Slack price increase: is it still worth it for your team?
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You just opened your Slack invoice and the per-seat price for Business+ jumped from $12.50 to $15 per user/month, a 20% increase. Now you're wondering whether the features your team actually uses still justify that bill, or whether it's time to look at what's on Pro or elsewhere. Nobody enjoys re-evaluating a tool that already works, but a price hike like this is a natural point to check.
Sound familiar?
- Your Slack billing page now shows $15 per user/month for Business+ instead of the previous $12.50
- You're checking whether your team's actual usage needs Business+ features or could run on Pro at $7.25 per user/month billed annually
- Finance or team leads are asking why the Slack line item went up before the next renewal
- You're comparing whether some team members could move to a cheaper plan while others keep Business+
The facts
- Slack Business+: $12.50 → $15 per user/month (+20%)
- Slack Pro (unchanged): $7.25 per user/month billed annually
- Mattermost is open source and can be self-hosted
Decision guide
- If Your team rarely uses any feature that is exclusive to Business+ and mainly needs core messaging and basic integrations. → Downgrade to Slack Pro at $7.25 per user/month billed annually.
- If Your team actively depends on Business+-specific features and switching would disrupt daily work. → Stay on Slack Business+ at $15 per user/month, accepting the price increase from $12.50.
- If You have the technical staff and appetite to run your own chat infrastructure instead of paying per-seat cloud fees. → Evaluate self-hosting with Mattermost, which is open source and can be self-hosted.
- If Different teams or departments in your organization have clearly different needs — some rely on Business+ features, others don't. → Split the team between Slack Pro and Slack Business+, assigning each group to the plan that matches its actual usage.
- If You're unsure which features your team actually uses on Business+ today. → Audit current usage first, then choose between staying on Slack Business+ or downgrading to Slack Pro at $7.25 per user/month billed annually based on what you find.
Recommended tools for this situation
Migration checklist
- Export your Slack message history, files, and channel data before making any changes, since this data can be lost once a plan or tool is switched.
- List which Business+ features (e.g. advanced admin controls or compliance exports) your team actually uses, and compare that against Slack Pro at $7.25 per user/month billed annually or the Business+ price of $15 per user/month.
- If a self-hosted option is relevant, set up a Mattermost instance, since Mattermost is open source and can be self-hosted, and test it with a small pilot group.
- Invite the full team to the chosen new setup (downgraded Slack plan or Mattermost) and document any workflows or integrations that need to be rebuilt.
- Run the old and new setup in parallel for a limited period, keeping Slack active while the team gets comfortable with the new plan or tool.
- Migrate remaining channels, integrations, and pinned files fully to the new setup once the team confirms it covers daily needs.
- Check your Slack renewal date and cancel or downgrade the old subscription before it renews — this is the point of no return, so confirm the migration is complete first.
Common objections
Is the Slack price increase big enough to justify switching tools?
Only you can decide that, but start by checking whether your team actually uses Business+-only features — Slack Pro stayed at $7.25 per user/month billed annually while Business+ moved from $12.50 to $15 per user/month (+20%). If nobody touches the extra features, downgrading might solve the problem without any migration at all.
Will we lose our message history if we move off Slack?
Any migration carries some risk to history, threads, and integrations, and that's true regardless of which tool you move to. Before committing, run a small pilot with one team or channel and export your data first, so you can judge the real effort before a full switch.
Can we go back to Slack if the new tool doesn't work out?
Yes — Slack Pro remains available at $7.25 per user/month billed annually, so downgrading or returning to Slack is still an option if a switch doesn't pan out. Keep that fallback in mind especially during an early pilot phase, before you've fully committed a whole team.
Is Mattermost actually free, or does self-hosting just move the cost elsewhere?
Mattermost is open source and can be self-hosted, which avoids Slack's per-seat cloud pricing model — but running your own infrastructure still takes engineering time, servers, and maintenance. Whether that trade-off is worth it depends on whether your team already has the ops capacity to support it.
Should we just downgrade to Slack Pro instead of switching tools entirely?
That's often the least disruptive option, since Pro is unchanged at $7.25 per user/month billed annually while Business+ rose to $15. Compare that against what you'd actually lose by dropping Business+-only features before ruling switching in or out.
We're seeing 'switching from Slack to Teams' come up — is that a shortcut worth taking?
That phrase shows up a lot right now, but we don't have verified pricing or feature facts on Teams to compare fairly, so treat it the same as any other option: check what your team actually needs, not just what's trending. The same evaluation criteria — cost, feature use, and migration risk — apply no matter which tool you're considering.
