KakaoTalk
The default messaging app in South Korea, bundled with payments, taxi hailing and other Kakao services
Free
Category
The best Communication software
Communication and collaboration platforms are the backbone of modern remote and hybrid work environments. These tools facilitate instant messaging, video conferencing, file sharing, and team coordination, breaking down geographical barriers and enabling seamless teamwork across distributed teams and organizations.
- Tools listed
- 35
All 35 communication tools
Every listing shows its published starting price on the same footing, so a shortlist does not take ten tabs.
What communication software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 35 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Cheapest paid plan
- $0Gupshup
- Median entry price
- $14across 21 priced
- Dearest entry price
- $3,000Naver Works
- Publish a $0 plan
- 25of 35
Paid communication plans in this set start anywhere from $0 a month for Gupshup to $3,000 for Naver Works. The median entry price across the 21 tools that publish one is $14, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Naver Works's at $11,000 a month, 3.7× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
25 of 35 publish a $0 plan, and 10 of those charge nothing at all. 6 tools have no free tier of any kind.
5 of 35 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 35 communication listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- subscription
- 10
- freemium
- 7
- Per user per month
- 4
- quote
- 3
- free
- 2
- Free to download, paid business messaging and out calls to landlines and mobiles
- 1
- Free to download, paid emoticons, gifting and business messaging
- 1
- Free to download, paid stickers and business messaging tiers
- 1
- Free to download, transaction fees on payments
- 1
- Free, funded by Meta's advertising business
- 1
- Per message sent
- 1
- Per month, flat fee with no transaction charge
- 1
- usage-based
- 1
Separately, 5 of 35 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What comes as standard, and what you pay extra for
Every capability named in a published pricing tier by any of the 25 communication tools here that break their plans down, counted once per vendor. This measures what vendors choose to advertise as a selling point, not everything the software does, an absence below is silence, not a missing feature.
Named most often
- Dedicated support , 4 of 25
- Priority support , 4 of 25
- Screen sharing , 3 of 25
- Unlimited users , 3 of 25
- Admin controls , 2 of 25
Named by fewer
- Advanced analytics , 2 of 25
- Advanced search , 2 of 25
- Advanced security , 2 of 25
- Custom integrations , 2 of 25
- Email support , 2 of 25
Named by exactly one vendor: Admin and agent roles, Billed annually, Disappearing messages, Limited participants and storage, Registration pages, Unlimited message history. Those are differentiators rather than table stakes.
What “Communication” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 35 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- messaging15
- communication9
- collaboration7
- video-conferencing7
- encryption3
- Enterprise3
- japan3
- payments3
- Remote Work3
- async2
- developer-tools2
- email2
Carried by a single tool: ai, chatbot, documents, membership, Philippines, secure, team-collaboration, voice-calls. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
25 of 35 communication tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with dedicated support, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.
Read the spread before you read the features
$0 to $3,000 is a $3,000 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $3,000 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
17 of 35 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 3 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, dedicated support, priority support, screen sharing, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 13 billing models: subscription on 10 listings, freemium on 7, and 11 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare communication tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- KakaoTalk vs Line
- Line vs Messenger
- Messenger vs Viber
- Viber vs WeChat
- WeChat vs Disciple
- Disciple vs Gupshup
- Gupshup vs Kakao Work
- Kakao Work vs Naver Works
Go straight to the numbers
- KakaoTalkpricingalternatives
- Linepricingalternatives
- Messengerpricingalternatives
- Viberpricingalternatives
- WeChatpricingalternatives
- Disciplepricingalternatives
Questions people ask about communication software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How much does communication software cost?
- Across the 35 communication tools listed here, paid plans start between $0 and $3,000 a month, with a median entry price of $14. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $11,000 a month (Naver Works). 25 of 35 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest communication software?
- 10 of the 35 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Gupshup has the lowest published entry price at $0 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free communication software?
- Yes, 25 of 35 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 10 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- What features should communication software have?
- Judging by what vendors put in their own published pricing tiers, the most frequently named capabilities in this category are dedicated support (4 of 25 tools that publish plan detail), priority support (4) and screen sharing (3). Treat those as the category baseline. Anything named by only one vendor, such as admin and agent roles or billed annually, is a differentiator rather than a standard, so it is worth deciding whether you need it before it narrows your shortlist to one.
- How is communication software usually billed?
- subscription (10), freemium (7), Per user per month (4), quote (3), plus 9 less common arrangements, counted across the 35 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 5 of 35 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does communication software actually cover?
- The 35 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are messaging (15), communication (9), collaboration (7), video-conferencing (7), encryption (3). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under communication may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do communication tools offer?
- 29 of 35 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 3 tiers. 17 of 35 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many communication tools are listed on Softwr?
- 35 approved communication listings appear on this page, including KakaoTalk, Line, Messenger, Viber. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/communication, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep this
Email me these 35 picks
The shortlist for “Communication”, plus a note if any of their prices change.
Keep reading
More on Communication
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.