Airtable's pricing structure explained

Heading to Airtable’s pricing page, things can get overwhelming.

The first thing to keep in mind is that there are four main plans available:

1. Free plan
2. Team plan (formerly Pro plan)
3. Business plan
4. Enterprise scale plan

*It's important to note that the Plus plan was deprecated in 2023. All Plus plan users were automatically added to the Team plan.

Airtable Free plan

Airtable's Free plan is a great way for team members to try out the platform.

The biggest pain points for free users are the record limit per base (1000 only) and the maximum number of users (5).

Since open-source alternatives like Google Sheets are free and don't have nearly the same usage limits, Airtable's free plan might not be the best cost-effective solution.

However, if you want certain features that let you:

1. Sync tables;
2. Pull templates from the gallery;
3. Add file attachments;
4. Use native integrations with your project management software.

... then Airtable's free plan might be just right for you.

Related Resource: Airtable vs. Google Sheets

Pricing: Free

Key features and limitations:

1. 5 editor usage limit;
2. 50 commenters per workspace;
3. 1 app per base;
4. 1 sync integration;
5. 1,000 record limit per base;
6. 1GB of file attachments per base.

Best for: Sign up for free if you're an individual user or small team interested in trying out the platform

Airtable Team plan

The Team plan is the Pro plan with minimal feature changes. Any members of the Plus legacy plan (the tier below pro) would automatically get a Team account.

Unlimited users can take advantage of advanced features and user management functionality.

For example, you get 50,000 records per base (vs. 1000 in the Free plan), and have great control on who has access to what. This permission granularity lets you add role-based permissions, like read-only collaborators.

You also get:

1. Gantt and timeline views;
2. Advanced customization options;
3. Early access to new features.

Key features and limitations:

1. 50,000 records per base
2. 25,000 automation runs
3. 20 GB of attachments per base
4. Standard native integrations
5. Unlimited editors
6. 1 year snapshot history
7. Personal & locked views;
8. Field & table editing permissions

Pricing: $20 charge per seat /month billed annually

Best for: Try the Team plan if you're a small business looking for an affordable no-code database with role-based permissions.

Airtable Business plan

If you need more advanced features and basic admin, then the Business plan is right for you.

This new plan is especially useful if you're looking to expand the workspace setting for different departments or teams. Unlike the other two options, you can create unlimited workspaces for unlimited users.

You also get:

1. Custom filter conditions;
2. 20 sync tables per base;
3. Automation builder with 100,000 runs per month.

Key features and limitations

1. 125,000 records per base;
2. Unlimited editors and commenters per workspace;
3. 100 GB attachments per base;
4. 2-year snapshot history

Pricing: $45/user/month billed annually.

Best for: Sign up for the business plan if you're a small-to-medium business working with a large dataset.

Airtable Enterprise scale plan

The Enterprise scale plan is in a league of its own, including pretty much everything you can think of including admin and dedicated support.

This plan is especially relevant for larger companies looking for premium features. If that’s your case, you should get in touch directly with the sales team for more information.

Key features and limitations:

1. Unlimited workspaces per organization;
2. Unlimited apps;
3. Salesforce & Jira on-prem sync integrations;
4. 100,000 records per base;
5. 1,000GB of attachments per base;
6. 3-year revision & snapshot history;
7. SAML-based single sign-on;
8. Enterprise-wide admin panel;
9. Ongoing Success Program;
10. Priority support and professional service.

Pricing: Available price on request (potentially starting at $10k/month)

Best for: Large enterprise scale organizations.

As you can see, Airtable pricing will vary greatly depending on your needs and requirements. Starting with a smaller plan and stepping up when a need arises is a good way to go, but can lead to unpleasant surprises if you don’t plan out appropriately.

Let’s take a detailed look at the practical example of John, an Airtable user with evolving needs and a limited wallet.

Airtable pricing: Finding a Better Solution

In this scenario, we’ll follow someone who was quickly spending more money on increased Airtable plans, and then found a better way to get the most out of Airtable.

Who: John is the head of operations at Company X, a growing web agency. His team of 22 people covers a wide area of topics ranging from digital advertising to growth marketing.

The problem: John decides to explore a no-code solution, turning to Airtable for a spreadsheet/database hybrid platform to use as a backend, along with Softr for the frontend interface.

Getting started: John starts by signing up for Airtable’s free plan and is able to build and deliver his first project to his immediate team, a marketing campaign ROI calculator for internal use.

Upgrading to Teams: Interest quickly picks up and other members of the team are interested to use Airtable for other purposes, like:

1. Creating landing pages;
2. Building Gantt charts and visualizations;
3. Keeping track of ad campaigns.

John upgrades to Airtable’s Team plan. He also decides to purchase seats for 10 team members that will be involved in creating more projects.

The agency is now spending $420/month, for an upfront cost of $5040.

Upgrading to Business: Fast forward to a few weeks later, the team runs into more limitations:

First, some projects require setting field and table editing permissions, along with some password-restricted shares.

Second, the team is getting dangerously close to the 5000 records per base limit from the starter plan.

Finally, John is interested in the ability to introduce new views for reporting purposes, as he’s looking to share insights with the executive team.

To address these, John considers upgrading to Airtable’s Business for himself and the entire 21-person team. The monthly fee would add up to $945/month, for an upfront cost of $11,340.

But what if there was a better way?

A better solution: John and the team have already decided to use Softr to create frontend interfaces, including client portals for their customers and internal tools for the rest of the organization.

But Softr can also help with their budget, as it allows customers to have 10.000 users (!) access and work on their data for $79/month ($65 if paid yearly).

Softr will help John and the marketing team to save thousands of dollars, literally.

To sum it up: it’s quite easy to find yourself upgrading to a higher plan with Airtable and pay a large amount every month.

Without Softr, John’s move to Airtable could have gone from $0 to a $5040 price tag in a couple of weeks, something that you should be aware of when building your next project.

Want to run your own simulation? Check out this nifty Airtable pricing calculator built by Gareth Pronovost at GAP Consulting, it’s a practical way to answer a few questions to get a suggestion and quote for your Airtable pricing.

Now, let’s talk more about how Softr can help.

Use Softr to get the best out of Airtable

We’ve established that Softr can help turn your Airtable data into a full-blown project and help with the impact on your budget. But how much exactly will it cost?

The important thing to remember is that your Softr implementation comes on top of your Airtable data.

If you are just using Airtable, you have limited sharing options. With Softr, you can create granular permissions for each user group, and the pricing allows more external users to interact with your data for a much lower price!

Combine Airtable with Softr

As you could see throughout the article, Airtable pricing can quickly become overwhelming and bring up some surprises if you don’t stay on top of it. We hope this guide helped you figure out more clearly what you need from Airtable and how much it might eventually cost you.

Feel free to join our community to learn more and exchange with other Softr users about which Airtable plans and pricing they decided to go for.

Thanks for reading!

About Softr

Softr is an easy-to-use no-code platform that turns Airtable bases into powerful web apps member-only websites, and client portals.

Softr offers a way for you to authenticate your end-users, and control access to your content and data based on conditional rules like roles, logged-in status, subscription plans, etc.

If you're using Airtable as a product catalog you can use a Softr template to build your e-commerce website.

Or maybe you'd like to build a custom website for your travel journal, there's a template for that too!