Slack alternatives for small business: seven options and who each one suits

Most owners hunting for Slack alternatives for small business teams are running from one of two things: the 90-day history limit on Slack’s free plan, or the bill for Slack Pro once the team grows. Both are fair reasons. As of September 2026, Slack’s free plan shows 90 days of messages and allows 10 apps, and Pro is $7.25 per user per month billed yearly, or $8.75 monthly.

Slack is still very good at what it does. So before you move, it’s worth deciding what you actually want instead, because the alternatives below are good at quite different things.

We make one of them. Klusko is team chat plus tasks and projects in one app, and we’ve tried to give it the same treatment as everything else here, which includes saying what it doesn’t do. Before Klusko we ran a 12-person business, so this list is written for owners and managers of teams roughly that size, give or take.

What to decide before you look

Do you need video calls built in? Teams and Google Workspace do calls properly. Klusko doesn’t.

Do you need integrations? If web orders or new leads arrive in chat from other tools, Slack is hard to beat, and some of these alternatives have no integrations at all.

And where do your tasks live? If the answer is “in chat, sort of”, then a chat app on its own won’t fix it, however cheap it is, because the problem was never really the chat app; it’s that a job agreed in a thread on Tuesday has nowhere to go except somebody’s memory.

Microsoft Teams, if you already pay Microsoft

If your business runs on Microsoft 365, look at your plan before buying anything: Teams may already be in it, or be a small add-on. Microsoft 365 Business Basic is $7 per user per month on annual billing, or $8.40 monthly, as of September 2026 (all prices on this page are per user per month), and it comes with business email and the web versions of Word and Excel. Teams Essentials, which is Teams on its own, is $4 on annual billing.

There’s a free version of Teams too, with meetings capped at 60 minutes. For a small team doing a Monday catch-up that’s usually plenty.

Teams is strongest at meetings. It was built around video calls, down to the invite that lands in everyone’s Outlook calendar, and it does them well. Chat is organised into teams and channels, and files sit in SharePoint behind the scenes, which is tidy if your documents already live there and a bit baffling if they don’t.

Our main gripe is that it’s busy. There are a lot of buttons. For a 30-person accountancy practice already on Outlook and Excel all day, that’s fine. For a five-person landscaping crew who mostly want to send photos from site, it’s probably more than they need.

So it suits businesses already on Microsoft 365, and teams whose clients send them Teams invites anyway.

Google Chat, if you live in Gmail

Google Workspace has no free plan. Business Starter is $7 on annual billing or $8.40 monthly, as of September 2026, and it includes Chat along with Gmail, Meet and Drive. If you already pay for Workspace to get company email, you already have Google Chat and might not have noticed.

Chat sits inside Gmail, which is the whole appeal. Spaces work like channels and direct messages work as you’d expect. It’s plainer than Slack and has less going on, which some teams will take as a compliment. If you’re already on Workspace and want chat without another login, start here.

Pumble, if price is the main thing

Pumble’s free plan has unlimited users and unlimited message history, as of September 2026, which is more than Slack’s free plan gives you. Pro is $2.49 billed yearly, or $2.99 monthly. Cheap.

We know Pumble less well than the others here, so we’ll stick to what’s on its pricing page rather than guess at the rest. If what you want is Slack-style channels with full history for as little as possible, it’s the obvious one to try first.

Who’s it for? Teams watching every pound who want familiar chat and are happy keeping tasks somewhere else.

Chanty, if you want a small board with your chat

As of September 2026, Chanty is free for up to 5 users, and its Business plan is $3 yearly or $4 monthly. Business includes Kanban boards, so you get a simple task board next to your chat. For a four-person bakery wanting a chat and a board of orders, the free plan could be all you need. Past five people, you’re paying.

Zoho Cliq, if you’re already on Zoho

Zoho Cliq has a free plan. It includes 10,000 searchable messages, as of September 2026. Its real case is for businesses already using Zoho’s other apps, such as Zoho CRM or Zoho Books, where having chat from the same company keeps accounts and logins in one place. If you’re not a Zoho business, we can’t see a strong reason to start with Cliq.

Discord, which we wouldn’t

Discord is free and good for communities and gaming groups. It isn’t built for business admin, though, and when the person who set up your server leaves the company with their personal account, you’ll wish you’d paid a few quid a head for something else.

Klusko, if tasks keep getting lost in chat

Klusko is chat and tasks in one app. The chat side has public and private channels, DMs, threads, @mentions, reactions, file sharing and online dots. The task side has projects with Board, List, Table, Calendar and Workload views, recurring tasks and templates. When you mention a task in a message it becomes a live link, so the thing you agreed in chat and the thing on the board are the same thing. The team chat page shows how that works.

The free plan covers up to 10 people and 5 projects, with full chat history (we never hide old messages) and 2 GB of storage in total. Team is £5 per person billed yearly, or £6 monthly, which is about $7 or $8. Right now every plan is free while billing hasn’t launched, and we’ll give at least 30 days’ notice before charging anything.

There’s no voice or video calling, and no integrations or API. There’s no Android app either, and the iPhone app is in testing and not on the App Store yet. So if you’re replacing Slack because of huddles, look at Teams or Google Chat instead. If you’re replacing Slack and a task app together, we’ve put the two side by side in Klusko vs Slack.

It’s for teams of roughly 3 to 50 who pay for chat and a task tool separately and would rather pay for one.

Slack alternatives for small business, priced side by side

All prices are per user per month, as of September 2026, in US dollars except Klusko.

“Not covered here” means we didn’t check it, not that the feature is missing.

If you’re swapping one app for another, count the apps you’ll still be paying for afterwards. A cheaper chat tool plus the same task tool is still two bills, which is the argument we make at more length in too many apps for a small business. And if you want to see how chat fits into the rest of running a team, the team communication page is a reasonable next stop.

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