When Chatwork is better
- Frequent external customer/contractor communication
- Growing non-technical team
- Want built-in task management
- JPY billing priority
- Japanese cultural fit
Most startups should stay on Slack. This migration commonly happens when a 20–100 person SMB grows its non-technical headcount.
Sequence (2–3 weeks)
Week 1: prep - Sign up for Chatwork + design company structure - Slack export (admin) - Map team/department channels to Chatwork rooms
Week 2: partial migration - Create Chatwork rooms/group chats - Migrate external customers/partners to Chatwork first - Internal tech team can stay on Slack
Week 3: full migration or hybrid - Option A: company-wide Chatwork (cancel Slack) - Option B: tech team on Slack + rest on Chatwork (hybrid)
Hybrid is realistic
Japanese SMBs often keep tech on Slack, sales/CS/admin on Chatwork. Allow both but standardize external comms on Chatwork.
Pitfalls
- Slack message history can't migrate to Chatwork
- App integrations (GitHub, PagerDuty) weaker on Chatwork
- Non-tech members confused by "channel" concept at first (Chatwork uses "rooms" = single threads)
- Pricing: Chatwork Business ¥500/user vs Slack Pro $7.25 — comparable