Is Slack free, and what does the free plan limit?
Yes. Slack’s Free plan costs nothing, but you can only view and search the last 90 days of messages and files, and Slack deletes anything more than a year old.
What are the Slack free plan limits?
| What | On the Free plan | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Message and file history | You can view and search the last 90 days | Usage limits for free workspaces |
| Older messages and files | Slack deletes anything more than a year old, on a rolling basis since August 26, 2024 | Feature limitations on the free version of Slack |
| Apps | Up to 10 third-party or custom apps | Usage limits for free workspaces |
| Huddles | One-to-one only | Slack pricing |
| People outside your workspace | One-to-one messages only, with no shared channels | Slack pricing |
| Exports | Owners and admins can export public channels as JSON, with file links from the last 90 days only | Export your workspace data |
Which limits hit a community hardest?
The history limit does the most damage. A community answers the same questions for years, and on the Free plan an answer from March drops out of search by July. After a year Slack deletes it.
Paid plans charge per member. That suits a company paying for its staff, and it gets expensive for a volunteer community with hundreds of occasional readers.
Group calls and shared channels with other organizations also need a paid plan, because Free limits huddles and outside contacts to one-to-one.
Open-source communities have faced this too. The Kubernetes blog announced a move to Slack’s free plan with 90 days of history, alongside a CNCF post about workspace changes. Kubernetes later updated its post to say the downgrade would not happen.
What can a community on the free plan do?
Pay for Slack Pro or Business+
Pro costs $8.75 USD per user a month on monthly billing, or $7.25 billed yearly. Business+ costs $18, or $15 billed yearly. Slack bills only members who were active in the last 28 days, and upgrading shows hidden messages again if they are less than a year old.
Export the workspace
A workspace owner or admin can export public channels as a JSON file. On the Free plan the export links only to files from the last 90 days, and you have to run it again by hand to capture new messages.
Keep a searchable archive from today
Community Archives copies the channels you pick into a searchable archive from the day you connect, and members read it without a paid Slack seat. It can’t bring back messages Slack already hides. See how the Slack archive works.
Slack free plan questions
Does Slack delete messages after 90 days on the free plan?
Slack hides them after 90 days and deletes them after a year. On the free plan you can view and search the last 90 days of messages and files. Since August 26, 2024, Slack has been deleting messages and files more than a year old, and they cannot be restored.
Will upgrading Slack bring old messages back?
Partly. A paid plan shows hidden messages again if they are less than a year old. Messages Slack has already deleted cannot be restored.