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CompareVerified 2026-11-07

MemberPad vs Slack

Slack is built for a company, priced per employee and very good at what it was designed for. A community that grew up inside one eventually meets the same two walls: the free plan forgets everything after ninety days, and there is no way to charge a member for being there.

The short version

Choose Slack if

  • The chat itself is excellent and your people already know how it works. Channels, threads, huddles for spontaneous audio and video, clips, canvases and a search that actually finds things.2
  • You want it wired into everything else you run. Slack’s app directory and Workflow Builder connect to more software than anything in this comparison, and MemberPad has webhooks and an API rather than an ecosystem.2
  • Your community is really a working group. Ten people shipping something together are better served by Slack than by any membership platform, including ours.2
  • Nobody is paying and nobody ever will. The free plan costs nothing at any size, and its ninety day limit only hurts a community that wants a memory.1

It is a tie on

  • Both do real time chat properly, with replies, direct messages, group conversations and file sharing, and both run on the web, on phones and on the desktop.2
  • Both let whoever helps run the place have powers short of your own, and both keep the conversation in named rooms rather than one undifferentiated stream.2
  • Both are free to begin. Neither asks for a card to open something and see whether anybody turns up in it.1

Choose MemberPad if

  • You want to charge for it. Slack sells seats to you and has no way for a member to pay you at all, so monetizing a Slack community means bolting a separate payment tool onto the side and moderating access by hand.2
  • The price runs the wrong way. Slack charges per person, so every member who joins costs you more, where MemberPad charges nothing per member and takes a share only when one of them pays you.1
  • You want the answers to outlast the chat. Slack’s free plan keeps ninety days of searchable history, and older MemberPad chat expires too, but here the answer worth keeping has a permanent home: a post, a lesson, a file or a notebook.1
  • You teach, or you publish. There are no courses, no podcast hosting, no video library and no public page in Slack, and all four are standard here.2

At a glance

One row per category. The full table, with every row and every source, is further down.

The eight categories at a glance. Every row here also appears in the full table below.
CapabilitySlackMemberPad
Real time chatThe difference between a forum people check weekly and a room they sit in.YesChat with threads, and huddles for unplanned audio2YesLive rooms with typing and presence, free on every community5
Build courses inside the platformA course hosted somewhere else is a second login and a second bill.NoNo course product exists anywhere in Slack2YesCourses, modules and lessons, with video uploaded here or linked from YouTube5
Private member only podcast feedA private feed puts your paid show in the app people already listen in.NoNo RSS feed for anything Slack holds2YesAn RSS feed unique to each member, authenticated per person5
Broadcast to an audienceOne to many video, where the audience watches rather than joins.NoNothing broadcasts to an audience that only watches2YesAny audience size, but the community needs one paid tier5
What the platform takesThe number that decides how much of every membership actually reaches you.Not applicableNo fee, because no money moves between members and youDifferent9% of what a member pays, and nothing at all before that4
Desktop appA window that stays open is very different from a tab that gets closed.YesWindows and macOS applications people leave running2YesWindows and macOS installers that update themselves6
On demand video libraryA back catalog people can browse is worth more than the same videos buried in a feed.NoNo library. Video is an attachment in a conversation2YesUploads or YouTube links, browsable, with progress, bookmarks and comments5
Start without paying anythingWhat you owe in the months before the community is earning anything at all.YesThe free plan costs nothing at any size1YesNothing. There is no MemberPad subscription to buy4

What each one costs

These two are not priced on the same axis, so there is no crossover to compute and the page does not pretend there is one. Slack sells you seats and MemberPad takes a share of what members pay you.1

That difference decides everything. On Slack Pro at $8.75 a person, a community of three hundred costs about $2,625 a month whether anybody paid you a penny or not, and every new arrival makes it worse rather than better.1

On MemberPad members cost nothing at all, and the 9% only applies once somebody actually pays you, with Stripe billing card processing separately on your own account. A quiet month costs you nothing either way.3

Slack Free

Free forever

  • 90 days of searchable history
  • 10 apps from the directory
  • No huddle recording

Slack Pro

$8.75 per person, a month

  • $7.25 a person billed annually
  • Full history and unlimited apps
  • Every member is another seat

Slack Business+

$18 per person, a month

  • $15 a person billed annually
  • Built for company compliance
  • Nothing a community needs

Slack Enterprise+

Contact sales

  • Quoted, not published
  • For very large organizations
  • Still no way to charge a member

MemberPad

$0/moplus 9% of each sale

  • No plans and no seats
  • Members cost you nothing
  • Posts and files kept for good

What each one takes on top

MemberPad takes 9% of what a member actually pays you, and card processing sits on top of ours as well, billed by Stripe on your own account. There is one plan, nothing is held back behind a higher one, and a month where nobody pays you costs nothing.

