Best Slack Bots for Workplace Efficiency, Grouped by Job

The best Slack bots in 2026, grouped by job: Viktor for finished work across your tools, Polly for polls, Geekbot or Standuply for standups, TimeBot for time off, Workbot for connecting business apps and Donut for team culture. Most have a free plan and paid tiers from a few dollars per user a month. Check Slack’s native Workflow Builder first for simple forms and reminders, and review every bot’s OAuth scopes before an admin approves it.

Each bot takes one repetitive job off your team’s plate: running polls, collecting standups, approving time off, pushing updates from other apps, or pairing people for virtual coffee. This guide groups the best Slack bots by the job they automate, with current pricing, free plans, the permissions they ask for, and where Slack’s native Workflow Builder already does the job. It also covers when to build your own, and where an AI employee like Viktor fits when you need finished work instead of another notification. Prices were checked on each vendor’s site in October 2026.

Key takeaways

• Pick bots by job. Viktor finishes multi-tool work, Polly handles polls, Geekbot and Standuply run standups, TimeBot tracks time off, Workbot connects business apps, and Donut builds culture.
• Check Workflow Builder first. Slack’s native Workflow Builder covers simple forms, approvals and reminders on paid plans (Pro, Business+ and Enterprise+). It is not available on the Free plan.
• Vet every app. Read the OAuth scopes, check data storage, and require admin approval.
• Bots answer and stop. Viktor finishes the work. If the job spans several tools, such as a weekly report pulled from your CRM, ads and billing, Viktor does it end to end in Slack or Microsoft Teams across 9,800+ tools.

Slack bot vs Slack app vs integration

The three words get used interchangeably, but they mean different things when an admin reviews an install:

• Slack app. The package you install from the Slack App Directory (now called the Slack Marketplace). An app can include a bot user, slash commands such as /poll, message shortcuts, Home tab views and steps for Workflow Builder.
• Slack bot. The part of an app that acts like a member: it posts messages, replies when mentioned and sends direct messages. Polly, Geekbot and Donut are apps whose main interface is a bot.
• Integration. A connection between Slack and another service, such as Jira or GitHub, that moves data in one or both directions. Many integrations run without a visible bot at all.
• Slack custom bot. An app your own team builds with the Slack API or Bolt SDKs and installs only in your workspace. It is not listed in the Marketplace, so your engineers own its security and upkeep.

In practice, every bot in this guide is installed as a Slack app, and the OAuth scopes you approve at install time decide what its bot can read and post.

How we evaluated

We judged each Slack bot the way an operations lead or Slack admin would before a rollout:

1. The job it automates. Each pick removes a specific, recurring task, such as a standup, a time off request or a poll.
2. Free plan availability. Whether a team can start free, and what the free plan includes.
3. Pricing. Each vendor’s listed price in October 2026: per user, per respondent, flat fee or quote.
4. OAuth scopes requested. A bot that reads every public channel carries more risk than one that posts in a single channel.
5. Overlap with native Workflow Builder. If Slack already does the job on your plan, a bot is one more vendor to review and pay.

One note on Viktor, who sits at the top of the list: he is not a bot. Viktor is an AI employee who works inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, connects to 9,800+ tools (most through one-click OAuth), and delivers finished work such as reports, dashboards, CRM updates and campaign changes. If you want the background, here is what an AI employee is and how one differs from a chatbot.

Best Slack bots at a glance

Our top picks

The standout picks, grouped by job. Start with the job that eats the most hours each week and add one tool at a time.

• Finished work across many tools: Viktor
• Polls and feedback: Polly
• Standups: Geekbot or Standuply
• Time off and expenses: TimeBot and Ace
• Connecting Slack to other tools: Workbot
• Remote team culture: Donut

Best overall for finished work across your tools: Viktor

Most Slack bots post an alert, then stop. Viktor keeps going: he logs into the tools you have connected, does the work and hands back the result in the same thread.

What he automates: weekly KPI reports pulled from your CRM, ads and billing tools; CRM clean-up and follow-up drafts; ad budget checks; support ticket summaries; board-ready spreadsheets and dashboards. A sales lead can write “pull last week’s closed deals from HubSpot, compare them to our Stripe revenue and post a summary in #revenue every Monday,” and Viktor sets up the scheduled task and delivers the report each week.

