strength is the ecosystem, since almost every tool a team uses already connects to Slack and posts updates into a channel.
Pro lists at about 7.25 dollars per user a month on annual billing, or 8.75 dollars month to month, with Business+ at about 15 dollars. Skip it when the company already pays for Microsoft 365, because Teams covers the same job inside a licence already bought.
2. Microsoft Teams
Teams bundles chat, meetings, file storage and calendars into the Microsoft 365 login most office workers already use daily. Its strength is the bundle, since chat, video calls and Office apps share one licence instead of three separate bills.
Essentials lists at about 4 dollars per user a month, and Teams is included in most Microsoft 365 business plans at no extra charge. Skip it when the team lives outside Microsoft, because its best features assume Outlook, OneDrive and SharePoint are already in use.
3. Google Chat
Google Chat is the messaging layer of Google Workspace, sitting beside Gmail, Meet and Drive in the same account. Its strength is simplicity, since a team that already uses Google tools needs no new login and no migration to start chatting.
Chat is included in Workspace plans starting at about 7 dollars per user a month, with no standalone price for Chat alone. Skip it when the team needs deep integrations and automation, because its app catalogue and workflow tools are thinner than Slack.
4. Discord
Discord offers free text, voice and video channels with unlimited history, roles and screen sharing, built for communities first. Its strength is voice, since always-on voice channels let a team talk like an open office without scheduling a call.
Discord is free for teams, with Nitro at about 9.99 dollars a month as a personal cosmetic subscription that adds nothing for business use. Skip it as the company chat tool, because it has no business tier, no compliance exports and no retention controls at any price.
5. Mattermost
Mattermost is an open-source chat platform that a team can run on its own servers, with channels, threads, boards and playbooks. Its strength is control, since the data never leaves the organisation, which suits defence, finance and government teams.
Team Edition is free to self-host, and paid plans start at about 10 dollars per user a month with admin and compliance features. Skip it for a small team without an admin, because running, updating and backing up a server costs more staff time than a cloud plan.
6. Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open-source chat platform with channels, video calls, file sharing and omnichannel messaging for customer conversations. Its strength is flexibility, since the open code lets a team add features and integrations that closed platforms will not allow.
Self-hosting is free, and paid cloud plans start at about 4 dollars per user a month, with higher tiers adding support and controls. Skip it when the team wants a polished product out of the box, because the open-source edition needs setup and ongoing care.
7. Twist
Twist replaces the always-on chat stream with threaded conversations, so a message stays in context and nobody must watch the channel all day. Its strength is calm, since threads cut the pressure to reply instantly and suit teams spread across time zones.
Twist lists at about 6 dollars per user a month, with a free plan for small teams that want to try the threaded style. Skip it when the team needs instant answers, because the threaded design deliberately slows conversation down.
8. Flock
Flock combines team chat with built-in polls, reminders, to-dos and video calls, aimed at small businesses that want one simple tool. Its strength is the built-in extras, since polls and task lists arrive without buying a separate app for each one.
Pro lists at about 4.50 dollars per user a month, with a free plan covering basic chat for small teams. Skip it for larger companies, because its admin controls and integration catalogue are thin next to Slack or Teams.
9. Chanty
Chanty is a light team chat tool with tasks, voice messages and screen sharing, priced for small businesses watching every dollar. Its strength is price, since the paid plan undercuts most rivals while still covering the chat and task basics.
Chanty lists at about 3 dollars per user a month, with a free plan that covers up to ten users and unlimited message history. Skip it when the team needs deep integrations, because its app catalogue is small and the workflow tools are basic.
10. Zulip
Zulip organises chat into streams and topics, so every conversation keeps its own thread and nothing gets lost in a fast channel. Its strength is organisation, since topic-based threads scale to hundreds of messages a day without becoming unreadable.
Zulip Cloud Standard lists at about 6.67 dollars per user a month, with self-hosting free for teams that run their own server. Skip it for non-technical teams, because the stream and topic model takes a week to learn and confuses people used to plain channels.
