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Slack vs Basecamp – Features, Pricing, and Integrations Comparison

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Eric Vardon
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Managing teams, deadlines, and client projects are enough to make your hair fall out.

There’s no shortage of things to review, edit, and approve. 

It seems like you can never get back to work that matters, right?

And, if you miss major deadlines, you’ll slow growth and irritate clients.

A report from LiquidPlanner found that handling project costs, deadlines, and sharing information to be the top three struggles. 

Unless, of course, you have project management tools.

There’s already two on your mind: Slack and Basecamp.

Both of these streamline communication and speed up achieving project goals.

You get more work done in less time, save headaches, and prevent needless back-and-forth. Doesn’t that sound nice?

Great.

Because today I’m doing a Slack vs Basecamp comparison to see how they measure toe-to-toe.

Let’s dive in!

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Slack features

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of or used Slack. It’s practically mandatory these days.

The tool hit an impressive eight million daily active users in 2018 and continues to grow.

It’s a project management and communication tool that ensures everyone is on the same page within a company. 

No more juggling tools and checking emails for hours every day.

Slack is very well received by its customers as you can see from this Capterra review:

Oh, and that’s just one of 17,589 reviews creating a 4.6/5 rating. Not too shabby.

But, let’s get one thing straight: Slack excels in communication. After all, you need good communication to complete projects and meet deadlines.

Basecamp, on the other hand, is more for project management. Nonetheless, they have a lot of similarities I will be covering.

One of the first features of Slack is the ability to create communication channels. They look like this:

Channels for different groups, teams, and projects are found on the left sidebar. You can use these to send direct messages, share files, and join in on conversations.

Similarly, there are audio and video calls for meetings, demos, and onboarding. Basecamp doesn’t have this, though.  

The UI and overall user experience are seamless. It’s a very simple tool to pick up and learn. 

There’s even a Slack mobile app you can download for iOS and Android to keep notified on-the-go.

And, let me ask you this: have you ever scrambled to find an old email or file? You might need it for a new project or something. Yeah, we’ve all been there.

Luckily, Slack has a search history feature that allows you to find any conversation, file, or message in the snap of a finger. 

Last, but not least, their workflow automation tool is really cool, as well. Who would’ve thought about automating communication?

We automate marketing, advertising, and everything in between. Why not conversations?

Workflows can automatically do tasks like:

  • Update new team members with resources, steps, and information.
  • Provide users with FAQs and required documents.
  • Ask channels specific questions on a set basis.
  • Etc.

Skip the back and forth. Creating a workflow in a few minutes can save hours or more of time in the long term for everybody.

Slack gives you templates that you can directly import, too:

It doesn’t get easier than that.

That brings me to Slack’s pricing.

Slack pricing

What’s the cost of Slack? Firstly, there’s a free version that offers:

  • 10,000 searchable messages
  • 10 apps and integrations
  • 1-to-1 video calls
  • Two-factor authentication

A.K.A you get all of the fundamental features. If the basics are all you need, sign up for a free account and give it a shot. You have nothing to lose.

If you need more features and limits, there are three other plans to choose from:

  • Standard: $6.67/month
  • Plus: $12.50/month
  • Enterprise Grid: Custom pricing

While Basecamp has a free version too (as you’ll see ahead), Slack’s paid packages won’t upset your piggy bank.

Thus, it’s best for freelancers, bootstrapping businesses, and personal projects.

The Plus package is good for large companies and Enterprise Gold is—you guessed it—for enterprises.

Slack integrations

Integrations are key. Without them, you’ll find yourself using many different tools at once which can do more bad than good. 

Thankfully, Slack has a giant list of apps and tools it integrates with to keep communication and workflow sharp as nails. 

They include:

  1. Google Calendar
  2. Google Drive
  3. Outlook
  4. Gmail
  5. Zoom
  6. Asana
  7. Salesforce
  8. Dropbox
  9. Office 365
  10. HubSpot
  11. And much, more more!

