Remote and hybrid workplaces know that effective communication between team members is priority number one. Without it, tasks don’t get done, people get confused, and your business suffers. If you need a cost-effective, all-in-one solution, look to Chanty. Start team-wide conversations, conduct one-on-one video calls, enable on-demand department huddles, and turn any conversation into an actionable task. Chanty accomplishes a lot, and it might just make you, your team, and your clients a lot happier than they were without it.
Chanty: The Good and the Bad
Overall, Chanty has a ton to offer on either of its two affordable plans (which we’ll discuss in full a bit later). In our eyes, this software has more virtues than flaws. But we’ll let you be the ultimate judge—read on to examine all the highlights and lowlights we found.
What Chanty Is Good At
Chanty puts all of your team’s conversations and tasks conveniently at your fingertips. This platform does enough to be powerful without sacrificing ease-of-use. In fact, the underlying theme here is that Chanty strives to make a team communication and collaboration app that is so easy that even non-techies can use it with little to no training.
Unified communication and collaboration
One of the main attractions of Chanty is how easy it is to start conversations and organize the results from them.
In the My Conversations section of the interface, any user can see all of their interactions with other team members or their department. All communiques are listed here in one place and a user can simply click the + button to start a new chat conversation at any time, create new channels within Chanty, or kick off a video call.
We noticed and appreciated that Chanty has built its interface with non-technical users in mind. The platform is intentionally simple and straightforward so there’s no real learning curve, unlike some of its competitors.
You can onboard new employees and have them collaborating productively in no time, without needing them to get up to speed through guides and tutorials.
Chanty also makes it easy to loop in relevant teammates and stay organized.
Use @ mentions to notify teammates or groups to keep everyone updated and get quick answers. In-conversation threads keep deep dives focused on solving a problem without cluttering the whole channel. Threads also let teammates catch up on new developments without having to hunt for the relevant information.
You can use written logs to take video call brainstorming sessions back into Chanty for informing teams and creating tasks from the findings. Discussions stay neatly organized so anyone coming late to the conversation can get up to speed in an instant.
Meanwhile, some clever features are included to help users keep everything organized and focus on the most important work, such as pinning messages and easy switching to Kanban displays for task management.
The bottom line is Chanty consolidates team communication, collaboration, and task management into one easy-to-use platform. Key information is visible at a glance thanks to the well-designed interface and the simplicity of the platform helps organizations hit the ground running.
Easy task creation and work management
The real command center of Chanty is the Teambook, where everything comes together for any user of the platform.
Not only does this collect all conversations, tasks, and more in one place, it enables easy file sharing and total clarity on who is responsible for what and when.
Tasks stay front and center for convenient management and visibility. Users can create, assign, and mark tasks complete as work progresses, while conversations stay just a click away when they need to strategize or give updates. Shared files and links stay here, too. You can even search through message history to find exactly what you need and pin important messages.
It’s easy to toggle between views, like Kanban boards that give every user a full view of project work. This helps Chanty extend beyond team communication into bona fide task management.
Kanban boards in Chanty work exactly like you’d think, and it’s simple to create new columns for task statuses, timeframes for completion, and other categories for easy organization.
Tasks can be created from scratch or from within a message. You can set due dates, ping other team members who need to stay apprised of progress, and drag and drop task cards into the next column when they need to be moved along the workflow.
Users can label specific tasks to make sure that anything of high priority doesn’t get skipped over. Helpfully, any due dates and assignees on a task automatically create notifications to help everyone meet deadlines.
Chanty brings task management directly into your conversations, removing the need to toggle between apps, while also giving you a fully capable task management platform within the software.
Voice and video calling
Chanty gives your team the flexibility to communicate however they like best. Between audio calling, video calling and conferencing, and team chat, you can collaborate effectively on this platform.
Making calls takes just one click. Start one from within any conversation or initiate one manually by adding a new call and selecting the team members you want to join you.
The option for video calling removes barriers to productivity for remote teams. Just like other popular video communication platforms, users can share their screen to efficiently explain work and share files with others on the call without leaving it.