Community

The chat is genuinely better, and it is built for a company

Slack does chat as well as anything here. Channels, threads that keep a conversation out of everybody else’s way, huddles that start with one click when talking is faster than typing, clips, canvases for the longer thing, and a search that finds what somebody said months ago.2

The reason it fits a community awkwardly is not the chat. It is that every assumption underneath was made about a company: profiles carry a job title, admin roles are about compliance rather than moderation, and the unit being managed is an employee rather than a member.

MemberPad assumes the opposite. Rooms grouped into sections beside a community feed, profiles with follows and private notes, points and levels, and a leaderboard the creator switches on when the room is busy enough to carry one.

Courses

Nothing here teaches anybody anything on purpose

There is no course product in Slack and there was never meant to be. Clips record a short video, Workflow Builder can post a message on a schedule, and between them people do build something course shaped out of pinned messages and good intentions.2

What none of it does is check. Nothing is graded, nothing is submitted, nothing records who finished, nothing is issued at the end, and a scheduled message is not the same as a lesson that stays shut until its date.

MemberPad treats a course as something a member can pass or fail: graded quizzes that hold the next lesson closed, assignments a creator approves or returns, certificates on completion, and sections that open on a date or a set number of days after that person started.

Podcasting

An audio file in a channel is not a show

You can drop an audio file into Slack and people can play it. There is no show, no episode list, no RSS, nothing a podcast app can subscribe to, and no way to hold any of it behind a payment because Slack has no payments.2

For a community whose best material is spoken, that is a hard ceiling. The audio only reaches whoever happens to open Slack, which is the opposite of the reason people make podcasts.

MemberPad hosts audio as shows with episodes, locks a whole show to a paid tier, and issues each member an RSS feed authenticated to them, with one tap subscribe covering Apple Podcasts and Overcast.

Live

Huddles are the best small room here, and the only room

A huddle is the nicest way to start talking in any product in this comparison. One click, no link, no scheduling, audio first with video and screen sharing when you want them, and it fits the way real conversation starts.2

What it never becomes is an event. There is nothing that broadcasts to an audience who are only watching, no replay on the free plan, and no way to run something where two hundred people show up to listen to you.1

MemberPad broadcasts to any audience size, runs two way video rooms and audio rooms with a stage, and saves replays into the video library. The honest caveat is that all three need a paid tier on the community, and live time draws on a monthly pool that starts small.

Money

Slack sells you seats, and seats get more expensive as you succeed

This is the section that decides the comparison, and it is short because Slack has no monetization at all. No member pays you through Slack, ever. Communities that charge do it with a separate payment tool and then move people in and out of the workspace by hand.2

Worse, the price runs against you. Slack Pro is $8.75 a person a month, so a community of three hundred is about $2,625 a month before anybody has paid you anything, and every person who joins because the community is working makes the bill larger.1

MemberPad charges nothing per member and 9% of what a member actually pays you. Growth costs you nothing until it earns, which is the same sentence read from the other end.

Access

Everywhere at once, and never at your own address

Slack runs on the web, on both phones and on Windows and macOS desktop applications people leave open all day. That last one matters more than it sounds: a window that stays open is a very different thing from a tab that gets closed.2

MemberPad matches it, which is rarer in this comparison than it should be: web, iPhone, Android, and self updating Windows and macOS installers, plus your own domain on any community.

The difference is the address. A Slack workspace lives at slack.com and nothing about it is visible to somebody who has not already been invited, so a stranger can never find the community, read anything, or decide to join it.2

Content

Ninety days is how long your community gets to remember

The free plan keeps ninety days of searchable history. Everything older is still technically there and you cannot reach it, which in practice means the answer somebody wrote last spring is gone the moment anybody needs it again.1

For a work team that is survivable, because the important things end up in documents somewhere else. For a community whose value is accumulated answers, it quietly deletes the asset while the room still looks full.

Older chat expires on MemberPad as well, so the difference is not the conversation. It is everything kept around it for good: a feed of posts, a video library with progress and bookmarks, a file library with folders, photo albums, notebooks, polls, and events that repeat, carry timezones, take RSVPs and remind everyone going.

Value

The wall everybody hits is the same wall, in the same order

Communities on Slack tend to arrive here by the same route. It was free and everybody was already in it, then the history started disappearing, then somebody wanted to charge for access, and neither of those has an answer inside the product.1

The upgrade solves one and makes the other worse, because paying per seat for a community means paying more the better it goes. That is a reasonable model for employees and a strange one for members.

