Question 1

What is Cake Day?

Accepted Answer

Cake Day is a Slack birthday bot that automatically posts AI-personalized birthday and work-anniversary shoutouts in your team's celebration channel. Setup takes about two minutes via Slack OAuth.

Question 2

How long does setup take?

Accepted Answer

About two minutes. Install Cake Day from the Slack App Directory or cakeday.io, designate a celebration channel, and either invite teammates to add their own dates with /cakeday me or upload a CSV roster (Starter plan and up).

Question 3

Is there a free tier?

Accepted Answer

Yes — a permanent free tier covering 30 celebrations per year, suitable for teams up to about 30 people. Not a trial; you can stay on the free plan as long as it covers your team.

Question 4

Will my team actually engage with this?

Accepted Answer

Recognition is the cheapest morale lever you have — and Cake Day's whole job is making sure it actually happens. Gallup has spent decades showing the same thing: employees who feel recognized are dramatically more engaged, more productive, and far more likely to stay. When a teammate's birthday or anniversary lands in front of the whole team, people show up — reactions, replies, kind words.

Question 5

Will this actually move retention?

Accepted Answer

Recognition isn't a soft perk — it's one of the strongest predictors of whether people stay. Replacing a single teammate costs roughly 6–9 months of their salary; consistent recognition is one of the cheapest, most reliable counterweights. Cake Day makes sure those moments happen every single time.

Question 6

Will the AI shoutouts feel generic or templated?

Accepted Answer

No — every message is written fresh for the specific teammate, never a template. On the Pro plan you can feed in your team's voice and tone so shoutouts sound like your culture. Use /cakeday test @user any time to preview what a shoutout will look like.

Question 7

What if the AI writes something weird?

Accepted Answer

Every shoutout is written fresh by AI, which is what keeps them personal — and once in a while, AI being AI, a message can land unexpectedly. Two safety nets: admins can preview any shoutout with /cakeday test @user before it goes live, and any teammate can opt out anytime with /cakeday optout. We also only send first name and Slack handle to the model — never email, role, or anything sensitive.

Question 8

Why not just add birthdays to a shared calendar?

Accepted Answer

A calendar reminder makes someone do the work. Cake Day does the celebrating. Your team already lives in Slack, and a personal shoutout in front of the whole team lands very differently than a calendar ping. The whole point is that the moment happens automatically, even when admins are heads-down.

Question 9

Does Cake Day store year of birth?

Accepted Answer

No. Cake Day stores month and day only. The database has no column for year of birth. Year of birth enables age inference, which is a protected characteristic under U.S. ADEA and EU GDPR — so we don't collect it.

Question 10

What Slack permissions does Cake Day need?

Accepted Answer

Cake Day requests the minimum scopes needed to post in your celebration channel and read teammate names: chat:write, channels:read, users:read, and team:read. We never request access to private DMs, files, or message history.

Question 11

Does Cake Day work with Microsoft Teams?

Accepted Answer

No. Cake Day is Slack-only. Slack is where the bot posts, where the celebration thread happens, and where the install flow lives. There are no plans for a Teams version.

Question 12

How do teammates opt out?

Accepted Answer

Any teammate runs /cakeday optout in Slack and is removed from posting immediately. No HR involvement required. The default policy is opt-out, no questions asked.

Question 13

What happens if a teammate leaves the company?

Accepted Answer

When their Slack account is deactivated, Cake Day stops posting for them automatically on the next sync. Admins can also remove people manually from the dashboard.

Question 14

Is my team's data safe?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Bot tokens are encrypted at rest with per-workspace keys. We send only first name and handle to our AI provider when generating each shoutout — no email, role, or team affiliation. Any teammate can opt out at any time. Full details in our privacy and security pages.

Never missa single milestone.

The Slack birthday bot that automates birthdays, work anniversaries, and team milestones — no spreadsheets, no calendar reminders, no missed moments.

Two minutes to install. Then never think about birthdays again.

Consistent recognition is what separates teams people leave from teams people brag about.

Warm, personal shout-outs land in Slack and your team feels seen.

“Fine” isn't a feeling anyone remembers.

Recognition that actually lands.

Two ways to build your roster.

Invite your whole Slack

Upload a CSV

Build the culture you keep talking about.

Never a missed birthday.
Never an anniversary.

Two-minute setup.

Month + day. That's it.

Weekend + timezone aware.

1, 3, 5, 10+ year anniversaries
get extra love.

Questions, answered.

Make every teammate
feel seen.