Slack onboarding, screen by screen: from signup to a first message

The hero reads "All your people and AI agents working together" with the line "Slack connects your team. Slackbot multiplies what they can do." Under it sit Get started and Find your plan, then six customer logos (GM, OpenAI, Target, Paramount, Stripe, IBM) and an animated product picture of Slackbot running a research prompt. The header has Sign in, Request a demo and Get started. A cookie banner across the bottom offers Accept All Cookies, Reject All Cookies and Cookie Consent Manager. No signup form on the page itself; every Get started leads to the same signup page.

A single page with the heading "First, enter your email" and the line "We suggest using the email address you use at work." One Email address field (placeholder name@work-email.com) and a Continue button, then OTHER OPTIONS: Google, Microsoft and Apple. Under them: "Already using Slack? Sign in to an existing workspace". No password field, no name, no terms notice on this screen.

"We emailed you a code" with the address in bold and the instruction to enter the code or tap the button in the email, plus a spam-folder hint. Six boxes in two groups of three, split by a dash. Open Gmail and Open Outlook links, "Request a new code" and "Try entering a workspace URL". The email holds the code and a Confirm and Sign In button, and asks for nothing else. After the sixth character the page showed "Checking your code…" for a few seconds, then opened the next dialog.

A dialog over the code page, titled "Start a new workspace". "By continuing, you agree to:" the Main Services Agreement, User Terms of Service and Slack Supplemental Terms, with links to the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. A question, "Can we send you email with Slack tips, news, and offers?", with Sure! and No thanks radios, neither selected. At the bottom: "Use a different email instead of" the address, and Create Workspace.

Slack's app opens behind a dialog with a three-part progress bar, step 1 lit. "Name your Slack workspace": "Choose something your team will recognize like the name of your company or team. You can always update it later." The name field is already filled with a name made from the email's domain, with a character counter. Below it, ticked by default: "Let anyone with an @<the email's domain> email join this workspace." On the right, a sketch of the Slack window shows the name in the sidebar, a #project channel, "Your name (you)", "Your teammate" and Add teammates.

Step 2 of the three-part bar. "What's your name?" with the line "Adding your name and profile photo helps recognize and connect with you more easily." The First and last name field is prefilled with the part of the email address before the @, and has a character counter. "Add a photo (optional)" with an upload button. The sidebar sketch on the right now shows Quillmark and puts the prefilled name under Direct messages with "you" after it.

All three parts of the bar are lit. "Invite your teammates": "Slack works better with more people. Add your core collaborators." An "Add teammate by email" box whose example addresses use the signup email's domain, an "Add from Google Contacts" link, a Next button greyed out until an address is typed, Copy Invite Link, and Skip this step as plain text. The sketch highlights "Your teammate" under Robin Hale.

A smaller dialog over the invite step: "Skip without inviting?" and "Are you sure? Without someone else here, you'll be missing out on what makes Slack great, including:" followed by Real-time messaging, Video calls and Document sharing. Buttons: Back and Don't Invite Anyone (the focused one), plus a close cross.

The workspace has loaded, blurred behind a modal. "Welcome to Slack!" over the question "How familiar are you with Slack?" and "We'll tailor recommendations based on your experience." Three answers as large buttons: New to Slack, I've used Slack before, I've managed Slack workspaces. Reaction badges (a tick with 1, raised hands with 5) decorate the corners. Behind it, blurred and mostly outside the part shown here, the workspace already has three channels, all-quillmark, new-channel and social, with new-channel open; step 13 shows them. Setup never asked what the team works on, so the project channel is called new-channel.

The same modal moves to a second question: "How do you want to use Slack?" with "We'll suggest the right setup for your goals." Six rows with checkboxes: Chat and Collaboration, Project Management, For customer and client communication, Working with partners and vendors, To explore AI tools and apps, I just want to check it out. Get started stays greyed out until one is ticked. No progress indicator says how many questions are left.

Right after the welcome questions, a dialog labelled Choose a plan: "Recommended for you" over "Start with Business+". Four features with expanders, the first open: Unlimited message and file history ("Keep access to messages and files older than 90 days."), Group meetings and AI notes, Work with external organizations, Unlimited app integrations; then Compare plans. A tag card: "Get Business+ for 50% off, €9 per person/month for the first 3 months" with Claim Offer and Check Out; prices are in euros, most likely because the recording ran from Portugal. Below it a green Start with Free 30-Day Trial button, focused. On the right, a sketch of a channel with a date picker. No Free plan button, no Skip, no close cross.

The dialog turns into a plan table under "Start with Business+ and get 50% off!" and "Save 50% for the first 3 months. Offers end in 7 days", with a back arrow. Three columns, priced in euros as on the previous screen: Free (no price; 90 days of message history, 10 app integrations, 1:1 meetings, 1:1 external messages; the AI and admin rows greyed out) with Continue with Free; Pro, tagged "Current trial", €4.13 instead of €8.25 per person/month, with Start with Pro; Business+, under a Best Value banner, €9 instead of €18, with Start with Business+ in solid green. Compare all features at the bottom leads to a full table and a billing FAQ.

Slack in the browser, no tour or tooltip. Sidebar: Quillmark, an "An offer awaits" button at the top, Huddles, Channels (all-quillmark, new-channel, social, Add channels), Direct messages (Robin Hale, you; Invite people), Apps (Slack with a badge of 1; Connect apps). The open channel, #new-channel, shows "Welcome to your first channel Robin Hale!" and "Channels in Slack keep work focused around a specific topic." with three illustrated cards: Start from a template, Connect your apps, Invite teammates. Below: "Robin Hale joined #new-channel." and the message box "Message #new-channel". A purple bar along the bottom: "Huddles notes and AI assistant apps are turned on for Quillmark. Learn more". No desktop-app prompt appeared at any point.

Robin's message sits under the welcome cards: "This channel is for the annotation export launch: specs, decisions and release dates go here." at 8:07 PM. At once a Slackbot message marked "Only visible to you" follows: "You're the only one who can see messages here in #new-channel. Want to add your teammates so they can weigh in?" with Invite People (green) and This Channel Is Just For Me. Invite people in the sidebar is now in bold. The channel is still named new-channel.