AI overview
Rootly has one of the deepest Slack incident workflows around, and if you want heavy customisation and a vendor-managed enterprise rollout it is a strong pick. Pagerly gives you the same core workflow - incident channels, roles, timelines, retrospectives and Terraform - with published per-team pricing, so you can start today and the bill does not grow with headcount. Add on-call paging, a synced @oncall group and an AI SRE agent in the same install.
At a glance
| Pagerly | Rootly | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per team, unlimited users | Quote-based, per user |
| Published prices | Yes - $19 and $39 per team | No - ask sales |
| Where your team works | Inside Slack and Microsoft Teams | Slack, plus a web app |
| Typical cost, 30 engineers | $39 + $120 paging = $159 / month | About $900 / month at ~$30 / user (quote) |
| Buying process | Self-serve, install from Slack | Demo and quote |
| Setup time | Minutes | Days to weeks with onboarding |
Feature comparison
| Capability | Pagerly | Rootly |
|---|---|---|
| On-call scheduling | ||
| Rotations and escalation policies | Yes | Yes |
| Import PagerDuty and Opsgenie schedulesRootly supports migrations from other tools, usually with their team's help | Yes | Partial |
| Slack @oncall user group kept in sync automaticallyRootly can update Slack groups through workflows, but it is not a default behaviour | Yes | Partial |
| Overrides and shift swaps from Slack | Yes | Yes |
| Alerting and paging | ||
| Phone, SMS and push paging | Yes | Yes |
| Datadog, Grafana, Sentry, AWS and 50+ alert sources | Yes | Yes |
| Flat pricing that does not grow per seat | Yes | No |
| Incident response | ||
| Incident channels, roles and timeline in SlackRootly's incident workflow is deep and mature | Yes | Yes |
| Workflow automation and runbooksRootly's workflow engine is more configurable than Pagerly's | Partial | Yes |
| Retrospectives and post-incident analytics | Yes | Yes |
| AI SRE agent that investigates incidentsRootly has been adding AI features - check what is generally available | Yes | Partial |
| Public status pageRootly offers status pages, but built-in monitoring is not its focus | Yes | Partial |
| Platform | ||
| Jira, Linear and Asana ticket sync | Yes | Yes |
| REST API, MCP server and Terraform provider | Yes | Yes |
| SOC 2 report | Yes | Yes |
| List prices you can read before talking to sales | Yes | No |
Pricing
Pagerly
Per team, unlimited users
| Basic | $19 / team / month |
|---|---|
| Starter | $39 / team / month |
| Phone & SMS paging | $4 / user / month, optional |
| Enterprise | Custom |
Rootly
Per user
| Startup | Quote-basedRootly does not publish list prices; verify with their sales team |
|---|---|
| Team | ~$30 / user / month, approximateRootly does not publish list prices; verify with their sales team |
| Enterprise | Quote-basedCustom contracts, typically annual |
| Pagerly Starter | $39 / team / monthUnlimited users and incidents; paging is $4 per user |
Published list prices, approximate. Verify on the vendor's site.
Cost calculator
Savings calculator
What would Rootly cost your team?
Rootly lists at about $30/user/month, per seat. Pagerly is $39 per team plus $4 per user for paging - same workflows, inside Slack.
That's not a discount - that's how much extra teams pay for the same workflows. Pagerly's side uses published pricing: $39 per team per month on Starter, plus $4 per user per month for paging by call. Rootly does not publish list prices; verify with their sales team. The $30 per user per month figure is an approximation for a quote-based enterprise incident platform, not a quoted price. Pagerly's side uses Starter at $39 per team plus $4 per user for phone paging.
Why teams look for a Rootly alternative
Rootly built its name on Slack-native incident management - channels, roles, timelines and retrospectives created from a slash command - and added on-call afterwards. It is a mature product aimed at larger engineering organisations, and it is bought through a sales process. Rootly does not publish list prices; verify with their sales team.
That is fine when procurement runs the evaluation. It is a bigger ask when an engineering lead wants to try the workflow on one team this week and know what it costs next quarter.
What teams hit with Rootly
- Quote-only pricing. You cannot budget or compare without a demo and a conversation.
- Per-seat growth. Seat-based plans rise every time someone joins a rotation or an incident.
- Weight for small teams. Deep workflow automation is powerful, and also something to configure and maintain.
- On-call came second. Incident response is the core of the product; scheduling and paging were added later.
- The @oncall group is not the default. Keeping a Slack user group pointed at the current responder usually needs a workflow built for it.
How to move to Pagerly
- Add Pagerly to Slack. One OAuth click, no sales call.
- Import or recreate schedules. PagerDuty and Opsgenie schedules import directly; Rootly rotations take a few minutes to rebuild.
- Connect alert sources. Datadog, Grafana, Sentry and CloudWatch connect through webhooks. Switch them one at a time if you want an overlap.
- Turn on paging and the @oncall group. Phone and SMS paging is an optional per-user add-on for the people who carry the pager.
- Run your next incident in Slack. Declare it, get the channel, roles and timeline, and let the AI SRE agent start investigating.
When Rootly is the better choice
- You are a large enterprise with a formal incident programme, dedicated reliability staff and a vendor-managed rollout.
- You need heavy workflow customisation. Rootly’s automation engine goes further than Pagerly’s, and complex multi-step policies are where it earns its price.
- Your procurement team wants a quote. If you buy through negotiated annual contracts anyway, a sales-led process costs you nothing.
If none of those describe you, the extra depth mostly means extra setup.
Which should you choose?
| If you are… | Choose |
|---|---|
| A team that wants a price before a demo | Pagerly - $19 or $39 per team, published |
| Growing headcount and tired of per-seat bills | Pagerly - unlimited users |
| Wanting @oncall synced and AI investigation out of the box | Pagerly |
| A large enterprise with heavy workflow needs | Rootly |
| Buying through procurement and negotiated contracts | Rootly |
Frequently asked questions
Does Rootly publish its pricing?
No. Rootly is sales-led and quotes per customer, so any per-user figure you see is an estimate. Verify with their sales team before you budget. Pagerly publishes $19 per team on Basic and $39 per team on Starter.
Is Pagerly a good Rootly alternative?
Yes, for teams that want the Slack incident workflow without the sales process. Pagerly creates incident channels, assigns roles, keeps a timeline and writes the retrospective, and adds on-call scheduling and paging in the same tool.
Is Rootly's incident workflow deeper than Pagerly's?
In places, yes. Rootly's workflow automation is more configurable. Pagerly covers the standard incident lifecycle with less setup, which is enough for most teams under a few hundred engineers.
Can I import my current on-call schedules?
Yes. Pagerly imports PagerDuty and Opsgenie schedules and escalation policies. If you run on-call in Rootly, recreate the rotations in Pagerly; most teams finish in under an hour.
Does Pagerly keep the Slack @oncall group updated?
Yes. The user group is updated automatically at every handover, so a mention always reaches the current responder with no manual edit.
Does Pagerly support Terraform and an API?
Yes. Pagerly has a REST API, an MCP server and a Terraform provider, so teams and schedules can live in code and reviews like the rest of your infrastructure.
What does Pagerly cost for 30 engineers?
About $159 per month - $39 for the Starter team plus $120 for phone and SMS paging at $4 per user. Users and incidents are unlimited. The same team at roughly $30 per user would pay about $900 on a per-seat plan.
Updated 16 October 2026