Airtable Pricing: The Hidden Costs + How Baserow Compares

Airtable and Baserow are popular no-code databases, but when it comes to choosing between them, Airtable’s pricing and limitations are an important consideration. The platform offers various features and pricing tiers, but is it really the best value for your business?

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at Airtable’s pricing structure, discuss its hidden costs, and explore its limitations. We’ll also demonstrate why Baserow’s advanced features and open-source core make it a more cost-effective solution for businesses dealing with large volumes of data and a growing number of users.

• Airtable’s pricing & features
• How does Airtable’s pricing work
• Is Airtable worth it?
• The hidden costs of using Airtable
• Disadvantages and limitations
• Baserow and Airtable price comparison
• Why Baserow is a cost-effective alternative

Airtable’s pricing and features

Airtable is a cloud-based data management tool that combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the functionality of a database. It allows users to create custom databases to organise, store, and manage data in a flexible and collaborative way. While it has many uses, it’s most suited for businesses that are already familiar with Excel or Google Sheets, but require more features for managing their projects.

Its main benefits include:

• User-friendly interface: Airtable’s visually appealing interface makes it easy for users to create, modify, and manage databases with minimal training or technical expertise.
• Flexibility: Users can create custom databases using a combination of spreadsheets and databases, providing flexibility in organising and managing data.
• Collaboration features: The platform enables real-time collaboration, allowing multiple team members to work on the same project simultaneously. Users can also leave comments, add attachments, and share databases.
• Customizable views: Airtable offers various views, such as Grid, Calendar, and Kanban to help users visualise and work with their data in different ways.
• Integrations: It supports a variety of native integrations with popular third-party applications like Slack, Google Drive, and Trello, though most integrations happen via Zapier.
• Templates: Airtable offers a library of pre-built templates for various industries and use cases, helping users get started quickly.

Airtable pricing plans

In terms of pricing, Airtable offers a tiered pricing model, with four different plans to cater to businesses of varying sizes and needs. It’s important to note that all of its plans impose limits on the number of records and the amount of attachment space per base, as well as limitations on automation per base. So, if you’re dealing with large amounts of data, you might find that Airtable isn’t enough for you.

Plan	Features	Price
Free plan	1,200 records per base 2GB attachment space per base 2-weeks revision history	Free
Plus plan	5,000 records per base 5GB attachment space per base 6-month revision history	$10 per user per month
Pro plan	50,000 records per base 20GB attachment space per base 1-year revision history	$20 per user per month
Enterprise plan	250,000 records per base 1,000 GB of attachments Add on professional services	Pricing on request (estimated to start at $35 up to $75 per user per month

How does Airtable’s pricing work?

Airtable plans are charged per seat. If you are on Airtable’s Free plan, you can add viewers and commenters to your workspace for free. If you are on a paid Airtable plan, you will be charged for all collaborators who have edit or comment permissions to at least one base in the workspace. This might be affordable for small teams, however, the costs can quickly add up for larger organisations with multiple users.

Is Airtable worth it?

While Airtable has many useful features, its limitations and hidden costs can make it less suitable for larger teams with big data volumes and lots of users. If you’re looking for an alternative that offers more flexibility, scalability, and better value for money, you might want to consider Baserow.

The hidden costs of using Airtable

Although it may seem initially straightforward, Airtable’s pricing structure may end up being more than you bargained for. For example, the Pro plan allows for 50,000 records per base, but as your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade to Enterprise which can be much more expensive. On Enterprise, the limit is 250,000 records per table, however, some users say they experience slowdowns at only 50,000 records per table.

In addition, as a closed-source platform, Airtable doesn’t allow users to modify or extend its core functionality to meet specific business requirements. This lack of customisation can result in the need for third-party integrations. Although Airtable offers a number of native integrations, many businesses find that they need to rely on external tools like Zapier to connect with other applications, which can increase the overall cost and complexity.

What’s more, being locked into Airtable’s ecosystem means that your business relies on a single provider for updates, improvements, and support. And since Airtable is a cloud-based platform, your data is stored on their servers, which might not be suitable for businesses with sensitive data or strict security requirements.

Airtable’s limitations and disadvantages

• Pricing: Airtable’s pricing model can be expensive. Free plans have limited features and storage, while higher-tier plans have row, automation and storage limits, and can be costly. As your team grows, the per-user pricing model can result in rapidly-increasing costs.
• Limited records per base: The record limitations on Airtable’s lower-tier plans can quickly become a constraint for growing businesses, forcing them to upgrade to more expensive plans to accommodate their expanding data needs. On the Enterprise plan, Airtable still has a limit of 250,000 records per base. That might seem like a lot of records, but for production-grade applications, this is fairly limited.
• Attachment space limitations: The storage space limitations on lower-tier plans may also pose a challenge for businesses that deal with a large volume of attachments or multimedia content, potentially leading to costly storage upgrades.
• Limited customisation and integration: While Airtable offers a range of pre-built integrations, businesses with specialised or unique requirements may find the platform’s customisation options restrictive, potentially necessitating additional investments in third-party tools or custom development. There is no access to plug-ins or the source code to add features.
• API limits: Airtable imposes rate limits on its API, which can slow down the performance of applications when dealing with large volumes of data or complex integrations.
• Lack of control over data: With Airtable, you don’t have the option to self-host the platform, giving you less control over your data’s security, privacy, and compliance. This can be a major disadvantage for businesses in heavily regulated industries or those with strict data protection requirements like healthcare, finance, government, and more.
• Vendor lock-in: If Airtable decides to change its pricing model, discontinue certain features, or if the company faces any issues, your business could be forced to switch to another platform. Having access to the source code is good for business continuity.
• Potential scalability issues: As your business grows and your data management requirements become more complex, Airtable’s limitations in storage, records, and API rate limits may hinder its ability to scale with your needs. At larger volumes of data, the speed and performance of Airtable are impacted negatively.