Why he leads the list:

• 9,800+ integrations, most through one-click OAuth, so you are not stacking a separate bot for every app.
• Slack and Microsoft Teams, so one AI employee works for both kinds of workspaces.
• Approvals for sensitive actions. Money moves, code pushes and customer emails wait for your explicit approval in Slack.
• Security built for admins: SOC 2 Type 1 certified (Type II in progress), encryption in transit and at rest, SAML SSO, and no training on your data. Details are on the Viktor security page.

Pricing: free to start with up to $100 in credits and no credit card. The Team plan is $100 per month for 40,000 credits shared across the whole workspace, with no per-seat charge. Enterprise pricing is custom. See Viktor pricing.

Workflow Builder overlap: low. Workflow Builder moves a form response; Viktor reads data across tools and produces the deliverable.

If the job you want gone involves more than one app, start Viktor free in your Slack workspace and give him the task you dread most this week.

Best for polls and feedback: Polly

What it automates: team polls, recurring engagement surveys, event RSVPs, lunch orders and post-meeting feedback.

Free vs paid: the Free plan includes unlimited responses and lets you send polls to any channel. Basic is $19 per month and Pro is $29 per month (each per license, billed annually), adding surveys, standups, presentations and longer results history. The Team plan is $249 per month for 5 users, billed annually.

Workflow Builder overlap: medium. Workflow Builder can collect a form response, but Polly adds anonymous mode, scheduling, and analytics across many surveys. If you run one survey a quarter, Workflow Builder is enough. If you run pulse checks every week, Polly earns its place.

Best for standups: Geekbot or Standuply

Async standups replace the daily meeting with three questions in a direct message and one summary in the team channel.

Geekbot is the simpler choice. It runs standups, check-ins, retros and polls, works across time zones, and supports out-of-office periods so nobody gets nagged on vacation. The Starter plan is free for teams up to 10 users with unlimited standups. Paid standups cost $3 per unique participant per month, or $2.50 billed annually, and polls cost $1 per unique respondent per month. You pay once per person, not per standup.

Standuply goes further for agile teams. Beyond standups, it covers retrospectives, planning poker, backlog grooming, 360-degree feedback and video or voice answers. The Starter plan is free for 3 respondents. The Team plan is listed from $1.50 per user per month billed annually, and flat fee plans for up to 200 employees start around $149 per month. Standuply loads prices dynamically, so confirm the current number on its pricing page.

How to choose: pick Geekbot if you want standups running in ten minutes with minimal setup. Pick Standuply if your team also wants its scrum ceremonies inside Slack.

Workflow Builder overlap: low to medium. A scheduled Workflow Builder form can ask the standup questions, but it will not chase missing answers, respect time zones or build reports.

Best for HR and admin: TimeBot and Ace

TimeBot handles time off. People request leave in Slack, managers approve or decline from a notification, and the team calendar updates. It syncs with Google and Outlook calendars, supports custom leave types and multi-country holiday calendars, and shows who is out today in one click. The free plan includes 20 time off requests per month. Paid plans start at $1 per active user per month, with a higher tier at $2.50 per active user per month for extra features.

Ace (AceBot) is a lighter productivity bot for logging expenses and managing simple to-dos. You type a short command to record an expense, attach a receipt photo, and export a CSV for your accounting system at month end. It can also assign tasks and run quick polls. Ace is an older app with no public pricing page, so check its current Slack Marketplace listing and ask whether it is still actively maintained before you roll it out.

Workflow Builder overlap: medium. You can build a simple leave request form with an approval step in Workflow Builder, but you will not get balances, calendars or reports.

Best for connecting Slack to other tools: Workbot

Workbot by Workato connects Slack to the business apps your team checks all day, such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Jira, NetSuite and Zendesk. It posts alerts when important events happen (a key customer files a ticket, a large lead fills in a form), lets people look up records from Slack, and lets them create or update data with buttons and forms.

What it automates: context-switching. Instead of opening the CRM to approve a discount or the IT portal to reset access, people act from the Slack message.

Pricing: Workbot is not sold on its own. It comes with Workato’s platform plans, which are quote-based; the base plan includes one standard Workbot. There is no free plan for business use.

