Product

• Where can I learn more about how to use Slack?

  The best way to find out if Slack is right for your team is to try it together. Our Free plan has all the features you need to get the full experience.

  You can also watch our product videos, which will show you how to get your team set up and provide useful tips for working together in Slack.

• How does your pricing compare to other similar software?

  There are several tools out there that focus on a single workplace challenge — like task management, 1:1 messaging, group chat, knowledge management, and others. We don’t consider any of these competitors.

  We built Slack for the modern team that needs to address several of these challenges in one place, together, in a way that just works. Just like companies have invested in departmental software (e.g. sales, marketing, customer services, etc.) over the years, we believe that this kind of software is worthy of a greater investment because great team communication is the foundation for success at every company, big or small.

  Doing the math, Slack is 22 cents a day (for a user on our Standard plan). For the money you spend on buying just one employee a chair, a desk, and a laptop, you could have Slack for 30 years!

Getting Started

We want you to have the best and most productive Slack experience possible. Visit our Getting Started page for a complete overview of resources or see some highlights below.

• Here’s a set of detailed guides for Admins and Users to help you get the most out of Slack.
• Check out our blog, where we offer plenty of tips and tricks or go straight to 11 Tips to Get the Most Out of Slack
• See how other teams are using Slack and read what they think about us
• We’ve built a Help Center where you can browse a wide range of questions from Basics to Administration
• Follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop about new features, service updates, and more
• Last but not least, we’re always here to help. If you have questions, contact us at [email protected]

Security & Privacy

• Where can I get more details about your security practices?

  You can find an overview here — https://slack.com/security.

• Can you describe your storage architecture?

  All Slack customer data is hosted on multi-master sharded databases so that there are no interruptions to service in the event of a single server outage. Hot spares of all our infrastructure components are running and available to be brought into rotation at all times. Our real-time messaging infrastructure is designed to move customers across servers without interruption for maintenance.

• How is data protected within Slack?

  All data transfer is encrypted — whether users are at their computer or on their phone, absolutely nothing goes over the network without encryption. Slack uses 256-bit AES, supports TLS 1.2 for all of your messages, and uses the ECDHE_RSA Key Exchange Algorithm. We monitor the security community’s output closely and work promptly to upgrade the service to respond to new vulnerabilities as they are discovered.

• What type of security testing have you conducted within the last 12 months?

  We perform security testing every quarter, which encompasses both external network penetration and web application penetration testing. All findings are reported to management, and issues are resolved by our engineering team when needed.

  • Application penetration testing is conducted by iSEC Partners and Bishop Fox (IT security firms), and reports are prepared quarterly.
  • Additionally, we have weekly scans performed by an external firm and an ongoing Bug Bounty program with the whitehat community through HackerOne.

• Where are your data centers hosted?

  Our servers are located in Amazon’s AWS data centers, specifically AWS us‑east‑1, Virginia, and AWS us‑west‑2, Oregon. AWS has devoted an entire portion of their site to explaining their security measures, which you can find here: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/

• What is Slack’s approach to data privacy?

  Everything you post to Slack is private to your team. We are custodians of data on the behalf of teams that use Slack; each team owns its communication data. Teams can set their own policies for message retention and administrators can adjust these settings to suit their specific needs. You can find our privacy policy here along with a set of frequently asked questions.

Legal

• Where can I find your Terms of Service (TOS)?

  You can find them at https://slack.com/terms-of-service.

• Will you modify certain parts of your TOS (e.g. Limitation of Liability, Indemnification) to meet our internal legal standards?

  We designed our TOS to be industry-standard so that it meets the needs of all types of companies. Our TOS are happily being used by a wide range of our customers, both big and small. So we prefer to keep it standardized to be fair to all types of customers who use Slack. If our TOS don’t meet your needs, please contact us and we’d be happy to help.

• What type of Service Level Agreements (SLA) do you offer?

  We offer teams using our Plus plan an SLA that guarantees 99.99% monthly uptime. If we don’t meet this guarantee, we’ll refund you 100x whatever you paid Slack for that period of downtime. You can get more details here and also check on Slack’s uptime status.

Billing & Invoicing

Visit our Guide to billing at Slack, or read some of the most common questions we get about billing and invoicing right here.

• Can I use Slack for free?

  Yes, you can use Slack for free. Your search archive will be limited to your team’s 10,000 most recent messages and you’ll be limited to 10 service integrations.

• Our team has several accounts which are not being actively used, but which we don’t want to disable. Do we still have to pay for them?

  Every day we check to see if everyone on your team is active. If they have been inactive for a period of time, we stop charging you for that person and add a prorated credit to your account for the time you’ve already paid. You’ll always and only be billed for what you use — fair and square!

• My team has credits. How do we use them?

  Once your team signs up for a subscription plan, we’ll draw against your credit balance until it runs out. Only then will we start charging your subscription to your credit card. As long as you sign up for a subscription plan before the expiration date, those credits are yours to use until they’re all gone.

• We need to add new users to our team. How will that be billed?

  We’ll make a one-time, prorated charge to your credit card to cover your new team member’s account for the remainder of the current billing period.

  As an example, suppose your team is on the “Standard plan,” which costs $8 per active user per month when billed monthly. You add a new team member 10 days into your billing period and there are 20 remaining days in the month. The per-day cost for each user is $8 / 30, so we will make a one-time charge of $5.33 ($8 / 30 days * 20 days) to your team’s credit card on file.

• My team wants to cancel its subscription. How do we do that? Can we get a refund?

  Team Owners can change the team’s subscription level. There are two options when downgrading from a paid plan to the Free plan:

  • You can downgrade to the Free plan immediately. If there is more than one day until your renewal date, we will prorate the remaining balance on your account and hold it for your team as a credit. You can use that credit towards a reactivation of your paid subscription in the future.
  • We can automatically downgrade you to the Free plan at your next renewal date. Your subscription will remain active at its current level through the end of the billing period that you’ve already paid for.

  We do not offer refunds.

• What are my payment options - credit card and/or invoicing?

  You can use your credit card to pay for any plan. If you sign up for an Annual subscription and plan to spend at least $10K, we can invoice you annually. Contact us to start the process.

• My team is a nonprofit organization. Is there special Slack pricing available for nonprofits or charitable organizations?

  Yes, we offer special pricing for qualified nonprofit organizations through our Slack for Nonprofits program.

• My team is an educational institution/student group. Is there special Slack pricing available?

  Yes, we offer special pricing for qualified educational institutions and student groups through our Slack for Education program.