What Twist does

Twist is an asynchronous team messaging application built and operated by Doist Inc., a bootstrapped, fully remote company founded in 2007 with team members in over 30 countries. Twist itself launched in 2015 to address the communication challenges Doist faced as a distributed organization, and is now used by more than 450,000 people across thousands of teams. The product is architected around thread-based conversations organized within public-by-default channels, with an explicit absence of real-time presence indicators, online/offline status, and notification pressure. The platform is delivered as a cloud-based SaaS application hosted on AWS, with native clients for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux, plus a web app and a public Developer API (v3) for custom integrations. Security features include SSL/HTTPS in transit, encryption at rest, AWS-built-in firewalls, OAuth 2.0 for Google authentication, and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance.

Twist generates revenue through a freemium self-serve model: a free tier with limited message history (1 month), capped storage, and limited integrations; an Unlimited paid tier at $6 per user per month with full history, unlimited integrations and storage, and priority support; and custom enterprise pricing for organizations with more than 200 employees negotiated directly with the sales team. Single-channel guest accounts are free, while multi-channel guests are billed as full members, and the company does not charge for inactive users. Go-to-market is primarily product-led growth (PLG) reinforced by a community-led content strategy that positions Twist as a category leader in the "async work" movement, with extensive remote-work guides, comparison pages against Slack, customer case studies, and a Fast Company World Changing Idea award (2022) supporting brand authority. The customer base skews toward startups, nonprofits, and remote-first SMBs, with a stated upmarket push into enterprise via the custom tier and SOC 2-aligned controls.

Name

Twist

Legal name

Doist Inc.

Website

https://twist.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Twist, built by bootstrapped parent Doist, is an async messaging app for distributed teams, organizing conversations into threads and channels with no real-time presence pressure; it monetizes via a $6/user/month tier, freemium, and enterprise custom pricing for 200+ employee organizations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Subscription - Free Plan: Free tier with limited access: up to 1 month of comment/message history, up to 5 integrations, up to 5 GB file storage, up to 500 internal member accounts, up to 500 external guest accounts. Available indefinitely at no cost.
2. Subscription - Unlimited Plan: Paid subscription at $6 per user per month (billed monthly or annually). Includes full history access, unlimited integrations, unlimited file storage, priority support, unlimited internal member accounts, unlimited external guest accounts. Single-channel guests are free; multi-channel guests are billed as regular members.
3. Enterprise Pricing: Custom enterprise pricing for organizations with more than 200 employees, available by contacting sales team at [email protected].

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Twist is an asynchronous team messaging application that organizes workplace communication into threads inside topic-based channels, replacing real-time chat for distributed teams. It is sold as a SaaS subscription to remote and distributed organizations, available on web, desktop, and mobile, with a freemium tier and a paid Unlimited plan priced at $6 per user per month, plus custom enterprise pricing.

Product overview

Twist is a unified async messaging platform for remote and distributed teams, centered around the core Twist application that organizes team communication through threads and channels. The product portfolio includes native desktop applications (macOS, Windows, Linux) and mobile apps (iOS, Android), along with built-in automation modules (Auto-reports, Scheduled Threads, Team Check-In, Templates, Time Zones) and a public Developer API (v3) for custom integrations. Guest Access and Multiple Teams features extend collaboration capabilities for external partners and organizations managing multiple workspaces.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Twist Twist is an async messaging application for remote and distributed teams that organizes communication into threads inside topic-based channels. It is sold as a SaaS subscription to organizations, with a free tier and a paid Unlimited plan, and is intended for teams replacing meeting-heavy and chat-noisy workflows with calmer, searchable async collaboration.
• Twist Developer API The Twist Developer API is a public API (v3) that enables developers and technical teams to build custom automations, integrations, and workflows that extend Twist's functionality and connect it to other apps.

Quantifiable outcome

• 81% of teams report being more efficient after switching to Twist
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration29 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• GitHubcoreTechnology or IntegrationGitHub integration allows teams to turn Twist messages into actionable GitHub issues with full context from discussions. GitHub Notifications integration provides updates about commits, issues, and pull requests without leaving Twist.
• Google CalendarcoreTechnology or IntegrationGoogle Calendar integration enables scheduling and joining meetings directly from Twist threads. Shows meeting overview for the day/week, allows inviting all thread participants with one click.
• ZapiercoreTechnology or IntegrationZapier integration enables codeless automation connecting Twist with thousands of apps including Asana, Box, GitLab, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Jira, Teamwork, Trello, and more.
• TodoistcoreTechnology or IntegrationTodoist integrations (Todoist Inbox, Todoist Project Updates, Todoist Quick Add) connect Twist with the popular task management tool, enabling bidirectional task and project updates.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Slack: Slack is the dominant team messaging platform and Twist's primary comparison target. Twist explicitly positions around being a calmer, async-first Slack alternative, serving the same distributed team buyers with overlapping channel-based communication use cases.
• Discord: Discord provides persistent channel-based team and community messaging and overlaps with Twist in serving distributed teams and creator/learning communities. While Discord leans real-time, its channel model is comparable to Twist's channel + thread design.
• Basecamp: Basecamp is a project and team collaboration product that has long championed async-first workflows and message-board-style discussions. It targets the same small-to-mid-sized, often remote, teams that buy Twist, and competes on reducing meeting overload.
• Mattermost: Mattermost is a self-hostable, Slack-compatible team messaging platform favored by security-sensitive and developer teams. It competes with Twist for organizations that want more control, custom workflows, and an alternative to SaaS-only chat tools.
• Rocket.Chat: Rocket.Chat is an open-source team messaging and customer communication platform with channel-based conversations. It targets similar distributed and security-conscious buyers as Twist, including teams seeking alternatives to Slack.
• Flock: Flock is a team messaging and collaboration app built around channels and direct messaging for SMBs. It competes with Twist on price, channel-based communication, and integrations aimed at small distributed teams.

Broad incumbents

• Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a broad incumbent workspace collaboration suite bundled with Microsoft 365. It competes with Twist for team communication budgets, especially in enterprises, and increasingly offers threaded/async-friendly features.
• Zoom Team Chat: Zoom Team Chat is the persistent messaging layer bundled with Zoom's video conferencing platform. It competes with Twist for team communication dollars, particularly in enterprises that already standardize on Zoom for meetings.

Emerging players

• Notion: Notion is a workspace and documentation platform whose threaded comments and async-friendly pages increasingly overlap with Twist's knowledge-organization use case. It is a partial competitor for teams consolidating communication and documentation.
• Linear: Linear is an issue tracking and project management tool for product teams with strong async-first design principles. While not a direct chat replacement, it competes with Twist for the async collaboration and structured-discussion workflows of modern product teams.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/mytwist
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/twist-inc

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Twist