Slack @here vs @channel

The difference between Slack @here vs @channel is who gets notified. @channel notifies every member of the channel, active or away. @here notifies only the members who are active at that moment. Both are broadcast mentions, so one message reaches many people at once. That makes them useful for urgent messages and costly when overused, because a team that gets pinged for everything mutes the channel.

Slack @here vs @channel at a glance

• @channel notifies all members of the channel, including people set to away.
• @here notifies only the channel members who are active. People who are away get no notification, though the message is still in the channel when they come back.
• @everyone notifies every person in the workspace's general channel. You can only use it there.

Slack's help center lists some rules that apply to all three:

• They don't notify people whose notifications are paused.
• They don't notify anyone when you use them inside a thread.
• In a channel with six or more members, Slack asks you to confirm before sending.
• Workspace owners and admins can turn off that warning and restrict who can use the mentions.
• In Enterprise organizations with 10,000 or more members, only owners and admins can use @channel and @here.

When to use @here on Slack

Use @here when the people online right now can handle the issue and nobody else needs a notification. A question for whoever is around, or an outage update during the working day, fits @here.

Use @channel when the message matters to people who are away too. Someone off shift should learn about it when they next open Slack, or on their phone if they allow notifications. A new chargeback with a response deadline is a good example.

If you can't name who needs to act, @channel is probably the wrong choice. Mention the person or the user group instead.

How apps send @channel and @here

When a bot or integration posts, the plain text "@channel" notifies nobody. The message text needs Slack's mention syntax:

• <!channel> for @channel
• <!here> for @here
• <!everyone> for @everyone
• <@U012AB3CD> for one person
• <!subteam^ID> for a user group

The syntax is the same for an incoming webhook, a workflow, or the Web API. One catch applies to app messages. Slack notifies a mentioned person only if they already belong to the channel. An alert that mentions your finance lead in #billing does nothing if they never joined #billing.

Which Stripe events deserve a broadcast

Most payment events don't. A new sale or a paid invoice can wait until someone reads the channel. A broadcast is worth it when money is at risk and a deadline is running:

• A new dispute. Stripe fires charge.dispute.created and takes the disputed amount plus a dispute fee from your balance. You usually have 7 to 21 days to respond, and the exact deadline is in evidence_details.due_by. A dispute with no evidence can't be won.
• A failed payment. payment_intent.payment_failed on a renewal is where involuntary churn starts. A hard decline such as expired_card needs the customer to act, and a same-day email has better odds than one sent a week later.
• A failed payout. payout.failed means money you expected didn't reach your bank, usually because of a bank account problem.

Ask one question before adding @channel to an alert. Would you want this at 2 a.m.? If not, post it without a mention or send it to a daily summary.

Keeping broadcasts useful

• Send broadcast alerts to a small channel of people who can act, such as #billing or #founders.
• During working hours in a busy channel, prefer @here. Use @channel when people who are away also need to know.
• Review what fired each month. If a broadcast went out and nobody had to act, downgrade it.
• Name an owner. A broadcast that everyone sees and nobody owns is still a missed alert.

How ChargeBell uses @channel

ChargeBell treats failed payments, new disputes and failed payouts as critical alerts. Critical alerts skip your quiet hours. You can also turn on an @channel prefix for them, and ChargeBell then sends <!channel> at the top of the message. Routine alerts, such as payments and payouts, respect quiet hours and post without a mention. Each alert type can go to its own channel, so the broadcast reaches the people who handle it. How to avoid noisy Stripe notifications covers the other noise settings, such as minimum amounts and daily digests.