Salesforce acquired Slack: the deal and what it means for sales teams

Salesforce agreed to buy Slack on 1 December 2020 in a cash-and-stock deal with an enterprise value of about $27.7 billion, and completed the acquisition on 21 July 2021. Slack kept its own brand. Salesforce's plan was to make Slack the interface for its Customer 360 platform, and today Slack connects directly to Salesforce CRM data through features such as Salesforce channels and Agentforce.

What were the terms of the deal?

Under the agreement, Slack shareholders received $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share. Based on Salesforce's closing share price on 30 November 2020, that gave the deal an enterprise value of about $27.7 billion. The boards of both companies approved it.

The acquisition closed almost eight months later, on 21 July 2021.

Why did Salesforce buy Slack?

Salesforce sells CRM and other cloud software for sales, service and marketing. Slack is a messaging app where teams talk in channels, share files and connect their other work tools.

In the 2020 announcement, Salesforce said Slack would become the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360 and would be deeply integrated into every Salesforce cloud. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called the deal "a match made in heaven." Slack CEO and co-founder Stewart Butterfield said, "Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software."

When the deal closed, Salesforce described the goal as a "digital HQ" that connects employees, customers and partners, with a "Slack-first Customer 360" giving companies a single source of truth about their business.

What changed after the acquisition?

Slack continued to operate under its own brand after the deal closed, and you can still buy and use it as a standalone product. What changed is how closely it now works with Salesforce.

Slack's own pages describe several connections to Salesforce:

• Salesforce channels: Slack channels linked to Salesforce records such as accounts, opportunities or cases, with record details, CRM quick actions and AI summaries of related conversations. Slack announced them in June 2025 and says they can be built on any standard or custom object.
• The Salesforce app for Slack: lets users search and preview Salesforce records from inside Slack.
• Slack Connect: secure channels shared with people outside your company, such as customers and partners.
• Agentforce in Slack: Salesforce's AI agents working inside Slack. In October 2025, Slack said Agentforce Sales in Slack was available.

Features, plans and editions in this area change often. Check Slack's and Salesforce's current documentation for what your plan includes.

What does it mean for sales teams?

For sales teams that already use Salesforce, the main change is less switching between tools. A rep, a sales engineer and a manager can discuss a deal in a channel linked to the opportunity, see the deal details in the same place and update the record without opening another tab.

Typical ways sales teams use the combination:

• One channel per key account or deal, where everyone working on it shares updates, questions and next steps
• Deal support, by pulling in product, legal or finance colleagues to answer a buyer's question quickly
• Shared channels with customers through Slack Connect, for faster replies during evaluation, onboarding and renewals
• Pipeline alerts and summaries in a channel, so managers see changes without running reports

For teams that don't use Salesforce, Slack is still a messaging tool in its own right. If you are choosing a CRM, the depth of the Slack connection is one factor among many. Compare options in our guides to Salesforce vs HubSpot, Pipedrive vs Salesforce and the best Salesforce alternatives.

Was the acquisition worth it?

That depends on who you ask and is hard to measure from the outside, because Salesforce reports Slack as part of its wider business. What is clear is that Salesforce has kept building Slack into its products, from linking channels to CRM records to running its AI agents inside Slack. For buyers, the practical question is not the deal itself but whether this way of working fits your team.

For more tools for running a sales team, browse our CRM tools and productivity tools.