Facebook Inc. is upping its efforts to challenge Slack Technologies Inc. in team collaboration by launching a new free version of its Workplace service.

Workplace originally launched in October, offering an intra-office communication platform that mixes some of Facebook’s most popular social features with tools designed specifically for the workplace. But it was strictly a paid offering that was priced on a sliding scale from $3 per monthly active user for the first 1,000 users to $1 a month for 10,000 or more. Facebook improved the service in December with the addition of third-party apps support.

The new free version, called “Workplace Standard,” is similar to the paid version but doesn’t include analytics tools and administrator controls, while the paid version is now known as “Workplace Premium.”

According to reports, the free version is designed for smaller companies that cannot afford the premium version but would still like to access the tool to bolster relationships and collaborative efforts among employees. Slack offers its own collaborative service for free with limited archives and storage up to 5 gigabytes before it starts to charge.

“We’re making Workplace work for more companies, so it’s a pretty big step for us,” Facebook product manager Simon Cross told CNBC. “Not every company wants to go through a full-scale enterprise deployment and not every company is in a position to pay for Workplace.”

Confirming that the move to offer a free version of Workplace was all about Facebook getting more people, or in this case companies, onto its platform, Cross added that Facebook hopes the move “helps grow the number of companies that we’re able to connect.”

Slack, launched in 2013, has become a popular collaboration service not only with tech companies but others as well. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by larger tech firms with not only Facebook wanting a slice of the action but Microsoft Corp. also competing in the space in the form of “Microsoft Teams,” a service launched last month.

Free is always the magic word when it comes to signing up users. But Facebook will continue to fight an uphill battle against an increasingly established Slack.

Image: Facebook