Slack AI for small teams without an Enterprise plan
You do not need Enterprise. Slack includes channel and thread summaries and huddle notes in its Pro plan, and adds Slackbot, recaps and AI search in Business+. The Free plan has no Slack AI features beyond a limited Slackbot trial, but it can add up to 10 third-party apps, so a small team can add an assistant such as Cole, from Pocodot, on any plan and pay for it by usage rather than per seat.
What each Slack plan includes
Slack stopped selling its separate Slack AI add-on on its website in June 2025 and moved AI features into its paid plans. Here is what Slack's pricing page and help center list today, in US dollars per user per month.
| Slack plan | Price | Slack's own AI | Limits that matter for a small team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | None in the plan; a limited Slackbot trial. | Messages and files from the last 90 days only; up to 10 third-party or custom apps. |
| Pro | $8.75 monthly, or $7.25 a month billed yearly | Channel and thread summaries, huddle notes, and AI assistant apps from other companies. | Slackbot only as a trial or preview. |
| Business+ | $18 monthly, or $15 a month billed yearly | Everything in Pro, plus Slackbot, recaps, file summaries, translations and AI search. | Slackbot: 15 messages per member per week. |
| Enterprise+ | Through Slack's sales team | Everything above, plus enterprise search. | Built for large organizations. |
Agentforce, Salesforce's agent product, works in Slack on every plan, but it needs a Salesforce Agentforce license. Slack shows introductory discounts on Pro and Business+ from time to time; check its pricing page for today's price.
An assistant app on any Slack plan
If your team is on Free or Pro and wants an assistant that does more than summarize, you can add a third-party app. Cole is one: it lives in your Slack workspace, in channels and in direct messages, and on Slack's Free plan it counts as one of the 10 apps a free workspace can add.
- Ask it in a channel. Mention @Cole with a question or a task, and anyone in the channel sees the answer.
- Catch up on a channel. Ask Cole to sum up a channel it has been added to. When asked, it reads up to 500 messages from the last 30 days. On Slack's Free plan, Slack only shows the last 90 days anyway.
- Sum up a thread. Ask Cole in a reply inside a thread, and it reads up to 20 earlier messages of that thread to answer.
- Do the follow-up. Once you connect Gmail, Google Calendar or Outlook, Cole drafts the email and puts the meeting on your calendar, and asks before anything goes out in your name.
What Cole keeps from Slack
- Top-level channel messages that are not addressed to Cole are not kept.
- Threads are different. The first time someone asks Cole in a reply inside a thread, Cole saves up to 20 earlier messages of that thread with the thread's conversation, whoever wrote them: their text (up to 4,000 characters each) and a note of any files. The messages people send Cole and its answers are kept there too.
- Channel catch-ups happen only when someone asks. Cole's answer is kept with that conversation like any other answer.
Cole reads a direct message only for someone in it.
Pocodot plans are priced by credits for the whole workspace, not per Slack seat: free to start with 150 one-time credits, then from $19 a month for 2,000 credits. Setup: how to set up an AI assistant on Slack.
We make Cole. What this page says about Slack comes from Slack's own pricing page and help center, listed under Sources.
Which to choose
- You only want summaries of channels and huddles: Slack Pro includes them for every member.
- You want Slackbot and AI search across your workspace: that is Business+.
- You are on Free, or want an assistant that also drafts email, puts meetings on your calendar and works in WhatsApp or Telegram: add an assistant app such as Cole.
Honest limits
- Cole does not replace Slack search: it reads a channel when asked, up to 500 messages from the last 30 days, not your whole archive.
- Cole has to be added to a channel before it can read it.
- On Slack's Free plan, Cole takes one of the 10 app slots.
- Every answer uses Pocodot credits, and connected email and calendar are the asker's own accounts.
- Thread messages Cole saves are kept as written, including from people who did not ask Cole anything.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Slack, Slack pricing plans (US prices), read 20 October 2026.
- Slack Help Center, Updates to feature availability and pricing for Slack plans, read 20 October 2026.
- Slack Help Center, Slackbot limits and credit usage, read 20 October 2026.
- Slack Help Center, Usage limits for free workspaces, read 20 October 2026.
- Slack Help Center, Set up and manage Agentforce in Slack, read 20 October 2026.
- Cole: how Cole works in group chats and Slack channels, Cole on Slack and pricing. What this page says about Cole was checked against Pocodot's own code on 20 October 2026.
- Features, prices and availability change. Check each company's own page for your country before you decide.