If you want to see the full list of integrations, check them out there.

Basecamp features

Next up, Basecamp.

As they put it, they’re not a project management tool, but “a better way to work.”

Sounds like Morphio!

They offer everything you need to stay organized, timely, and communicate better with fewer distractions.

Basecamp received a 4/5 star review on G2 across 4,336 reviews which are extremely impressive. 

Their platforms begins with a to-do list feature as you can see here:

Your to-do lists contain tasks, appointed members, and due dates. Say goodbye to writing down things on Notepad or scrap pieces of paper. 

These can be shared with anyone, as well. This makes others more accountable and responsible for their work.

Next is their scheduling feature. This allows users to schedule events via Outlook, Google Calendar, and other scheduling software. 

Because, let’s be real.

You have meetings and lots of ‘em.

Choose dates and times directly through Basecamp to create events your entire team has access to. They can join or decline right through the website, too.

Overall, it’s nothing too crazy. Nothing overly fancy. But, that’s what most brands need: a simple tool that boosts communication and productivity.

Then, of course, similar to Slack you have a message board where teams can talk about specific topics, share files, and search for previous conversations.

Also, have you ever had to ping team members over and over about deadlines and projects? You’ll love the automated check-ins, then.

This automates questions and messages on a regular basis to get updates without having to constantly type things yourself.

Additionally, Basecamp offers much more storage. And I mean a lot—500GB in total for a team.

Slack gives you:

  • 5GB on the free plan.
  • 10gb per user on the Standard plan.
  • 20gb per user on the Plus plan.

Let’s talk about how their pricing works next.

Basecamp pricing

Both Slack and Basecamp offer free versions. 

Basecamp Personal offers three projects, 20 users, and 1GB of storage. This is enough for small projects and getting a feel for the software, but upgrades will eventually be needed.

However, they do offer a 30 day free trial of the Business plan. Slack doesn’t do this.

As you can see from the image, their only paid plan comes in at a whopping $99/month. That is more than 10x more than Slack’s first paid plan!

However, you gain access to:

  1. Unlimited projects
  2. Unlimited users
  3. 500GB of storage
  4. Company HQ
  5. Team projects
  6. Unlimited client accounts
  7. Advanced client access features
  8. Project templates to save time
  9. Priority support to jump in front of the line

Basecamp integrations

Basecamp integrates with all of your favourite marketing, time management, accounting, and other types of tools.

These include Zapier, Zoho, Time Doctor, Klipfolio, and Proposify.

Contacts can be automatically imported into Basecamp for lead generation, support tickets can be answered, and more. The sky is the limit!

While there are many integrations, Slack takes the cake as they connect with much more.

Wrapping up Basecamp vs Slack

Alright. Let’s wrap up today’s comparison.

Slack is a project management and communication tool. Basecamp is, as well, but has a project and task focus.

Slack offers a free version with more features and limits compared to Basecamp. Although, Basecamp will give you a free 30 day trial of their Business plan.

Slack excels in the following areas: budget management, time and expense tracking, and giving users fundamental collaboration tools. It’s also much more affordable if you’re staying lean or bootstrapped.

Basecamp, on the flip side, has a client portal, customizable templates (Similar to Slack), and idea management. They also have a 24/7 customer support reps to help you out. 

Both tools have a variety of training, but Slack lacks webinars and Basecamp has no in-person training.

Based on this, I would recommend Slack for small businesses that are trying to stay bootstrapped while Basecamp is better for larger businesses (especially those serving individual clients). 

Morphio’s marketing security software integrates with Slack to give your team real-time updates of marketing optimizations and failures. Because, if you run any business, you do marketing. 

You also know that it’s very time consuming on top of managing teams and projects. Try Morphio today for free to see these features and how we integrate with Slack.

Eric Vardon Profile image

Eric Vardon

CEO, Co-Founder @ Morphio

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