Slack keeps one row outright: its API and app directory are the deepest here, and our documented API and outbound webhooks are not an ecosystem. If your community runs on integrations, that is a real reason to stay put.2

Everything we checked

Every row carries a note rather than a tick, and every claim about Slack links to the page it came from.

Slack and MemberPad compared. Every claim about Slack is sourced, and was last checked on 2026-11-07.
CapabilitySlackMemberPad
Community Whether people actually talk to each other, and what it costs you when they do.
Separate spaces for separate topicsOne undifferentiated feed is where a growing community starts to feel noisy.YesChannels are the whole organizing idea of the product2YesChat rooms grouped into sections, beside one community feed5
Real time chatThe difference between a forum people check weekly and a room they sit in.YesChat with threads, and huddles for unplanned audio2YesLive rooms with typing and presence, free on every community5
Direct messages between membersMembers who can reach each other privately stay for each other, not only for you.YesDirect and group messages, with nothing to unlock2PartialOne to one or groups of up to 10, but starting one needs a paid tier5
Member profilesA face and a history is what turns an account into a person other members recognize.PartialA work profile with a title and a photo, not a member page2YesPublic profiles with follows, blocks and private member notes5
Moderation toolsWhoever helps you run the place needs powers that stop short of your own.PartialWorkspace admin roles built for a company, not a public room2YesPick each moderator's powers: moderate messages, time out, ban5
Points, levels or a leaderboardVisible progress is one of the few things that reliably brings people back daily.NoNo points, levels, badges or anything ranked2YesPoints, levels, streaks, badges, celebrations, and a leaderboard the creator switches on5
Courses Whether you can teach something and check that it landed, not just publish videos.
Build courses inside the platformA course hosted somewhere else is a second login and a second bill.NoNo course product exists anywhere in Slack2YesCourses, modules and lessons, with video uploaded here or linked from YouTube5
Course video hosted for youEmbedding from YouTube means your paid lessons live on someone else’s player.NoClips are short recordings, not hosted lesson video2YesHosted and streamed by us, uploads capped at 1080p5
Quizzes and graded assessmentsChecking that someone learned it is the difference between a course and a playlist.NoNothing native grades anything an apprentice answers2YesGraded quizzes that hold the next lesson shut until passed5
Assignments you reviewWork handed in and marked up is what cohort programs are built on.NoNothing is handed in and nothing comes back marked2YesAssignments a creator reviews, approves or sends back5
Certificates on completionA certificate is the thing a member posts, which is free marketing for you.NoNo completion exists for anything to certify2YesGenerated on completion, in the community accent color5
Release lessons on a scheduleDrip keeps a cohort together and stops a member finishing in a weekend and leaving.DifferentWorkflow Builder can post on a schedule, which is not release2YesOn a fixed date, or a number of days after each member starts5
Courses that unlock by taking partEarning your way into the next course is a reason to show up that a paywall never gives anybody.NoNothing is earned, so nothing opens by earning it2YesA course can open at a level, showing the climb rather than a paywall5
Podcasting Whether a paid show reaches members in the app they already listen in.
Host podcast audioPodcast hosting is otherwise a separate product and a separate monthly bill.NoAudio files upload as attachments and stop there2YesAudio hosted here, organized into shows and episodes5
Private member only podcast feedA private feed puts your paid show in the app people already listen in.NoNo RSS feed for anything Slack holds2YesAn RSS feed unique to each member, authenticated per person5
Plays in normal podcast appsAudio that only plays on the website is not really a podcast.NoNo podcast player can reach a Slack channel2PartialOne tap subscribe covers Apple Podcasts and Overcast only5
Lock a show to a paid tierAudio is one of the easiest things to charge for, if the platform lets you.NoThere is no paywall in Slack to put anything behind2YesA whole show can be held to a paid tier5
Live experiences What you can run live, and how many people can be in it.
Broadcast to an audienceOne to many video, where the audience watches rather than joins.NoNothing broadcasts to an audience that only watches2YesAny audience size, but the community needs one paid tier5
Two way video roomsOffice hours, coaching calls and cohort sessions all need faces on both sides.YesHuddles carry audio, video and screen sharing2YesTwo way rooms, and again a paid tier is required5
Audio only roomsFar lower effort to show up to than video, so far more people do.YesA huddle starts as audio, which is its best form2YesAudio only rooms with a stage, paid tier required5
Replays saved automaticallyMost of a live session’s value is watched by people who missed it.PartialPaid plans record a huddle, and the free plan does not1YesSaved automatically and publishable to the video library5
How live time is meteredEvery platform meters live somehow, and the shape of the limit decides what you can run.YesLimited by seats you bought rather than minutes you used1DifferentA monthly minute pool that grows with your own revenue4