The tools in this guide split into cloud suites, community chat and self-hosted platforms, and the split decides who controls the data. A company that wants zero admin should buy a cloud suite, a community should use Discord, and a regulated team should self-host, so name the control model before comparing prices.
Moving a 40-Person Team to a New Chat Tool in One Week
A 40-person move takes one working week when the steps run in order, and the trick is migrating history before anyone sends a message in the new tool.
Freeze the old tool on Friday. Announce the move, export the message history, and stop new channels from opening over the weekend.
Set up channels and permissions on Monday. Mirror the old channel list, name an owner per channel, and set guest rules before inviting anyone.
Migrate history and files. Import the exported history, reconnect the file storage, and check that search finds a message from last month.
Invite the team in waves. Bring in team leads first, let them test threads and huddles, then invite everyone else on Wednesday.
Close the old tool on Friday. Archive the old workspace, post the new channel guide in the company handbook, and answer the first week of questions in a help channel.
Check the mobile app on a real phone. Install the app, join a channel, and send a message from the office wifi and from mobile data, because a chat tool that fails on phones fails where the team actually works.
Team Chat Costs at 10, 50 and 200 Seats
Team chat is priced per user per month, so the bill grows with headcount, and the table below shows what each entry plan costs at a realistic team size. The table below prices the best team chat tools at the volume a working buyer actually reaches.
| Tool | Entry plan | Cost at volume | What changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slack | Pro, about $7.25 per user a month annual | 90 days on free, unlimited on Pro | Business+ at about $15 adds admin controls |
| Microsoft Teams | Essentials, about $4 per user a month | Included in most Microsoft 365 plans | Often $0 extra for existing customers |
| Google Chat | Workspace from about $7 per user a month | No standalone price | Chat plus Meet plus Docs in one bill |
| Discord | Free | Unlimited history | No business tier at any price |
| Mattermost | Free self-hosted | Paid from about $10 per user a month | Self-hosting costs staff time, not licences |
| Pumble | Pro, about $2.49 per user a month | Unlimited history even free | Cheapest paid plan in this guide |
At 50 seats, Slack Pro costs about 363 dollars a month, Microsoft Teams Essentials costs about 200 dollars, and Google Workspace at about 7 dollars a seat costs about 350 dollars, yet Teams is often free in practice because the company already pays for Microsoft 365.
What Happens to Chat History When Someone Leaves
When an employee leaves, the chat history they created stays behind, yet their account must be deactivated quickly, and the two needs pull in opposite directions. A good offboarding process deactivates the login on the last day, transfers ownership of their channels and shared files to a manager, and keeps the message history searchable for the team that remains. Slack and Teams both support this on paid plans, while free plans often lack the admin controls to transfer ownership cleanly, which is one more reason the free tier rarely survives a growing team.
Retention policies decide how long messages are kept, and the choice carries legal weight, since a company that deletes messages after 90 days cannot produce them in a dispute, while one that keeps everything forever pays for storage and risks old messages surfacing out of context. Regulated industries often need a fixed retention period with a legal hold option, which is a paid feature on most platforms. A small company should set a written retention rule early, even if it is simply keeping everything, because an unwritten rule is the one that gets questioned later.
Exporting history before deactivation is the step teams forget, and it matters because a deactivated account can take its direct messages and shared files with it on some plans. The admin should export the departing person’s messages and files, confirm the export opens, and store it where the manager can find it, before the account is closed. Self-hosted tools make this easier, since the data lives on the company server, while cloud tools need the export feature that usually sits on a higher tier.
Guest access needs the same care, since contractors and clients who were invited to channels keep their access until someone removes it, and a forgotten guest can read months of conversation after the project ends. A quarterly guest audit takes an hour and catches the stale accounts, and the habit matters more than the tool, because every platform on this list lets a guest linger indefinitely. Set a calendar reminder, review the guest list, and remove anyone whose project finished more than a month ago.
