Encrypted team chat for up to ten people, free

No. It is a plan with a member limit rather than a countdown, so a workspace on it does not expire, is not downgraded after a fortnight and does not ask for a payment card at any point. The separate fourteen-day trial exists for the paid plans, and a trial that ends without a subscription drops the organisation onto this plan rather than deleting it.

• No expiry date and no payment card
• A paid trial that lapses lands here, with nothing deleted
• The plan does not degrade as it ages, and it is not withdrawn once you have used it for a while

Yes, and it is not a reduced version of it. Direct messages and group direct messages are end-to-end encrypted with MLS as specified in RFC 9420, one key per device, with no key held by the server and no administrator override — on the free plan exactly as on Business. Channels are server-managed on every plan, which is what makes search possible, and the room shows which mode it is in.

• Same protocol, same implementation, same guarantee as every paid plan
• The server holds no key that opens an encrypted room, whatever you pay
• Channels are readable by the server, on every plan, so that search works
• Encrypted rooms are searched on your own device against a local index

The limit is ten active members, so the eleventh invitation needs a paid plan before it can be accepted — nothing is charged automatically and no card is on file to charge. What counts towards ten is the same thing that counts as a seat on a paid plan: an active member of the organisation. Bot accounts, guests and deactivated people are not counted, so an integration or a departed colleague never pushes a free workspace over the line.

• Bots, guests and deactivated accounts do not count towards the ten
• Deactivating a member frees the place again
• Moving to a paid plan is the other way past it, and starts with a fourteen-day trial
• Nothing is deleted or locked while you decide

Upgrading is a plan change on the organisation you already have, not a new workspace: the members, channels, threads, files and history stay exactly where they are, the history window opens from ninety days to the whole archive, and any modules the new plan carries become available. Every paid plan starts with a fourteen-day trial of that plan in full, and starting one does not require a payment card either. Leaving is the same move in the other direction — a full organisation export in open formats, at any time, without a support ticket.

• A plan change on the same organisation; nothing is migrated and nothing is recreated
• Ninety days of searchable history becomes the whole archive on any paid plan
• Seats are reconciled on the next invoice, counting active members only
• Cancelling later drops the organisation back to Free rather than deleting it
• The export is complete, in open formats, and available before you commit to anything