Monetization What you can charge for, which here is the shortest section on the page.
Recurring paid membershipsRecurring revenue is the reason most creators move onto a platform at all.NoNo member ever pays you anything through Slack2YesMonthly and yearly tiers, charged on your own Stripe account4
One time purchasesNot everything should be a subscription, and not every buyer wants one.NoNothing inside Slack can be sold to anybody2YesAny piece of content can be sold once instead of gated5
Digital products and downloadsA template pack or a preset is often the first thing a member ever buys.NoFiles share freely, and none of them carry a price2YesDownloads or external links, sold from a shop tab5
Sell physical merch you shipA shirt, a record or a print is something a fan will buy long before a membership.NoNothing is sold through Slack, physical or otherwise2YesVariants, stock and shipping rates. You ship within the US, and buyers need no account5
Coupons and promo codesA launch or a seasonal offer needs a code you can hand out and expire.NoNo checkout exists for a code to apply to2YesPercent or amount, once, repeating or forever, scoped per tier5
Free trials on a paid tierA trial is the cheapest way to show someone what is behind the wall.NoTrials apply to your own Slack bill, not to members1YesUp to 365 days, with the card taken up front5
Affiliate program for membersMembers who earn for referring are the cheapest growth channel there is.NoNothing pays a member for bringing somebody else in2YesMembers earn a commission on referrals at a rate you set5
What the platform takesThe number that decides how much of every membership actually reaches you.Not applicableNo fee, because no money moves between members and youDifferent9% of what a member pays, and nothing at all before that4
Access Which screens people reach it on, and whose name sits on the room.
Web appWhere most members will actually read, and the only surface search engines see.YesA full web client alongside everything else2YesA full web app, server rendered for speed and search6
iPhone appPush notifications and a home screen icon are what make a community a habit.YesA mature iPhone app most members already have2YesPublished on the App Store as a native app6
Android appHalf the phones in most audiences, and often the majority outside the US.YesThe same on Android, with the same familiarity2YesPublished on Google Play as a native app6
Desktop appA window that stays open is very different from a tab that gets closed.YesWindows and macOS applications people leave running2YesWindows and macOS installers that update themselves6
Your own domainThe address decides whether the community reads as yours or as rented.NoA workspace lives at slack.com and cannot move2YesYour own domain on any community, with no upgrade5
Content Where things live once you have made them, and whether they survive.
Posts with mediaThe everyday surface. Whatever is awkward to post here will simply not get posted.DifferentMessages rather than posts, with canvases for longer pieces2YesCreators and admins post text, sixteen images, video and polls, and members comment and react5
On demand video libraryA back catalog people can browse is worth more than the same videos buried in a feed.NoNo library. Video is an attachment in a conversation2YesUploads or YouTube links, browsable, with progress, bookmarks and comments5
Events and a calendarAnything recurring needs a place members can see it coming.NoNo calendar or event product is named at all2YesRepeating events with timezones, RSVPs, a waitlist, and reminders to everyone going5
File libraryTemplates, worksheets and swipe files are what members quietly value most.PartialFile sharing everywhere, with no library a member browses2YesA file library, 50 MB a file, folders one level deep5
PollsThe lowest effort thing a quiet member will ever do, and often their first.DifferentReactions or an app from the directory, nothing built in2YesIn posts and in chat rooms, results hidden until you vote5
A public page that sells the communityThe page a stranger lands on decides whether they ever become a member.NoNothing about a workspace is visible to a stranger2YesA public page by default, a block builder, and a link in bio page5
Value What it costs as the room fills, and what you are left holding.
Start without paying anythingWhat you owe in the months before the community is earning anything at all.YesThe free plan costs nothing at any size1YesNothing. There is no MemberPad subscription to buy4
Members without a capA member cap turns your own growth into a bill you did not plan for.DifferentNo cap, but every paid seat is another bill each month1YesMembers, communities, posts, courses and tiers are all uncapped4
Email your membersEmail is the only channel you keep if the platform ever goes away.NoNo way to mail a workspace, and no list to export2Partial5,000 sends a month to start, growing with your revenue4
API and webhooksThe difference between a platform you can build around and one you cannot.YesThe deepest API and app directory in this comparison2YesA documented public API and outbound webhooks5
Remove the platform brandingWhether the product reads as entirely yours, or visibly built on someone else.NoIt is Slack, on every screen, at every price2NoA Powered by MemberPad link always sits on the public page5

Moving from Slack to MemberPad

  1. Work out what is actually in the history

    If you are on the free plan, only ninety days is reachable anyway, so the archive you are worried about losing may already be gone. Export what you can reach first and decide what deserves rewriting as a real document.

