Compass review
Compass combines private team chat, calls, automation, and self-hosting for business teams.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Compass is a business messaging application for small, mid-market, and enterprise teams, including distributed organizations that need separate workspaces and private chats. Its core communication set includes threaded comments, message reactions, voice messages, video calls, reminders, team statistics, and controls for downloads, forwarding, and private chats. Compass is available through cloud, self-hosted, desktop, and mobile deployments, with apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. Message history is unlimited, and the category specifications list support for up to 100,000 members.
Pricing is organized into Business and Enterprise plans, both billed monthly per user. Business costs $4.89 per user per month and includes videoconferences for 1,000+ participants, Smart Apps, chatbots, over 300 business functions, a 30-day free trial, a personal manager, and invoice payment for legal entities. Enterprise costs $5.89 per user per month and adds customized terms for big teams, a personal manager, videoconferences for 1,000+ participants on your server, a self-hosted version, Active Directory and LDAP access control, and open source messenger code available on GitHub. There is no ongoing free plan, but the trial does not require a card.
Compass fits teams that want privacy controls and a broad in-chat feature set without limiting deployment to a hosted service. Chatbots support two-way integrations with external services, while the Enterprise plan is the clearest option for organizations that need self-hosting or directory-based access control. The trade-offs are meaningful for smaller teams: self-hosting and Active Directory or LDAP are Enterprise features, and support is provided through email. Teams seeking a private business messenger with cloud or self-hosted options should consider Compass; organizations prioritizing an ongoing free tier or broader support channels should look elsewhere.
Compass pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Self-hosted deployment and directory access control on Enterprise
- Threads, reactions, reminders, calls, and privacy controls
- Desktop and mobile apps across Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android
- Where it doesn't
- No ongoing free plan after the 30-day trial
- Self-hosting and Active Directory or LDAP require Enterprise
- Support is provided through email
Compass fact sheet, pricing and score →
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