undefined | Better HN

0 pointsvruiz10y ago0 comments

Really? that's cheap for you? that's some thousands a year for any mid-size company. I always saw them as really expensive for something I'm used to get for free. And the paid alternatives like hipchat are like $2/month. I guess it's all a matter of perception.

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/23/442921757/episo...

0 comments

tptacek10y ago

"Thousands a year" is a rounding error for any company that has the 20+ employees it takes to get to "thousands a year" in Slack bills. Those employees are costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month.

vruizOP10y ago

I think you are seeing it from the strongly-VC-backed startup perspective. In any company I've worked for that kind of expense needs to be justified. Sure, that's a small fraction compared to salaries, but there will be many such "needs" for many small fractions, and if they are not watched after they add up pretty quickly.

patio1110y ago

I think you are seeing it from the strongly-VC-backed startup perspective.

I feel I can pretty authoritatively answer "Betcha not" here. </cofounder>

It's trivial to justify Slack's pricetag at any software company. Your entire team lives in it continuously and it becomes the nerve center of the company... for freaking pennies. It's ludicrous. If you add it up the non-Starfighter companies I run spend like $50k a year on SaaS/hosting/etc ("everything with an API attached") of which Slack is like ~1%, and probably the most underpriced-relative-to-value service which does not quote its pricing in picodollars.

1 more reply

unethical_ban10y ago

That's how you get bloated budgets. Why spend thousands of dollars per year on a communications platform if you don't need to spend it?

IRC, mattermost, email, Gitlab, Wekan, Skype/Google Hangouts/BigBlueButton.... there are plenty of tools to communicate without spending loads of cash.

enraged_camel10y ago

None of those tools work as well as Slack out of the box. Some of them require significant work to integrate with other web services. That's time your staff is spending on those projects rather than your core product.

Seriously, Slack was the EASIEST things to justify as an expense when we proposed it to upper management earlier this year. And they are known to be very stingy.

MAGZine10y ago

why use macs (or Dells) instead of a cheap china-built off-brand PC? Why use fancy Pilot G2s instead of 10/$1 bic pens? Why use ${SuperiorProduct} instead of ${InferiorProduct}? Because it has value outside of the immediate short-term economic value.

1 more reply

eevilspock10y ago

If it is ad-supported it is not free: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773

s73v3r10y ago

And they clearly aren't as good, otherwise Slack wouldn't be so popular.

GFischer10y ago

giovannibonetti's employees probably cost him "only" thousands of dollars per month, so his Slack bill would be 1/10th of an employee or so.

tedunangst10y ago

And where can a mid-size company rent an office for only some thousands a year?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

tptacek10y ago

vruizOP10y ago

patio1110y ago

I think you are seeing it from the strongly-VC-backed startup perspective.

I feel I can pretty authoritatively answer "Betcha not" here. </cofounder>

1 more reply

unethical_ban10y ago

That's how you get bloated budgets. Why spend thousands of dollars per year on a communications platform if you don't need to spend it?

IRC, mattermost, email, Gitlab, Wekan, Skype/Google Hangouts/BigBlueButton.... there are plenty of tools to communicate without spending loads of cash.

enraged_camel10y ago

Seriously, Slack was the EASIEST things to justify as an expense when we proposed it to upper management earlier this year. And they are known to be very stingy.

MAGZine10y ago

1 more reply

eevilspock10y ago

If it is ad-supported it is not free: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7485773

s73v3r10y ago

And they clearly aren't as good, otherwise Slack wouldn't be so popular.

GFischer10y ago

giovannibonetti's employees probably cost him "only" thousands of dollars per month, so his Slack bill would be 1/10th of an employee or so.

tedunangst10y ago

And where can a mid-size company rent an office for only some thousands a year?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse