Analyzing Slack voice message options

Teams around the world are building products to make voice messaging in Slack a simple, seamless experience. Despite the lack of feature support from Slack, there are a handful of products that have hacked together useful Slack voice integrations.

Today, we explore some of the tools workers are using to talk to their team members through Slack, and analyze their pros and cons. 

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‍Yac

Yac is a standalone voice messaging app built to improve the way teams communicate. Teams can share messages within the Yac app, or send them to Slack. 

Yac also offers transcriptions within the Yac app, enabling teams to share updates faster than ever. To learn more about Yac, click here.

Recording flow (8 steps)‍

Open Yac > Click teammate's message > Tap "share" > Tap "copy link" > Open slack > Select channel > Paste link > Hit enter

Output

Link to recording in browser

Pricing
Free

‍Loom

Loom is a voice and video messaging platform used by over 90,000 enterprises around the world. It’s the most well known product on our list, and a crowd favorite in the tech community.  

Screenshares, annotations, video, and voice only messages are all possible through Loom. Every Loom message is shared as a link that can be copied and pasted into any communication platform, including group texts, Slack channels, and emails.

Recording Flow (8 steps)
Open Loom > Click start recording > Wait for countdown and click stop > Click "copy link" > Open slack > Select channel > Paste link > Hit enter

Output

Desktop: Link to player in browser + video preview with variable speed controls and player in message with emoji reactions

Mobile: Link to player in browser

Likes

• Desktop experience
• Variable control speeds and emoji reaction in native Slack app
• File was named something searchable (such as the date and the method of recording)
  

Dislikes

• Mobile experience is just a link to a loom video which took me outside of Slack
• Unable to record just audio (needed video too)
• The countdown timer to start recording
  

Pricing

$5/month

Recordify

Recordify is an audio-only app for sharing voice messages in Slack. Unlike the other apps on this list, Recordify is a standalone mobile app. 

Recordify doesn’t offer video messaging or screen sharing, but it does offer a faster recording experience than all the applications listed above.

Recording flow (3 steps)

Open Recordify app > Select slack channel > Hold to record (Let go to send)

Output

MPEG4 file in slack labeled "Recordify voice message"

Likes

• The least amount of steps to get a recording out (3)
• Great design
• Easy to use
• It’s a standalone app
  

Dislikes

• MPEG 4 file dropped in Slack with no speed controls or searchable title
• Audio recording is the only option
  

Pricing
Free

VocalBird

VocalBird is a Chrome extension that lets anyone record audio messages on the go. The audio recordings are shared as links, but the audio files don’t include transcription.

VocalBird doesn’t currently offer video or screen share messaging either.

Recording Flow (8 steps)

Click chrome extension > Click start recording > Click stop recording > Click copy link > Open Slack > Select Slack channel > Paste link > Click enter button

Output

Link to recording in browser with playback controls and a link back to the page recording happened on, can set to expire

Likes

• When you click the link there’s another link of where I was when I recorded which is nice for sharing documents
• You can set messages to expire
• This is the only tool that offers a Chrome extension
  

Dislikes

• The open graph image/text purposefully taking away from the Slack experience (felt like breaking the 4th wall)
• Constantly moving in and out of Yac
  
  

Pricing

$10/month

Standuply

Standuply is a product for running asynchronous standup meetings in Slack. Their product is advertised as a “digital scrum master”, allowing teams to share updates on Slack via text, audio, or video messages.

Standuply automates the process of running team meetings by collecting survey feedback from team members in the form of audio, video, or text messages. Instead of spending 30 minutes on a call, Standuply helps team members stay up to date from within their Slack app.

Recording Flow (9 steps)

Open Slack app > Select channel > Type "/voice" > Click enter > Click private link to recorder > Click record in browser > Click to stop recording > Click to send > Close browser

Output

Link to recording (unsupported by mobile & Safari)

Likes

• Easy screenshare message option
  

Dislikes

• Recording required putting in a slack command to a web panel
• Closing browser after each recording
• Not supported by mobile or Safari

Pricing

Free up to 3 respondents

Talk-Talk Me

Talk-Talk is a voice messaging tool built for Slack. Over 5,000 teams already share their voice messages on Slack using Talk-Talk. 

While Talk-Talk is designed to work directly from your Slack app, it doesn’t allow for video messaging, transcriptions, or screenshares within messages.

Recording flow (9 steps)

Open Slack app > Select channel > Type "/vm" > Click enter > Click "record message" > Click to record > Click to stop > Click to send > Close browser

Output

mp3 file in Slack labeled "Voice message"

Likes
      -    A short ‘/vm’ command is all that’s necessary to create a recording

Dislikes

• It’s annoying to need to close the browser after each message
  
  

Pricing

$5/month per company

Recordfy

Recordfy is a Slack tool for sharing audio messages with team members. While Recordfy doesn’t allow for video messaging on Slack, it does allow users to share audio transcriptions as text files within Slack.

Over 2,000 Slack teams are using Recordfy.

Recording Flow (10 steps)

Open Slack app > Select channel > Type "/record" > Click enter > Click private link to recorder > Click record in browser > Click "Finish” to stop recording > Click to add text-to-speech > Click to "Send to Slack" > Close browser

Output

Waveform audio in slack labeled "Recordfy Audio" with a transcription in thread + transcription thread message sent to channel (3 messages in channel total - 2 in main channel (1 audio file, 1 text based message + 1 text based message in thread under the audio file)

Likes

• This was the only app other than Yac to offer transcription
• Clever to put the transcription in thread under the audio file and also sent to channel
  

Dislikes

• The number of steps it took to get an audio message out (10)
  

Pricing

Audio: $1/user/month

Transcription: $0.10/minute

Sloice

Sloice is a standalone app for recording and sharing audio messages. Sloice is only built for Android devices, and doesn’t offer video or transcription options.

Recording flow (5 steps)
Open Sloice app > Select channel tab > Select the channel > Tap record > Tap send

Output

MPEG 4 file in Slack labeled as random number "15887995617383"

Dislikes

• Search did not work
• Pulled in all people and all channels (even deleted ones)
• Non searchable file name
• Android only

Pricing

Free

Did I miss any? I love trying new tools!

Let me know at hunter@yac.com