Workflow Builder overlap: low. Workflow Builder can call some connected apps, but Workbot is built for enterprise integration teams that already run Workato recipes.

Who should pick it: large companies with an integration team. Smaller teams usually get more value from an AI employee who connects to the same apps without building recipes. With Viktor, you describe the outcome in plain English and he works across 9,800+ tools. You can try Viktor on your own stack for free.

Best for remote team culture: Donut

Donut keeps distributed teams connected. It pairs people for virtual coffee chats, runs onboarding journeys for new hires, posts watercooler prompts, and lets people give shoutouts with points that convert into rewards.

What it automates: introductions across teams, recurring social prompts, new-hire welcome sequences and recognition. It works in Slack and Microsoft Teams and syncs with 50+ HRIS platforms on higher plans.

Free vs paid: the Free plan includes intros for up to 24 users per round in one Slack channel, a limited shoutout allowance and a short onboarding journey. Standard starts at $74 per month billed annually ($89 monthly). Premium starts at $119 per month billed annually ($149 monthly) and adds automations and built-in recognition.

Workflow Builder overlap: low. Workflow Builder cannot randomly pair people or run a rewards store.

Other options we considered

These serve one tool or one narrow job, but are worth installing if they match your stack.

• Jira Cloud for Slack. Posts issue updates to channels, lets people create and transition tickets from Slack, and previews issue links. Free to install for Jira customers.
• GitHub for Slack. Sends pull request, review and deployment alerts to engineering channels and lets people subscribe to repositories. Free to install.
• Trivia and quiz bots. Apps that run quizzes and games are good for remote team bonding, but they rarely change how work gets done.
• Micro-feedback bots. Kudos and recognition apps, such as Donut Shoutouts and similar tools, help managers spot good work. Pick one, not three.
• Zapier and Make. General automation platforms with Slack triggers and actions. They post a message when a form is submitted, a deal closes or a row is added to a sheet, and they suit teams that already run automations there.
• HeyTaco. A recognition bot: people give each other tacos for help and good work, and a leaderboard tracks them. A lighter alternative to Donut Shoutouts.
• Slackbot. Slack’s built-in Slackbot can post custom auto-responses when someone types a keyword, such as the Wi-Fi password or a link to the holiday policy. On Business+ and Enterprise+ plans, Slack has added AI features that let people ask questions about conversations and files.

Native Slack AI vs third-party AI bots

Slack now ships its own AI. On Business+ and Enterprise+ plans, Slack AI includes thread and channel summaries, huddle notes, AI search answers, daily recaps, file summaries and AI steps inside Workflow Builder (checked on Slack’s pricing page, October 2026). Salesforce customers can also bring Agentforce agents into Slack.

Native Slack AI is strongest at catching you up on what is already in Slack: what was decided in a thread, what a file says, what happened in a channel while you were out. It does not log into your ad accounts, billing system or data warehouse to produce new work.

Third-party AI bots fill different gaps. Some answer questions from a knowledge base, some draft replies, and some, like Viktor, work across the tools outside Slack and hand back a finished report, spreadsheet or CRM update. A simple rule: use Slack AI to read and summarize Slack, and add a third-party tool when the output has to come from systems Slack cannot see.

How to choose: native, third-party, or custom

Every bot adds a vendor, permissions and notifications. Use this framework first.

When Slackbot or Workflow Builder is enough

Use Slack’s native tools when the job is simple and stays inside Slack:

• Slackbot custom responses for FAQs that never change.
• Workflow Builder for forms, simple approvals, scheduled reminders and welcome messages.

Plan constraints matter here. Workflow Builder is included in Pro, Business+ and Enterprise+, but not in the Free plan. Conditional branching in Workflow Builder needs Business+ or higher. The Free plan also caps a workspace at 10 app integrations, so a free team that installs several bots will hit that limit fast. Pro costs $8.75 per user per month billed monthly, or $7.25 billed annually (checked October 2026).

When to install a third-party bot

Install a third-party Slack bot when:

• The job is recurring and specific (standups, polls, leave tracking).
• You need features Workflow Builder lacks, such as reminders that chase people, anonymous answers, reports or calendars.
• The vendor passes your security review.

