When is Loom the better choice?

You need to record screen-and-camera updates instead of holding meetings. You want transcriptions, captions, comments, and viewer insights on free video posts. Your team is small enough that 50 workspace members and 25 videos per person is enough. You mostly share walkthroughs, demos, or async status updates inside Slack, Jira, Notion, or Gmail. You can live with 5-minute recordings and 720p video on the free tier.

When is Slack the better choice?

You need a shared workspace for team messaging rather than just video updates. You want channels, huddles, and ongoing collaboration in one place. Your team needs recent conversation history and can work within a 90-day limit for now. You rely on a small set of apps and can stay under the 10-app integration cap. You expect to outgrow the free tier because Slack is becoming the team’s main operating layer, not just a communication add-on.

Loom vs Slack: Free Tier Comparison

Q: How much does Loom cost after the free tier?

Business - $18 per user / month. Loom has clear per-seat pricing after free: Business at $18/user/month, Business + AI at $24/user/month, then Enterprise by sales. That means costs rise linearly with seats. Slack’s first paid plan is Pro. For small teams, Loom’s paid cost is transparent and easy to forecast; Slack’s post-free cost cannot be pinned down.

Q: How much does Slack cost after the free tier?

Pro - Contact sales / pricing page. Loom has clear per-seat pricing after free: Business at $18/user/month, Business + AI at $24/user/month, then Enterprise by sales. That means costs rise linearly with seats. Slack’s first paid plan is Pro. For small teams, Loom’s paid cost is transparent and easy to forecast; Slack’s post-free cost cannot be pinned down.

Quick answer

Slack - Slack wins for most builders because its free tier is more useful as a day-to-day workspace for ongoing team coordination, while Loom is better only if your main job is sending recorded updates.

How the free tiers compare

These free tiers solve different problems. Loom is a lightweight video messaging tool with clear caps on recording length, videos per person, and workspace size, but it gives you a strong set of sharing and review features even before you pay: captions, transcriptions, comments, viewer insights, and lots of integrations. Slack is narrower on the free side but more foundational for team communication, with message history, huddles, Clips, and a familiar channel-based workspace. The tradeoff is that Slack’s free tier is constrained by 90-day history, 30-minute 1:1 huddles, and a 10-app limit, so it becomes less useful as your org’s source of truth. Loom’s paid path is clearly priced per seat. Slack’s post-free cost is less transparent.

Loom vs Slack free tier, side by side

	LoomFTV 46	SlackFTV 48
Workspace membersLoom publishes a member cap.	Up to 50	Not stated
Videos / recordings per personSlack free tier is not structured around per-user video quotas.	Up to 25 videos per person	Not stated
Recording or huddle lengthThese are different product limits, so they are not directly comparable.	5-minute screen recordings per video	1:1 huddles up to 30 minutes
History retentionSlack’s free tier clearly limits searchable history.	Not stated	90-day message history
IntegrationsLoom lists specific integrations; Slack gives a hard app cap on free.	Slack, Jira, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, GitHub, Gmail, Upwork, FigJam, Notion, Intercom, Zendesk, Dropbox, GitLab, and more embed integrations	10 apps
Video qualityOnly Loom provides a free-tier video quality limit.	Up to 720p	Not stated

After you outgrow the free tier

Loom has clear per-seat pricing after free: Business at $18/user/month, Business + AI at $24/user/month, then Enterprise by sales. That means costs rise linearly with seats. Slack’s first paid plan is Pro. For small teams, Loom’s paid cost is transparent and easy to forecast; Slack’s post-free cost cannot be pinned down.

Loom next stepBusiness - $18 per user / monthPer seat

Slack next stepPro - Contact sales / pricing pageContact sales

Cost at real usage

Usage	Loom	Slack
5 seats	$90/mo	Contact sales / varies by usage
10 seatsLoom Business + AI would be $240/mo at 10 seats, but Business is the first paid tier.	$180/mo	Contact sales / varies by usage
25 seats	$450/mo	Contact sales / varies by usage

Estimates, not quotes. Usage-based rates change - verify with the vendor's pricing page before committing.

When to pick each one

Pick Loom when…

You need to record screen-and-camera updates instead of holding meetings.
You want transcriptions, captions, comments, and viewer insights on free video posts.
Your team is small enough that 50 workspace members and 25 videos per person is enough.
You mostly share walkthroughs, demos, or async status updates inside Slack, Jira, Notion, or Gmail.
You can live with 5-minute recordings and 720p video on the free tier.

Pick Slack when…

You need a shared workspace for team messaging rather than just video updates.
You want channels, huddles, and ongoing collaboration in one place.
Your team needs recent conversation history and can work within a 90-day limit for now.
You rely on a small set of apps and can stay under the 10-app integration cap.
You expect to outgrow the free tier because Slack is becoming the team’s main operating layer, not just a communication add-on.

Bottom line

For the most common builder use case, Slack is the better free-tier pick because it works as the team’s everyday coordination layer, even if the free plan has a 90-day history limit and a 10-app cap. Loom is the better choice only when your main need is async video communication and lightweight review. If you are choosing one free tier to grow into, Slack is usually the broader foundation. If you are choosing a tool for recorded updates, Loom is more focused.

Read the full listings: Loom and Slack. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.