Teams vs Slack: how do these collaboration services compare on price? - 8 minutes read


how do these collaboration services compare on price? OnMSFT.com

If you’re running a small, medium or a very large business, then you’ll likely need some sort of collaboration service and software to keep in touch with your employees and keep things rolling in an efficient matter. As we’ve highlighted in the past, both Slack and Microsoft Teams are currently the leading options for just that. But, seeing as though bills and subscription fees can pile up quickly, you may be wondering which collaboration service is cheapest for you.

With this second entry into our Slack vs Teams series, we will dive deeper into pricing on both ends of the spectrum. Keep in mind, we won’t be discussing any of the free plans, as we’ve already touched on that before.

The cheapest possible way to come on board with either Slack or Teams would be with the Slack Standard Plan or the Office 365 Business Essentials plan. However, before we proceed, we’d like to remind you that Office 365 comes with extra benefits, and includes access to Teams for no additional charge. This could increase its potential value for you in most situations, as we’ve said before.

Now for the prices. Slack Standard comes at the price of $6.67 per user per month when billed yearly, and $8 user per month when billed monthly. On the other hand, Office 365 Business Essentials comes in at the price of $5.00 per user, per month with an annual commitment, or $6.00 per user per month with a monthly commitment. As you can see, that makes Microsoft Teams the cheapest option here.

But, what do you get for those prices? Well, with Slack Standard, you’ll get access to your full archive past 10,000 messages, unlimited apps, Google authentication, and guest access. Also included are custom retention policies, user groups, group voice and video calls with 15 people, custom profiles, screen sharing, and the ability to forward emails in Slack. Storage with this Slack plan is 10GB per member, and support is labeled as “priority.”

And now for Office 365 Business Essentials and Teams. Excluding the bonus access to other Microsoft Office 365 services, with this plan, the benefits of Microsoft Teams are similar to Slack Standard. You can get 300 users, access to 1TB of file storage, Guest access, 1:1 and group audio and video calls. There are also channel meetings, screen sharing, scheduled meetings, meeting recordings, phone calls, and audio conferencing, and admin tools. 24/7 support is even included at no additional charge.

Looking at just the numbers, Microsoft Teams is cheaper than Slack, at least if you’re a small business and going for Slack Standard and Office 365 Business Essentials. It also comes with more storage per user.

So, what if you’re a larger business and have extra money to spend? Well, that’s where Slack Plus and Office 365 Business Premium comes in. Again, keep in mind, Office 365 Business Premium comes with Microsoft Teams and extra Office benefits. Slack Plus does not, but it will come with bonus features to enhance your Slack experience.

Going back to prices. Slack Plus comes in at $12.50 per person per month when billed yearly, and $15 per month when billed monthly. On the Microsoft side, Office 365 Business Premium matches that with the price of $12.50 per user per month with an annual commitment, or $15 per user per month with a monthly commitment. There’s no fiscal winner with this one, both plans are the same price.

But what do you get for the price? With Slack Plus, you get everything with Slack Standard, plus some additional security features. That includes SAML-based single sign-on and corporate exports for all messages. IT admins can also enjoy user provisioning and de-provisioning, and real-time active directory sync with OneLogin, Okta, and Ping. As for storage, the limit with Slack Plus is 20GB per user. In the event that something goes wrong, Slack Plus comes with 24/7 support with 4-hour first response time and 99% guaranteed uptime.

With Teams under Office 365 Business Premium, the benefits are the same as what you get with Business Essentials. Microsoft has no differences in Teams features between paid Office 365 plans. The only differences are the other Microsoft services you’ll get under the plan you choose. For instance, if opting for Office 365 Business Premium, you’ll get the ability to install all the office apps on your PCs or Macs, and other tools like Microsoft Bookings, Outlook Custom Manager, and Microsoft Invoicing.

It’s hard to pick a plan that’s best here, as both are the same price. But for most, Office 365 Business Premium might be the better way to go. You won’t have access to just a collaboration software like Teams, but you also will get bonus services and programs.

Finally, if you’re at the very top of the ladder and are part of an enterprise with more than 300 employees, then Slack and Teams still have you covered. You can opt for Slack Enterprise and Office 365 Enterprise. Just as with the other Office 365 plans, you’ll have Teams included, but with some benefits. We had explained more on those here when we dived deeper into which Office 365 plans include Microsoft Teams at no additional cost.

As for pricing, Slack Enterprise pricing will vary based on your organization’s needs. We can’t find a solid price because Slack’s website directed us to contact customer support for a quote, but we’ve seen IT admins on Reddit mentioning pricing between $20 a user per year, or $216 a user per year. Office 365 Enterprise, however also has various plans and pricing. You can see those below.

Since slack Enterprise is the most expensive option, it also comes with extra features on top of what’s already included with Slack Plus and Slack Standard. You’ll get 1TB of storage per user, unlimited workspaces, organization wide-searches messaging, and announcement focused channels. There are also integrations for data loss prevention, extra security, and compliance features, and Audit Log APIs. You’ll also find that it comes with designated account and customer success teams.

Features with Teams under Office 365 Enterprise is the same as it is with the other two plans. The only differences with Office 365 enterprise are the support for more than 300 Teams users, and access to more of Microsoft’s advanced security and analytics features.

Despite Teams being included with Office 365 plans, and the base plan the cheapest compared to Slack, Microsoft Teams is slowly catching on to Slack. Roughly 500,000 organizations have come on board with Teams vs the 600,000 with Slack. And, despite what the Slack CEO has to say, Microsoft Teams is growing and recently crossed the 13 million daily active user mark. So, which service do you think is right for you? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Onmsft.com

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