Team collaboration tools are widely available and extremely varied, but there’s always room for one tool that works better than all the rest because, let’s face it, email and other chat systems can be really confusing.

If you currently have team members using a multitude of different chat apps and still stuck on using email systems, Slack might be the tool that you’re looking for.

How Slack is Different

The last thing that you may want is another team collaboration tool, right? Well, Slack promises to be unique. First, this tool integrates with a number of other tools including GitHub, Twitter, and Dropbox (to really just name a few).

The other great thing about Slack is that it really eliminates the need for emails between team members, which can get really bogged down by emails from clients and attachments - speaking of attachments, you can send things like photos, documents, and videos right inside of your Slack chat, so you don’t have to send any of these things via email any longer.

It’s also possible to have a conversation with someone one-on-one, or to add selected team members to a chat. For example, if you have to discuss a particular project that just a few people are a part of, you can add those people to the app and drag things from programs like Dropbox or GitHub into the chat, so that everyone can look at the same thing and comment on that item directly in the chat window.

User-Friendliness

Slack is also really easy to use because it comes with a handy little character called “Slackbot” that will take you through the entire system. Once you have listened to what Slackbot has to say, you can start chatting and adding people to your chats right away. Since this tool launched, it has been picked up by teams in the know, and many teams are entirely reliant on Slack already - it’s proven to be a much better way to communicate with team members than any other tool available thus far, so it’s clear to see why Slack is so popular.

Uploading files is as easy as hitting the “+” sign in the top righthand corner, and everyone that’s part of a chat can discuss a file directly in the chat window - which is clearly and nicely designed, by the way. If you are searching for a collaboration tool that’s much easier to use with all your team members than any other chat or email program, Slack is the way to go.

How to Sign Up and Costs

Right now, Slack is free to use, but you do have to sign up for the tool via the Slack website. The Lite version of Slack is free and will remain free (capping your storage at 5GB), the Standard version will cost $9 per month (10GB storage), and the Plus version will cost $20 per month (20GB storage). Slack doesn’t erase anything for you, so you will have to erase stuff as you go along depending on your user level and membership choice.

The thought of adding another collaboration tool to your team might sound exhausting (I get it), but Slack really is unique. If you give this one a try, you will find out why Slack has quickly become the definitive tool to use across crowded offices and amongst startups since it was released.