When to build your own

Build a custom bot when the workflow is unique to your company and no marketplace app fits. Common routes:

• n8n for self-hosted or cloud automations with a Slack trigger and many connectors.
• Botpress for conversational flows with a visual builder.
• The Slack API and Bolt framework when your engineers want full control.

Budget engineering time to maintain custom builds when APIs change.

Admin checklist before you approve any bot

Slack admins and security reviewers should check four things:

1. OAuth scopes. Read the scopes the app requests. Be cautious about broad scopes such as reading all public channel history, reading direct messages, or posting as users, unless the job requires them.
2. Data access and storage. Ask where the vendor stores your data, for how long, and whether it is used to train models.
3. App approval. Turn on app approval so members request installs and admins review them. Keep a list of approved apps and owners.
4. Compliance. Ask for the vendor’s SOC 2 report, DPA and sub-processor list. For a deeper review, use this security checklist for AI tool access.
5. Tokens and offboarding. Know who installed each app, rotate or revoke tokens when that person leaves, and uninstall apps nobody owns.

Applied to the picks in this guide, the review questions differ by job:

Rollout: measure adoption and avoid notification overload

Roll out one bot to one team first. After two to four weeks, check usage: standup completion, poll response rate, leave requests filed in Slack. Remove bots nobody uses, put alerts in dedicated channels, and mute anything that does not lead to an action.

Where Viktor fits

Bots answer and stop. An alert bot tells you ad spend spiked, but someone still has to open the ad account and fix it.

Viktor is an AI employee who delivers finished work instead. He works inside Slack and Microsoft Teams, connects to 9,800+ tools, and runs one-off or scheduled tasks: weekly reports, CRM hygiene, budget checks, research, spreadsheets and internal apps. Many teams keep their favorite single-purpose bots and add Viktor for the multi-tool work no bot covers. For more options built on AI, see our guide to the best AI tools for Slack. When you are ready, put Viktor to work in Slack for free.

FAQ

Is Slackbot an AI tool?

Classic Slackbot is not AI. It sends system messages and custom keyword auto-responses that admins set up. Slack has since added AI features, including AI-powered Slackbot answers, on Business+ and Enterprise+ plans.

What is the difference between Workflow Builder and third-party bots?

Workflow Builder is Slack’s native no-code tool for forms, approvals and reminders, included on paid plans. Third-party bots add specialized features such as standup reminders across time zones, anonymous polls, leave balances or HRIS sync.

Which Slack bots are free?

Polly, Geekbot (up to 10 users), Standuply (up to 3 respondents), TimeBot (20 time off requests per month) and Donut (intros for up to 24 users per round) all have free plans. Jira Cloud for Slack and GitHub for Slack are free to install if you already use those tools. Viktor is free to start with up to $100 in credits.

Which bots help with HR tasks?

TimeBot handles time off requests and absence calendars. Donut runs onboarding journeys and recognition. Polly and Geekbot handle engagement surveys and check-ins. Ace logs expenses. For HR work that spans several systems, such as compiling a monthly headcount report from your HRIS and payroll tools, Viktor can do it end to end.

Are third-party Slack bots safe to install?

They can be, if you review them. Check the OAuth scopes, the vendor’s security documentation (SOC 2, DPA, data retention), and whether the app is listed in the Slack Marketplace. Turn on admin approval for app installs so nobody adds a bot with broad access without review.

Can my boss see chats collected by a bot?

It depends on the bot and its settings. Standup and survey bots usually share answers with the manager or channel the report goes to, unless you use an anonymous mode, which Polly and Geekbot both offer. Assume anything you send to a work bot can be seen by the people who set it up.

When should I build a custom Slack bot?

Build custom when the workflow is unique to your company, touches internal systems no vendor supports, and you have engineers to maintain it. n8n, Botpress and the Slack Bolt framework are common starting points. If the goal is getting work done across standard business tools, an AI employee like Viktor is usually faster than building and maintaining a custom bot.

What are the best Slack bots for remote team culture?

Donut is the strongest pick for virtual coffee intros, onboarding journeys and shoutouts. Trivia bots and Polly add lighter fun. Keep it to one or two culture bots.