Evaluating Standup Bots

Since the advent of COVID and resulting acceleration in the adoption of remote tools and practices, tools to automate and run scrum standup meetings in Slack have grown in popularity.

So if you are in the market for a reliable Free Slack Standup bot, you are likely looking at 3 key factors:

1. Has the features you need in the free version

2. The product is reliable and business is sustainable (will be around the same time next year?)

3. Cost of upgrade when your team grows

There are a number of paid solutions available for Slack Standup and the list includes Troopr (our product), Standuply, Polly, Kyber, Range, Geekbot, Standupjack, Standup bot, Standup Alice, Scrumgenius, StatusHero, and Jell.

Only Troopr, Standuply, and Range offer Free Tiers in their pricing plans as of early 2023. These products will be the focus of our comparison here.

Comparison of free tiers

The 3 vendors we picked for comparison offer all of the basic features, so we will not get into a detailed feature comparison.

Free tier user restrictions:

Standuply — up to 3 users

Range — up to 10 users

Polly - up to 25 monthly response per creator

Teams of any size can avail the free version of the Troopr Check-ins with access to one free check-ins for your team.

Free tier feature limitations:

Troopr — Most product features

Standuply — Limited features

Polly - Limited features

Range — Most product features

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Key features comparison

Custom questions: Allow any number of custom questions in your standup.

Troopr — ✅

Standuply — ✅

Range — ✅  

Polly— ✅

Custom schedule, timezone aware: Allow daily or weekly schedule. Run at different times based on each user’s timezone.

Troopr — ✅

Standuply — ✅

Range — ✅

Polly— ✅

Slack and Web Reports: Allow reports to be sent to Slack channels and show them in the web app as well.

Troopr — ✅

Standuply — ✅

Range — ✅

Polly— ✅

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History and Analytics: Show historical data from previous standups and allow for export and email digest. Show engagement metrics.

Troopr — ✅

Standuply — Partial

Range — ❌

Polly — Partial

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Mood survey: Track team morale by asking user’s about how they are feeling.

Troopr — ✅

Standuply — ❌

Range — ✅

Polly — ❌

Integrations (auto unfurl Jira issue key): Jira, GitHub integrations with an auto preview of mentioned issues, and auto-attach activity log from Jira projects.

Troopr— ✅

Standuply — ❌

Range — ❌

Polly— Partial

Are they really free?

End of the day businesses need to make money, so with free solutions, there is always a catch. While it is common to see products offering a free tier for smaller teams to get started, some businesses/individuals do choose to give away their product because it is a fun side project or because they make money elsewhere in other products or services.

In such cases, one must investigate if there is enough motivation in the individual/team building it to keep supporting the solution. See for yourself if any of the free solutions listed above are sufficiently reliable for your needs.

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Cost of upgrade

Small team :  

Troopr — Free

Polly— Free

Standuply — $70

Range — $200

Growing team (up to 250 users):

Troopr — $299 (flat pricing for unlimited users, unlimited check-ins)

Polly— $498

Standuply — $625

Range — $2000

Key Takeaways

• Teams looking to improve team collaboration remotely using asynchronous Slack standup meetings want a Slack standup bot that has reliable and well-equipped free version, backed by a sustainable business and has an affordable upgrade path.
  

• Troopr, Standuply and Ranger offer Free Tiers in their pricing plans. All 3 solutions support most of the essential features expected in a Slack Standup bot.
  

• Troopr has the most generous pricing with free plan support for up to 25 users and unlimited usage for unlimited users at $299 pm. Troop might be the most optimal choice for budget conscious teams!
• Troopr also offers auto unfurl Jira issue and other benefits that come with its unique Jira and Github integrations.
• Troopr supports remotes teams with features like user timezone based standup scheduling and reporting.
  

• Troopr support large team requirements including multi-administrator support, role based access control, Slack SSO, Service uptime SLA and enterprise security and legal compliances.
  

• Troopr is trusted by thousands including teams at Tokopedia, Electronic Arts, Unity 3D, Click up, DeliveryHero, Times Internet, Adobe Reader, Accenture, Vodafone, Salesforce and many more brands.

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Onboard Troopr Standup it's free

Troopr Check-ins provides templates for several scrum ceremonies, including as Daily Scrum, Planning Poker, retrospectives, team mood and more. All Check-ins include customizable reporting and scheduling options, support for several time zones, stunning online reports, historical reports, insights, and more.

Watch the below video to discover how Troopr Slack Standup bot works

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👉‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎Try Troopr Slack Standup Bot Free. No credit card required.

In Troopr starter plan one recurring Check-in is free for unlimited users.

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Getting Started with Troopr

How to get started with Troopr if you choose to-

1. To set up a standup Check-in meeting, select Daily standup from the drop down menu.
2. Schedule the days you want Troopr to run the standup call and across different time zones.
3. Add the most relevant questions (up to 10) that you expect participants to answer.
4. You can finally send the standup Check-ins notification to the listed participants and get started with Troopr.