That’s true for both the video calling part of this platform and chat conversations. Share YouTube clips, GIFs, images, and content from social platforms without leaving the app. Upload files and links directly into conversations.
Shared files get stored in Chanty for easy access later on, keeping relevant resources centralized.
When speaking is easier than typing, use Chanty’s handy voice messages for leaving quick replies. No fussing with formatting or typos—just press record and share your thoughts, feedback, or an answer to a question.
This is particularly helpful when folks are traveling, away from their desks, or on the way to a client meeting. Teammates can provide information and answers without having to find a shared window of time to jump into a huddle together.
Applicability to other use cases
Most tools like this are marketed to and built for your typical business types. But Chanty has an adaptability that lets it rise to the occasion for everything from sales to higher education.
Chanty hits all the right buttons for traditional use cases. Marketing teams can seamlessly work with clients and contractors in real time to deliver projects successfully. Sales teams can align on approaches and provide pipeline updates to create lasting client relationships.
However, you can use Chanty for more specialized needs, as well.
In real estate, Chanty lets you securely manage contracts, photos, and discussions across your network of clients and partners. Streamline the buying and selling of properties with organized internal and external communications, supported further by Chanty’s ability to store and share files like offer letters, property spec sheets, and contracts.
Meanwhile, restaurants can keep staff aligned with team-wide announcements from managers, updates on menus and promotions, and shift swapping via group messaging.
For developers, Chanty supports operations by allowing devs to coordinate easily with other members of the organization. Copy and paste code snippets in messages instead of relying on attachments, allowing teammates to reference and react to clean lines of code right within team chat. There’s no more need to dig through repos or external files.
Perhaps more uniquely, Chanty adapts well to the education industry. Teachers can distribute lessons and assignments to students. Learners can revisit material or submit assignments from anywhere. And the Teambook unifies student interactions for teachers, letting them conduct more effective remote learning.
Coaches and teachers can also conduct interactive video sessions at scale, share lesson plans, assign homework tasks with due dates, and foster better engagement with learners through easy access of course materials and direct lines of communication for asking questions.
Chanty eliminates communication silos so you can collaborate smoothly, whether you’re a business, an educational organization, or a firm dealing with lots of external clients, among many other applicable use cases.
Admin controls
Chanty gives you command of your team space with customizable roles and permissions. Using these, you can invite external stakeholders without giving them full access to everything, limit group chats to only relevant members, and let department leaders have authority over their own workflows without interfering with those of others.
Within Chanty’s settings for team management, you can easily tweak roles for members or entire departments. Adjust moderation abilities, posting rights, and more with just a few clicks.
You can also archive inactive channels or suspend departed members so conversations stay focused but information is still preserved.
And, you can extend Chanty’s functionality with integrations. Use no-code sync with CRM platforms, cloud storage services, and email marketing platforms to enhance all aspects of your tech stack. Zapier connections are also possible, meaning you’re not necessarily limited to the native integrations that Chanty has developed so far.
Chanty’s Potential Drawbacks
Of course, no app is perfect. We like a lot about Chanty, but we also came across some downsides. Take these three potential drawbacks under consideration if you’re thinking about Chanty, and then use the software’s free-forever plan to test out whether these issues we encountered would also be a detriment to your team’s experience.
Functionality issues
Overall, Chanty impressed us. But, during our testing of the platform, we noticed a few areas for improvement.
Task tracking was made more difficult because of a glitch we regularly encountered. New tasks weren’t appearing in conversation views as expected, so we had to manually refresh to see updates. That was inconvenient, to say the least.
We also struggled with getting notifications to resume after snoozing. Despite following the directions we found in the help center, previously snoozed alerts remained blocked indefinitely. Toggling this feature proved tricky.
Muting controls could stand to be more granular. You can mute group chats, but not specific one-on-one conversations. In addition, we feel the Conversations tab in Chanty can get really cluttered when larger teams are using it. Without a way of setting chat and task hierarchies (or more granular control over muting and snoozing), it becomes a mess at scale.
A calendar view for visualizing tasks isn’t included with Chanty and would be beneficial. You’re stuck with sifting through due dates in tasks to make sure due dates are being met.
