Slack (free plan)

Free allowance: 5 GB per free workspace (hard cap), 1 GB max per file, plus a 90-day visibility window and permanent deletion of anything over one year old
Verdict: fails: quotathe free allowance is too small to matter
Cost: free tier
Identity: email?placeholder, not evidence; card unknown, phone unknown
Binding limit: per-object-cap1 GB per file
Evidence: reported4 sources; a third party said so
Freshness: stale on 2026-11-05checked 2026-10-21 (inherited); stale on 2026-11-05

Free tier	5 GB per free workspace (hard cap), 1 GB max per file, plus a 90-day visibility window and permanent deletion of anything over one year old unit GB; metered on unstated
Price	none stated
Limits	per-object-cap (binding) 1 GB per file source 5 GB workspace total; 1 GB per file; 10 apps max; content older than 90 days is hidden, content older than 1 year is permanently deleted (rolling, since 2024-08-26); high-volume upload throttling is explicitly mentioned in the free-plan limits
Identity	email (placeholder) not published
Egress	Free; files served from files.slack.com -> files-origin.slack.com behind CloudFront
Per-object cap	1 GB max per file (1000000000 bytes)
Retention	not stated
Interface	rest rest
Tooling	Slack Web API (files.getUploadURLExternal + files.completeUploadExternal), 1 GB per file; jeremy46231/slackfs (FUSE mount, 6 stars) exists but only mounts, does not add capacity
Composes with	5 GB x N free workspaces, but the one-year deletion makes it useless as an archive and the 90-day hide makes it useless as storage. Only viable as a transient relay.
Reliability	Data loss on deletion is by design, not accidental: Slack states it 'will not be possible to restore messages and files once deletion occurs'. Also explicitly throttles 'use for storage and spam'.
Parsed numbers	has-free-tier 1 per-object-cap 1 GB

Evidence 4

date	source	what it proved
2026-10-21	docs.slack.dev/reference/methods/files.getUploadURLExternal/	error table: 'storage_limit_reached - File storage limit has been reached. This occurs when free teams have uploaded 5GB of files.'
2026-10-21	slack.com/help/articles/115002422943-Usage-limits-for-free-w	'You can view and search messages and files from the last 90 days... Messages and files more than one year old will be permanently deleted'
2026-10-21	slack.com/help/articles/201330736-Add-files-to-Slack	'Members and guests can add files up to 1GB in size.'
2026-10-21	slack.com/api/files.getUploadURLExternal	probe: POST -> HTTP 200 {"ok":false,"error":"not_authed"} (API live)

More fields 1

dead end	`{"failure_class": "quota","why": "5 GB per free workspace (hard cap), 1 GB max per file, plus a 90-day visibility window and permanent deletion of anything over one year old","retry_when": null,"first_recorded": "2026-10-21"}`

Unknown values 3