FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Reach out at hello@coffeeslack.com.
- How does the matching work?
- Your workspace picks a rhythm — weekly, every other week, monthly, or a custom window you define. Rounds generate on a Monday for weekly and every-other-week rhythms, on the last working day of the month for monthly ones, and on whichever weekday you picked for a custom window. On that day we take everyone who opted in, shuffle them, and pair them up. With an odd number of participants the last three become a trio so nobody is left out. With exactly one participant, that person gets a friendly DM letting them know we’ll roll them into the next round.
- How do my teammates opt in (or out)?
- In Slack, anyone types
/coffeeor opens the bot’s App Home and clicks Participate. Opt-in is per-month — your teammates pick whether to join each round, so opting out just means not signing up next time. No opt-out paperwork. - We’re moving from another app — can we switch?
- Yes. Add CoffeeSlack, pick your channels and rhythm, and tell your team to type
/coffee. Leaving Macarons, which shuts down on 31 August 2026? We wrote up what carries over and what changes. - Can we control who takes part, and what they talk about?
- You control who is eligible, not who gets matched with whom. Scope a round to one or more channels and only those members go into the pool — useful when you want pairing inside a team rather than across the whole workspace. Inside the pool the matching itself is random, though we avoid re-pairing people who were matched in recent rounds. From the admin dashboard you can also write your own conversation-starter prompts instead of the built-in ones, choose the rhythm (weekly, every other week, monthly, or a custom window), pause rounds indefinitely, and see who actually met from the feedback each pair reports back.
- Will my teammates see each other’s emails?
- When two people are matched, they see each other’s name and email so they can reach out. We don’t share contact info with anyone outside the matched group, and never with anyone outside your workspace.
- What’s the smallest team this works for?
- Two people, technically — though pairings get a lot more interesting once you have eight or more. During the beta there is no cap on how many people can take part, so you can roll it out to the whole workspace rather than trying it with a handful and guessing how it scales.
- What does it cost? Do I need a credit card?
- CoffeeSlack is free for every workspace while it’s in beta, and there is no credit card to add — there is no billing to configure at all right now. We do intend to charge once the beta ends. When that happens we will announce pricing in advance rather than switching it on quietly, and nothing can start billing you without you entering payment details yourself.
- Can I stop using it whenever I want?
- Yes, and during the beta there is nothing to cancel — no subscription, no payment method on file. A workspace admin can remove CoffeeSlack from Slack’s app management page at any time, and for one person opting out is simply not typing
/coffeenext round. Removing the app prevents CoffeeSlack from sending future pairing DMs; if you also want the workspace’s stored data deleted, email hello@coffeeslack.com and we will wipe it. Once paid plans arrive, cancellation will run through Stripe’s customer portal and a cancelled workspace keeps access through the end of the period it has already paid for. - What data do you store?
- Per workspace: the list of monthly participants (name, email, Slack user id), the resulting pairings, and your settings (logo URL, email template). Everything lives in our Firestore project. We don’t share data with third parties except Slack and Resend (for email delivery) and Stripe (for billing). Right-to-be-forgotten requests are handled on a one-call basis — see hello@coffeeslack.com.
- What if I have more questions?
- Email hello@coffeeslack.com or use the contact form. We’re a small team and we read everything.