Team chat · alternatives

Microsoft Teams alternatives: chat-first options for a small company, with prices

Zohaib KhalidPrices checked between 6 October 2026 and 9 October 2026

Teams is the chat most small companies inherit with Microsoft 365, and the reason to look elsewhere is rarely the price: Essentials is $4 per user a month. It is that the chat is built around meetings and the Microsoft 365 tenant, so a company that is not on Microsoft 365, or that wants chat to sit next to its projects and files rather than next to Outlook, ends up with a second tool anyway. The options below are chat first. Each is listed with its vendor’s published price, and the rows Teams wins — meetings for 300 people, the Office bundle — are left in.

See the shortlist Orbiz vs Microsoft Teams, head to head

Why teams look past Microsoft Teams

Usually pricing and packaging, not the product

Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s chat, meetings and calling app, sold on its own as Teams Essentials or inside Microsoft 365. The reasons a team shops around are almost always about how it is sold.

Teams is sold per user: Essentials at $4 a month paid yearly, or inside a Microsoft 365 Business plan.
The chat is organised as teams within one Microsoft 365 tenant, with the admin centre that implies.
Meetings, calling and the Office apps are the product; chat is the part you get with them.
The free version is built for personal use and communities, with meetings capped at 60 minutes.

The shortlist

7 options, including Microsoft Teams and Orbiz

Published prices from each vendor's page. Orbiz is one row, not the answer — the last column says when each one is the better pick.

Swipe sideways to see every column

Microsoft Teams and its alternatives compared on price, free tier and best fit
Product	Small-team price	Free tier	Why it is on the list
Orbiz HuddlTeam chat · one of ten tools on the platform	No per-user price. One flat fee per organisation for all ten tools and unlimited members, from $99 a month billed annually.	No free plan; a working organisation to evaluate before any commitment.	Chat for every member with no seat, guests who see one channel, several huddls per organisation, and the projects, files and payroll on the same login.
Microsoft TeamsPer user per month, paid yearly; also bundled in Microsoft 365 Business plans.	Teams Essentials: $4.00 per user a month, paid yearly.	A free version of Teams for personal use and communities: chat with anyone by email or phone number, and meetings of up to 60 minutes.	The incumbent. Best for: Organisations already on Microsoft 365, or that want meetings and chat from one vendor.
SlackPer user per month; free tier; Enterprise+ by quote.	Pro: $7.25 per user a month billed annually, $8.75 billed monthly. Business+: $15 billed annually, $18 monthly.	Free: 90 days of message history, 10 app integrations, 1:1 huddles and 1:1 external messages.	The reference team chat when meetings are not the point: channels, threads, huddles for calls and the largest app directory.
Google ChatPer user per month as part of Google Workspace; no chat-only plan.	Business Starter: $7 per user a month on an annual plan ($6.30 for the first 12 months on the first 20 users). Business Standard: $14.	No free plan for organisations; Chat is included in every Workspace plan.	The equivalent move for a company on Google Workspace rather than Microsoft 365 — chat and Meet with no second bill.
PumblePer seat per month; a free plan with no seat limit.	Pro: $2.49 per seat a month billed annually, $2.99 monthly. Business: $3.99 annually, $4.99 monthly. Enterprise: $6.99 annually, $7.99 monthly.	Free: unlimited users, unlimited message history, unlimited channels, 10 GB of storage for the workspace.	A free plan with unlimited history and no seat limit, and a paid seat below the Teams Essentials price.
ZulipPer user per month on Zulip Cloud; self-hosted plans per user with the software itself free and open source.	Cloud Standard: $6.67 per user a month billed annually, $8 monthly. Cloud Plus: $10 annually, $12 monthly, ten-user minimum. Self-hosted Business: $6.67 annually, $8 monthly, 25-user minimum.	Cloud Free: 10,000 messages of search history and 5 GB of storage. Self-hosting the open-source server is free; mobile notifications for up to ten users without a plan.	Topic-threaded channels that stay readable, open source, hosted or on your own server.
MattermostAnnual seat subscriptions for Professional and Enterprise; no price is published, sales quote only.	Professional and Enterprise: no price is published; contact sales.	A free, limited-use edition for technical evaluation, plus the open-source Team Edition to self-host.	Self-hosted chat with incident playbooks, for engineering teams that cannot put conversations in a vendor’s cloud.

Vendor prices are US list prices in USD as published on each vendor's own pricing page between 6 October 2026 and 9 October 2026, annual billing where the vendor offers it, without first-year promotions. Each product name links to that page. Vendors change prices; if a figure here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it. Orbiz prices are on the pricing page, one flat figure per organisation by headcount band.

Orbiz Huddl

What Huddl covers — and what Microsoft Teams does that it does not

What Orbiz Huddl does for a team leaving Microsoft Teams, and the two things Microsoft Teams does that it does not. Keep both in view when you decide.

Included in Huddl

Public and private channels, group and one-to-one direct messages, threads, reactions, pins and saved messages
Several huddls per organisation — one for the company, one per client or project — each with its own channels
Guests invited by email who see only the huddls and channels they were added to, at no charge
Files with inline previews, search across every conversation you belong to, per-channel notification levels and do-not-disturb

Everything Huddl does

Where Microsoft Teams is ahead

Meetings and calls for up to 300 people, built into the same app as chat
The Microsoft 365 bundle — Outlook, Word, Excel and SharePoint beside the chat

If either of those is the reason you use Microsoft Teams, keep it. The case for Orbiz is the platform around the tool, not a longer feature list.

FAQ

Questions about leaving Microsoft Teams

Is there a free alternative to Microsoft Teams for a small business?

Pumble’s free plan keeps unlimited message history with no seat limit, and Zulip’s free cloud plan keeps 10,000 messages of search history. Microsoft’s own free version of Teams is built for personal use and communities. Orbiz has no free plan: Huddl is included for every member in one flat price per organisation.

Can Huddl replace Teams for a company on Microsoft 365?

For chat, yes: channels, direct messages, threads, guests, files and search. It does not run meetings or calls, and it is not part of the Microsoft 365 bundle, so a company that lives in Teams meetings keeps Teams for those and moves the day-to-day conversation to where its projects and files are.

What does Huddl cost compared with Teams Essentials?

Teams Essentials is $4 per user a month paid yearly, so 20 people are $960 a year for chat and meetings. Huddl has no price of its own: it is one of the ten tools in the Orbiz flat price per organisation, $2,388 a year for up to 25 people on annual billing, with unlimited members and guests.

Other alternatives pages

Leaving Microsoft Teams? Price the whole stack instead.

Tell us your team size and the tools you pay for today. You get one flat figure that covers all nine Orbiz tools, and a working organisation to try.