While each of these are pretty minor issues overall, addressing them would smooth out the user experience on Chanty. Small functionality fixes to notifications, tasks, and navigation would enhance an already-great platform.
Limited number of integrations
While some key integrations are built right into the platform—such as Salesforce, Github, and Google Drive—we were surprised by the small total of native integrations.
There are only 19 in all. You do have the ability to create Zapier zaps to connect Chanty with other tools, though there’s no guarantee that Zapier can create the exact integrative capabilities you want.
Some of Chanty’s advertised capabilities require Zapier or connecting to other platforms that also handle task and project management, like Trello and Basecamp.
As we said, the former can be an imperfect solution. But the latter can create redundant costs if you were looking to Chanty as a full task management solution, not to mention the potential confusion it can cause your team to have two active platforms that accomplish similar things.
While expected for advanced functionality, core features shouldn’t depend on separate apps.
User reviews echoed the desire for more integrations, as well. Today’s organizations rely on an array of software-based solutions and Chanty should create more bridges to other platforms in order to provide truly unified communication and collaboration to its customers.
Customer support might not be as great as claimed
Chanty promises 24/7 support and a team that “will go the extra mile” for users. However, we encountered the opposite during our testing.
After contacting support through live chat on the Chanty website on a Monday, we never received any response. It was total radio silence, both during and after normal business hours.
For a company touting always-on support, this was disappointing. We expected real-time assistance, but found no one home.
Considering Chanty’s glowing reviews overall, we hope our experience was an anomaly. Most customers seem to praise the brand’s very responsive service. And, we recognize that customer service is difficult to scale flawlessly. Yet, our isolated incident highlights that you should put this to the test yourself before fully committing.
Chanty Plans and Pricing
Pricing plans from Chanty are simple and delightfully cost-effective. With one free plan and one straightforward pay-per-user option, it’s easy for new customers to identify the right flavor of Chanty for their needs and budget.
Free
One of Chanty’s biggest perks is the permanently free plan for small teams. With support for up to ten members indefinitely, you get robust features without any cost.
Unlimited public and private group conversations let your team communicate seamlessly at scale. And you get a comprehensive history of messages that is also easily searchable.
In addition, one-on-one voice calls and voice messages are also unlimited, giving your team the freedom to connect, brainstorm, share updates, and communicate more.
Core task management features are included, plus you get 20 GB of platform storage for file sharing, use of up to ten integrations, and even the ability to bring on a single guest access user free of charge.
For startups and leaner companies overall, this free offering is an unbeatable deal. The included capabilities cover the essential communication and collaboration needs of small teams. Chanty’s Free plan provides a functional, ad-free platform for small groups to hit the ground running.
Business
Chanty’s Business plan runs $3 per user per month when billed annually, but it stays affordable at $4 per user if you opt for monthly billing.
Even though this doesn’t cost a ton, you get full fun of the platform.
On this tier you can set user roles and permissions, use as many integrations as you’d like, and import data from other sources into your Chanty interface. Instead of 20 GB of storage for your whole team, each user gets 20 GB of storage on the Business plan.
On top of that, you unlock unlimited usage of:
- Group audio calls
- One-on-one video calls
- Group video conferences
- Screen sharing
Another great perk is the ability for each user on your Business plan to invite up to three guest users without incurring a charge. That’s a huge benefit for agencies or anyone else using Chanty for client work, such as real estate firms.
You can also benefit from access to Chanty’s dedicated support line, which should deliver faster assistance compared to what users of the free version get.
For growing teams needing more control, capability, and capacity, the Business plan delivers at a very reasonable per-user price.
Final Thoughts
We didn’t find much not to like about Chanty. It keeps things simple for teams of varying tech-savviness, but still delivers wide capability for communication and collaboration—both internal and external.
There are those few little issues we noticed during our testing of the software, but we feel that those negatives are far outweighed by the features on offer and the overall affordability of this solution. Plus, you can always use Chanty’s Free plan to give it a thorough test drive to ensure it will work for you like you hope it to.