Search continuity is the reason history matters, since a new hire who cannot find last quarter’s decision will ask the team instead, and the team will answer from memory rather than from the record. Unlimited history on a paid plan keeps the record intact, while a 90-day limit on a free plan quietly erases the context a growing team needs. The cost of lost context is hard to measure and easy to feel, which is why teams that live on search upgrade to a paid plan within months.
Admin controls on higher tiers decide how much of this the company can actually enforce, since Business and Enterprise plans add data loss prevention, retention rules and compliance exports that entry plans lack. A company in a regulated industry should budget for the higher tier from the start, because the controls are the product, not an add-on. A company without regulatory needs can stay on the entry paid plan and manage offboarding with a checklist instead of software enforcement.
Data residency and deletion rules matter for teams in Europe and other regulated regions, since the chat data must live in an approved location and be deletable on request. Cloud tools publish their data locations and offer deletion workflows, while self-hosted tools give the company full control at the cost of running the server. A team that handles personal data should check the residency statement before buying, because moving chat history between regions after the fact is painful.
A handover checklist for a departing manager closes the loop, since channels need a new owner, shared files need a new home, and the team needs to know who answers questions the departed person used to answer. Write the checklist once, keep it in the company handbook, and run it on every departure, because the departures that hurt are the ones where nobody owned the handover. The checklist costs an hour to write and saves a week of confusion each time it runs.
Integrations with project tools decide whether chat becomes the hub of the team’s work or just another app, since a message that links to a task, a ticket or a document saves the team from switching apps all day. Slack leads here with thousands of apps, Teams follows with deep Microsoft links, and the self-hosted tools rely on webhooks and community plugins that need setup. A team should list the five tools it opens daily and check each one connects to the chat platform before buying, because a missing integration becomes a daily annoyance.
Search and pinned messages are the memory of a team, since a decision made in chat is only useful if someone can find it three months later. Pinned messages hold the current priorities at the top of a channel, while search across the full history answers the question a new hire asks in their first week. The paid plans that offer unlimited history protect that memory, while the free plans that hide old messages force the team to re-decide what it already decided, which is the most expensive kind of forgetting.
Team Chat Mistakes That Fragment a Company
Team chat mistakes are expensive because they fragment conversation, and the five below are the ones that force a second migration. Each one below wastes money on the best team chat tools in a different way.
Letting teams pick their own chat tool. Three chat tools across one company means nobody knows where a decision lives, so pick one company-wide and enforce it.
Ignoring the free-plan history limit. Slack free hides messages after 90 days, so a team that lives on search will hit the wall within a quarter and upgrade under pressure.
Giving guests the run of the building. A contractor added to the wrong channel sees salaries, roadmaps and client names, so set guest permissions before the first invite.
Skipping the notification rules. Default notifications train people to ignore chat entirely, so agree channel naming, thread use and quiet hours on day one.
Paying for chat and meetings separately. Teams and Slack both bundle meetings, so a separate meeting tool on top doubles the bill for a feature already included.
Eight Steps to Switch Team Chat Without Losing History
Run these eight checks before the migration date, because each one prevents a class of problem that is painful to fix afterwards. Every check below applies to the best team chat tools the same way.
- Export the full message history and confirm it opens.
- List every integration and check it exists on the new tool.
- Decide channel names and who owns each one.
- Set guest permissions and the approval process.
- Agree notification rules and quiet hours.
- Move the file storage links and check they open.
- Train team leads first, then the whole team.
- Pick a cutover day and archive the old tool after it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Slack still worth 7.25 dollars per user a month for a small team?
Slack Pro at about 7.25 dollars per user a month on annual billing buys unlimited message history, unlimited apps and workflow automation, which the free plan limits to 90 days of history and ten apps. For a team of ten that is about 73 dollars a month, and the value shows up in search, since a new hire can find last quarter’s decisions without asking anyone. A team that chats lightly and never searches old messages can stay on the free plan, but most teams outgrow it within a few months, which is why Slack remains the default pick here. That is the short answer for the best team chat tools.
