Yes — Zulip has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes 10,000 messages of search history and File storage up to 5 GB total. FreeTier.co estimates the free tier at about $3.00/mo, and no credit card is required to sign up.
About
Zulip is an organized team chat platform with topic-based threading, channels, direct messages, and searchable message history. It is available as a hosted cloud service and as self-hosted open-source software, with web, desktop, mobile, and terminal clients.
The free cloud plan includes 10,000 messages of search history and up to 5 GB total file storage. The self-hosted free plan includes the complete team chat feature set, with mobile notifications limited to up to 10 users for most organizations and unlimited notifications for eligible community organizations.
- Topic-based threaded conversations
- 10,000-message cloud search history
- 5 GB total cloud file storage
- Web, desktop, mobile, terminal apps
- Open-source self-hosted deployment
- Guest accounts and integrations
Free Tier Value
This free tier is a genuinely usable capped plan rather than a trial: it includes core chat features, integrations, guest accounts, and a modest amount of search and storage, but it stops short of the paid plans’ unlimited history and per-user storage. Compared with the cheapest paid option at $3.50/user/month, it feels like roughly 85% of that practical value, so about $3/month. A credit card is not required, which keeps the friction low.
What's included in the free tier
- 10,000 messages of search history
- File storage up to 5 GB total
- Complete team chat solution
- Hundreds of integrations
- Advanced roles and permissions
- Guest accounts
- Eligible organizations may receive a free Standard plan
See Zulip pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Standard
- search history
- unlimited
- file storage
- 5 GB per user
- Unlimited search history
- File storage up to 5 GB per user
- Flexible permissions with custom groups
- Message retention policies
- Brand Zulip with your logo
- Priority commercial support
- Public access option
Plus
- minimum users
- 10
- file storage
- 25 GB per user
- All Standard plan features
- File storage up to 25 GB per user
- SSO with SAML
- SCIM user and group sync
- Custom domain
- Limit user list access for guests
- Priority commercial support
Basic
- mobile notifications
- unlimited
- Complete team chat solution with all Zulip features included
- Unlimited mobile notifications
- Support Zulip's open-source development
- 85+% discount for non-workplace users
- $20/month off for the first year
Business
- minimum users
- 25
- mobile notifications
- unlimited
- Complete team chat solution with all Zulip features included
- Unlimited mobile notifications
- Email and chat support
- SSO with SAML and Microsoft Entra ID
- AD/LDAP user sync
- Guests with configurable access
- Full and compliance data exports
- Data retention policies
Enterprise
- mobile notifications
- unlimited
- Complete team chat solution with all Zulip features included
- Unlimited mobile notifications
- Email, chat and phone support
- SSO with OpenID Connect
- AD/LDAP, SAML and OpenID Connect group sync
- SCIM user and group sync
- Implementation consulting
- Custom feature development
Pricing extracted from Zulip's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Zulip free forever?
Yes. Zulip has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
Does Zulip require a credit card?
No. You can start on Zulip's free tier without entering card details.
What happens when you exceed Zulip's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. Zulip's cheapest paid plan is Basic at $3.5 / seat / month.
What is Zulip's free tier worth?
We estimate Zulip's free tier is worth about $3.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 54/100. See freetier.co/ftv for how we calculate it.
