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Last updated · April 30, 2026

Cake Day is a Slack app that posts AI-generated birthday and work-anniversary shout-outs in your team's channel. This page covers install, setup, day-to-day use, billing, and the things admins ask most often. Anything missing? Email info@cakeday.io and we'll get back to you.

Installing Cake Day

Visit cakeday.io and click Add to Slack, or install directly from the Slack App Directory once Cake Day is listed there. You'll be asked to grant the bot permission to post messages, read channel and member basics, and send DMs. We explain why each scope is needed in our Privacy Policy.

Whoever runs the install becomes the Installer— the original admin and owner of the workspace's Cake Day account. Ownership can be transferred from the dashboard later.

First-time setup

After install, Slack drops you into a one-screen welcome that hands off to your Cake Day dashboard at cakeday.io/app. From there, or directly in Slack with /cakeday setup, you'll pick:

The celebration channel where birthday shout-outs get posted.
An optional separate work-anniversary channel (otherwise both go to the same place).
The post time + timezone. Cake Day fires once per day at that local time. Weekend celebrations shift to the nearest weekday so they don't get missed.

Setup takes under a minute. Re-run /cakeday setup any time to change channels or timing.

Adding people to the roster

Three ways to add people:

Invite via Slack DM. From cakeday.io/app/roster, click Add to roster → Send Slack DM invites and pick teammates. Each person gets a friendly DM where they can add their birthday and work-anniversary themselves — no spreadsheet juggling.
Mass broadcast (Starter+). /cakeday broadcastopens a flow that DM's every active workspace member at once with the same opt-in DM. Bots, guests, and anyone who's already opted in or out are excluded automatically.
CSV import (Starter+). Upload a spreadsheet of teammates with their dates from the Roster page. Cake Day shows you a preview before anything is written.

People who've been invited but haven't responded show as Pending; people who declined show as Declinedand don't get re-DM'd. Anyone can opt out later — see Privacy & opt-out.

How celebrations get posted

Each day at your configured post time, Cake Day:

Looks up everyone with a birthday or work anniversary today (or shifted from the weekend).
Confirms each person is still an active workspace member (so we don't shout out someone who's left).
Generates a celebratory message using Google's Gemini model, with a curated GIF attached.
Posts to your celebration channel, tagging the person.

Each post counts as one celebration against your annual cap (see below). Birthdays and work anniversaries on the same day count as two separate celebrations.

Leap-day birthdays. Folks born on Feb 29 pick whether they want to be celebrated on Feb 28 or Mar 1 in non-leap years. The bot asks them when they add their date.

Plans, pricing, and the annual celebration cap

Cake Day bills by celebrations posted per year, anchored to the date your workspace installed. Roster size is unlimited on every plan — add as many people as you like.

Free. 30 celebrations/year. 1 admin, 1 channel, AI shout-outs, 30-day activity history.
Starter — $19/mo or $190/yr. 150 celebrations/year. Up to 3 admins, separate birthday + anniversary channels, mass broadcast invites, CSV import, email support.
Growth — $49/mo or $490/yr. 500 celebrations/year. Unlimited admins, team-leader roles, full activity analytics.
Pro — $99/mo or $990/yr. Unlimited celebrations, custom AI tone prompts, custom display name + icon for shout-outs, priority support in Slack.

See the side-by-side comparison at cakeday.io/pricing. Upgrade and downgrade any time from your billing page — Stripe handles proration. Annual subscriptions can be canceled mid-cycle and the plan stays active until the end of the period.

What happens at the cap? When you hit 80% of your annual celebrations, admins get a heads-up DM. At 100%, the next celebration that would have posted is skipped— admins get a DM saying we would have celebrated someone but the budget is gone, with an upgrade link. The skipped celebration is logged so you can audit it later. Late birthdays are worse than no birthday, so we don't retroactively post skipped celebrations after upgrading; they catch up on the next celebration day.

When does the year reset?Each workspace's year is anchored to its install date. If you installed on March 15, your celebration count resets every March 15. Run /cakeday usage in Slack or check the Roster page to see your reset date.

Admins, owner, and permissions

Adminscan configure Cake Day, manage the roster, run broadcasts, and change billing. Cake Day admins don't have to be Slack workspace admins — that's deliberate, so a smaller group can manage celebrations without granting Slack-admin power.

The Owner is one specific Cake Day admin who can transfer ownership to someone else. The Installer becomes the Owner by default. If the Owner ever leaves the Slack workspace or is demoted from being a Slack admin, the Owner role enters a Pending Claim state — any current Slack workspace admin can claim Cake Day ownership in the dashboard, with a 24-hour cool-down between claims to prevent thrash.

Add or remove admins via /cakeday admin add @user / /cakeday admin remove @user, or from the dashboard's Admins page.

Custom AI tone and branding (Pro)

Pro workspaces can:

Set a custom AI tone prompt from the Settings page. Whatever you write gets appended to the standard system prompt — the safety rails stay on (no fabrication, banned-word validator, length cap), but you steer voice, vibe, and inside-joke awareness.
Customize the bot's display name and icon on shout-out posts. Useful if you have a mascot or a company-specific handle. Falls back to standard Cake Day branding if you downgrade or leave the fields empty.

Privacy, opt-out, and data deletion

Anyone on the roster can opt out at any time:

In Slack: /cakeday me and tap Opt out in the modal.
From the opt-in DM: tap No thanks when invited.

Opt-out is silent — no celebration ever posts for an opted-out user. Their dates are kept so they can opt back in without re-entering anything; an admin can delete the row entirely from the Roster page.

When a workspace uninstalls Cake Day, all roster data, settings, and audit rows are deleted within 30 days. Stripe billing records are kept for 7 years for tax/legal compliance, per our Privacy Policy.

Troubleshooting

The bot didn't post a shout-out for someone today.

Check, in order:

Are you paused? /cakeday pause stops all posts; resume with /cakeday resume.
Is the person on the roster as Active? Pending invites and opted-out users are skipped.
Have you hit your annual celebration cap? Run /cakeday usage.
Is the celebration channel still set, and is the bot a member of it? /cakeday setup to reconfigure.
Is the workspace timezone correct? Cake Day uses the timezone you set, not Slack's per-user timezones.

I clicked the Slack install link and got an error.

The most common cause is a stale browser tab from a previous attempt. Close all Cake Day tabs, then open cakeday.io and click Add to Slack fresh.

The Home tab still shows old info.

Slack caches the Home tab per-user. Click another channel and back, or fully reopen Slack to force a refresh.

Billing changes haven't taken effect.

Plan changes propagate via Stripe webhook. Allow up to a minute. If your dashboard still shows the old plan after that, refresh the page or sign out/in.

Contact + reporting issues

Email info@cakeday.iofor support, billing questions, data requests, or to report anything that looks broken. Pro workspaces can also tag the bot directly in Slack with a question — we'll route it.

For privacy or data-deletion requests, see Privacy Policy. For terms of service, see Terms.

Questions or requests?

Email us — we'll get back to you fast.

info@cakeday.io

Cake Day is a service of MSW Digital LLC.