Should a Microsoft 365 company even consider Slack?
A company already paying for Microsoft 365 should start with Teams, because it is included in most plans and adds meetings, files and calendars in the same login, which makes Slack an extra bill for a job already covered. Slack wins only when the team values its integrations, workflow builder and search enough to pay twice, or when outside partners already live in Slack and expect to collaborate there. For most Microsoft shops the honest answer is Teams, and the money saved buys something the company does not already own.
Can Discord work as a business team chat tool?
Discord works for informal teams and communities, since it is free, has unlimited history and excellent voice channels, but it has no business tier at any price and no admin controls a company needs, such as data retention policies, compliance exports or guest management. A startup of friends can run on Discord happily, yet a company with clients, contracts and audits will hit the missing controls quickly. Use Discord for a community around the product and Slack or Teams for the company itself.
What does Mattermost cost when it is free to self-host?
Mattermost Team Edition is free and open source, yet self-hosting means paying for a server, updates, backups and someone to run it, which usually costs more in staff time than a paid cloud plan for a small team. Paid Mattermost starts at about 10 dollars per user a month and adds admin controls, compliance features and support. The free edition earns its place for regulated teams that must keep data on their own servers, not for teams hoping to save money, since the server and the admin time are the real bill.
How many seats do we actually need to buy?
Buy seats for the people who send messages every day, and check whether guests, contractors and occasional users can join free or on a cheaper guest role, since most tools charge per member while guests cost less or nothing. Slack and Teams both charge per active member, so a 50-person company with ten contractors may only need 40 paid seats if guests are handled properly. Count the people who need full access, not the headcount on the payroll, and recheck the number every quarter as the team changes.
Does Google Chat work as a full Slack replacement?
Google Chat works as a full replacement for teams already living in Gmail and Google Docs, since Chat, Meet and Drive share one login and the Workspace bill starts at about 7 dollars per user a month. It is simpler than Slack, with fewer integrations and no workflow builder of the same depth, which suits teams that want chat to stay simple. A team that leans on Slack apps and automations will feel the gap, while a Google-first team will find Chat is already paid for and already familiar.
The Team Chat Bill at Three Headcounts
At ten seats, Slack Pro costs about 73 dollars a month, Microsoft Teams Essentials costs about 40 dollars, and Pumble Pro costs about 25 dollars, while Discord costs nothing, which makes the free and cheapest options look unbeatable until history limits and admin controls enter the maths. That is the bill the best team chat tools produce at this volume.
At 50 seats, Slack Pro costs about 363 dollars a month, Teams Essentials about 200 dollars, and Google Workspace about 350 dollars, yet Teams is often zero extra for a Microsoft 365 company, which makes it the cheapest real bill at this size by a wide margin.
At 200 seats, Slack Business+ at about 15 dollars a seat costs about 3,000 dollars a month, Teams inside a Microsoft 365 business plan stays bundled, and the runner-up only wins when the company already pays for the bundle, which is why the cheapest tool on paper is rarely the cheapest tool in practice.
At 50 seats, the bill is about 363 dollars a month on Slack Pro, about 200 dollars on Teams Essentials, and about 125 dollars on Pumble Pro, yet the real cost includes the admin time for offboarding, guest audits and retention, which runs a few hours a month on any platform. The cheapest seat is not the cheapest system once that admin time is counted.
| Scenario | Our pick | Runner-up cost | What the gap means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 seats | Slack Pro, about $73 | Pumble Pro, about $25 | Pumble wins on price, Slack wins on integrations |
| 50 seats | Slack Pro, about $363 | Teams Essentials, about $200 | Teams wins outright inside Microsoft 365 |
| 200 seats | Slack Business+, about $3,000 | Teams bundled, often $0 extra | The bundle decides the bill at scale |