Baserow and Airtable price comparison

Baserow’s hosted SaaS offering comes as a free plan, a Premium plan ($5 per user/month), and an Advanced plan ($20 per user/month). All hosted plans have unlimited databases, with a 3,000, 10,000, and 250,000 row limit respectively. Baserow’s hosted plans offer twice the value for money than Airtable’s plans, with twice the storage and 5x the row capacity.

Unlike Airtable, Baserow also offers open source, self-hosted plans that you can host on-premise or in the cloud. All of Baserow’s self-hosted plans offer unlimited databases, unlimited rows, and unlimited storage. They also offer complete control over your data and hosting environment, which can be crucial for businesses with strict security or compliance requirements.

All plans come with an array of impressive features, such as advanced search and filtering, collaboration tools, a variety of views, and a wide range of templates to help you get started. The Enterprise plan also comes with additional features such as role-based access permissions, audit logs, Single Sign On, and dedicated support.

See Baserow’s pricing in detail or check out the overviews below:

Baserow’s hosted pricing plans

Plan	Features	Price
Free	Unlimited databases 3,000 rows 2GB per workspace Collaborators, Grid, Form and Gallery views	Free
Premium	Unlimited databases 10,000 rows 5GB per workspace Advanced collaboration, additional Kanban, Survey and Calendar views	$5 per user/month
Advanced	Unlimited databases 250,000 rows 20GB per workspace All Premium features, plus role-based permissions and priority support	$20 per user/month

Baserow’s self-hosted pricing plans

Plan	Features	Price
Free	Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage Collaborators, Grid, Form and Gallery views	Always free
Premium	Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage Advanced collaboration, additional Kanban, Survey and Calendar views	$5 per user/month
Enterprise	Unlimited databases Unlimited rows Unlimited storage All Premium features, plus role-based permissions, instance-wide admin panel, audit log, and priority support	On request, ranging from 15 USD to 35 USD/user/month based on the number of users.

Baserow offers better value for money than Airtable

Baserow’s open-source version provides better value for money than Airtable’s pricing in many ways:

• Unlimited rows and databases: Unlike Airtable’s pricing plans, Baserow’s open source self-hosted version allows for unlimited rows and databases, making it a more scalable solution without incurring additional costs. In addition, Baserow does not limit automation per base, which is something Airtable does.
• 100% more storage and 5x more rows than Airtable in the SaaS version. No need to upgrade from the Pro plan to Enterprise when hitting the limits of 50,000 records in Airtable. For the same price, Baserow offers 250,000 rows.
• Customizable storage and attachment limits: With self-hosting, Baserow users can customise their storage and attachment limits based on their infrastructure, which allows you to scale at much higher data volumes.
• Full control over data and hosting environment: Baserow’s open source nature ensures users have complete control over their data and hosting environment, which can be crucial for businesses with strict security or compliance requirements.
• For large organisations, Baserow’s Enterprise plan offers role-based access control, an administration panel, SSO, and direct priority support. Users also have access to all Premium features such as JSON and XML export, row coloring and comments, public logo removal, Kanban and Calendar views, survey form mode, audit log, and more.
• Developer friendly: With Baserow’s platform, you can easily create custom plugins or use third-party ones. This means that you can expand your database functionalities way beyond Airtable’s. Plus, Baserow is API-first, so it can be easily integrated with every tool you need.
• Speed: Airtable loading times can be very slow, especially as your base gets bigger. Baserow is designed to handle large amounts of data efficiently and maintain stability, even when dealing with hundreds of thousands of records.

Baserow’s top features

• Half the price of Airtable.
• A powerful open source, no-code database.
• Hosted and self-hosted versions.
• Familiar spreadsheet-style interface.
• Unlimited rows and storage when self-hosted.
• Customizable features with custom plugins.
• Real time collaboration.
• The interface works blazing fast!
• Lots of templates.
• API first, supporting integrations with any other tools.
• Enterprise-grade access and security features.
• A helpful online community.
• Direct support for Advanced and Enterprise plans.

Baserow: A cost-effective Airtable alternative

Fed up with Airtable’s high prices and closed-source platform? You’re not alone. Many Airtable users are switching to Baserow for our advanced features, capabilities, and its open source core.

Baserow allows you to retain full control over your data and meet data compliance requirements. You can access and modify the source code, tailor the platform to meet your specific needs and integrate it with other tools. Plus, we have an active community of developers and users who contribute to the platform’s development and provide support.

With Baserow, there are no hidden costs or nasty surprises. Our no-code platform is built for scale, offering speed and stability, even when handling complex or large amounts of data.

While other platforms have their merits, businesses seeking more control, flexibility, and scalability should consider Baserow as a cost-effective, open source alternative.

Other useful resources

• How to migrate from Airtable to Baserow
• 10 no-code trends for 2023
• 7 reasons to use a database instead of Excel
• Best business plan templates for startups

Contact Baserow