  2. Rebuild channels as rooms in sections

    Slack channels usually collapse into fewer MemberPad rooms grouped into sections, plus the community feed for announcements. Most communities find they had more channels than conversations, and this is the moment to fix that.

  3. Decide what the paid tier actually buys

    This is new thinking rather than a migration step, because Slack gave you no way to charge and so you never had to answer it. Tiers, trial length and what stays free all want settling before anybody arrives.

  4. Turn the pinned how to posts into a course

    Almost every Slack community has a channel of pinned explanations doing the job of a course badly. Rebuilding it properly adds quizzes that hold the next lesson shut and a certificate at the end, which is usually when members understand the move.

  5. Replace the integrations you actually use

    List the Slack apps your community genuinely relies on rather than the ones installed. MemberPad has a documented API and outbound webhooks, so some map over and some do not, and knowing which before you move avoids the unpleasant discovery.

What does not come across

The app directory has no equivalent here and it is the clearest thing Slack keeps. If your community runs on a dozen integrations wired through Workflow Builder, rebuilding that on webhooks is real work and some of it may not be worth doing.2

Huddles do not come across as huddles. MemberPad audio rooms are closer to a scheduled event than a click to start talking, and communities that used huddles constantly notice the difference in the first week.2

MemberPad imports the member emails you export from Slack and sends each one a one tap invitation to join, so nobody is added by hand. A workspace where a colleague added people years ago still converts worse than one people chose to join, and an invitation makes that choice explicit.

Questions people actually ask

Can you charge members for a Slack community?

Not through Slack. Nothing in Slack takes a payment from a member, so communities that charge run a separate payment tool and then add and remove people from the workspace by hand. MemberPad handles the payment and the access as one thing.

What happens to Slack messages after 90 days?

On the free plan they stop being searchable. The practical effect is that the answer your community wrote last spring cannot be found when somebody needs it again, which for a community whose value is accumulated knowledge is the asset quietly disappearing.

How much does Slack cost for a large community?

It scales with people rather than revenue. Pro is $8.75 per person a month, or $7.25 billed annually, so a community of three hundred is roughly $2,625 a month regardless of whether anybody paid you anything for being there.

Is MemberPad cheaper than Slack?

They are not priced on the same axis, so there is no crossover to quote. Slack sells you seats and gets more expensive as the community grows, and MemberPad charges nothing per member and 9% of what a member actually pays you.

Does Slack have courses or a podcast?

Neither. There is no course product, nothing graded, no certificates, no audio hosting and no RSS feed. Clips record short videos and Workflow Builder can post on a schedule, but nothing checks that anybody learned anything.

What does Slack do better than MemberPad?

Two things clearly. Huddles are the best way to start talking in any product here, one click with no link and no scheduling. And the app directory and Workflow Builder connect to more software than our API and webhooks reach.

Should I keep my Slack workspace if I move?

Often yes, for a while. Plenty of communities keep a small Slack for the core group while the membership lives on MemberPad, then close it once the habit moves. Running both forever splits the conversation, which is worse than either.

How this was checked

Every figure about another platform on these pages came from that platform’s own published pricing, feature or documentation pages, and each one is listed with the date it was read. Where a company does not publish an answer, the page says that rather than guessing at one.

Nothing here is based on testing a competitor’s product hands on, and no page claims otherwise. Claims about MemberPad are checked against the code that ships rather than against our own marketing, which is why several of them are unflattering.

Fee comparisons put both sides on the same footing. Some platforms quote a percentage that already covers card processing and some quote one that sits on top of it, and treating those two numbers as the same thing is the most common way a comparison like this misleads.

Last verified

Who published it

This comparison was written and published by MemberPad, so read it knowing we make one of the two products in it. We have tried to earn your trust the only way that works, which is by being specific about what the other platform does better and where ours falls short.

Competitor pricing and features change. If you find something here that is out of date or wrong, the sources and the date we checked them are listed on every page so you can see exactly what we were looking at, and we would rather hear about it than have it sit here.

Drew AumanFounder, MemberPad

Sources

  1. 1PricingSlack · slack.com · checked 2026-11-07
  2. 2FeaturesSlack · slack.com · checked 2026-09-20
  3. 3PricingStripe · stripe.com · checked 2026-11-07
  4. 4PricingMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07
  5. 5FeaturesMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07
  6. 6AppsMemberPad · memberpad.com · checked 2026-11-07

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