Airtable pricing: The hidden costs and 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
• Airtable pricing changes
• Is Airtable worth it?
• The hidden costs of using Airtable
• Disadvantages and limitations
• Baserow and Airtable price comparison
• Airtable pricing FAQs
• 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 organize, 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 organizing 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 visualize 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.

How does Airtable’s pricing work?

Airtable plans are charged per seat. If you’re on Airtable’s Free plan, you can have up to 5 editors and 50 commenters per workspace for free. If you’re on a paid Airtable plan, you’ll have an unlimited number of editors and commenters per workspace. However, on paid plans, any collaborator with a permission level of Commenter, Editor, Creator, or Owner is classified as billable. This means you’ll be charged for adding them as workspace or base collaborators. Read-only collaborators are classified as non-billable.

Airtable pricing changes

Airtable’s pricing changed on August 24, 2023. These changes reflect a strategic shift to accommodate a broader range of users and use cases. Here’s an overview of how Airtable’s pricing structure has changed:

Old Airtable pricing

• Free plan: Offered 1,200 records per base, 2GB of attachment space, and a 2-week revision history. It also offered 5 users with all permissions, 1 synced table, one synced integration, and unlimited API calls per workspace.
• Plus plan: Offered 5,000 records and 5GB of attachment space, with a 6-month revision history, priced at $10/user/month (billed annually). Included unlimited users with all permissions, 1 synced table per base, 3 synced integrations, and unlimited API calls per workspace.
• Pro plan: Offered 50,000 records, 20GB of attachment space, and a 1-year revision history, at $20/user/month (billed annually). Included unlimited users with all permissions, 10 synced tables per base, 3 synced integrations, and unlimited API calls per workspace.
• Enterprise plan: Offered 250,000 records and 1,000GB of attachment space, along with unlimited users, 20 synced tables, unlimited integrations, and additional professional services, with pricing on request.

New Airtable pricing

• Free: Now includes unlimited bases but reduces records per base to 1,000 and attachment space to 1GB. It includes 5 editors and 50 commenters, 0 synced tables per base, 0 synced integrations, and 1,000 API calls per workspace.
• Team: Priced at $20/seat/month (billed annually). Includes 50,000 records per base, 10 GB of attachment space. It also includes unlimited editors and commenters, 10 synced tables, 0 synced integrations, and 100,000 API calls per workspace.
• Business: Price increased to $45/seat/month (billed annually), this includes 125,000 records per base, 100 GB attachment space, unlimited editors and commenters, 20 synced tables, standard sync integrations, and 100,000 API calls per workspace.
• Enterprise Scale: Offers up to 500,000 records per base, 1,000 GB attachment space, unlimited editors and commenters, 20 synced tables, unlimited synced integrations, and unlimited API calls per workspace.

Key changes and implications

Free plan

• Record limit reduced from 1,200 to 1,000 records per base.
• Attachment space halved from 2 GB to 1 GB.
• Editor limitation now specifies up to 5 editors, with an increase in commenter allowance up to 50, instead of previous all-permission users.
• Removal of synced tables and integrations.
• Capped API calls to 1,000 per month, from the previously unlimited calls.

Team plan

• A 100% price increase from the legacy Plus plan, now costing $20/user/month when billed annually.
• Offers a substantial increase in records per base and storage but reduces sync integrations to zero and imposes a cap on API calls.

Business plan

• A 125% price increase from the legacy Pro plan, now priced at $45/user/month billed annually.
• Considerable increases in record limits, storage, and synced tables. From unlimited users with all permissions to unlimited editors and commenters. Imposes a cap on API calls.

Enterprise Scale plan

• Doubles the record limit from the legacy Enterprise plan to 500,000 records per base.
• Focused on increasing storage limits, user management, and artificial intelligence.
• From unlimited users with all permissions to unlimited editors and commenters.
• Pricing specifics aren’t detailed, however it’s likely to be $60+ per user/month, billed annually. This becomes expensive when scaling users and data.

What Airtable’s pricing changes mean for users

Airtable’s pricing changes across its plan offerings affects users at various levels from individual users to large enterprises. Specifically, the changes demonstrate a strategic move towards securing higher-tier customers, offering enhanced features at higher price points, while imposing stricter limitations on lower-tier plans.

Mid-size teams who were on the old Pro plan have faced the decision to either downgrade to Team and get lesser features or upgrade to the Professional plan and face a considerable hike in costs. While the Enterprise Scale plan sees minimal feature changes for a substantial price increase.

What’s more, the Enterprise Scale plan doesn’t offer an open-source, self-hosted version. Airtable is only available in SaaS form via the cloud. You are relying on them for deployments, updates, or any server administration. Plus, you’re tied into their ecosystem and could face disruption if there are changes in pricing, services, or features.

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 Team plan allows for 50,000 records per base, but as your business grows, you’ll need to upgrade to Enterprise Scale which can be much more expensive. On Enterprise Scale, the limit is 500,000 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 customization 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 customization and integration: While Airtable offers a range of pre-built integrations, businesses with specialized or unique requirements may find the platform’s customization 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

Baserow’s self-hosted pricing plans

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.
• Better value: Airtable’s Business plan comes with 125,000 records per base and is priced at $45 per seat/month, billed monthly. Baserow’s Advanced plan is priced at $20 user/month and offers 100,000 records per base. That’s a small difference in records per base for less than half the price of Airtable’s comparable plan.
• Customizable storage and attachment limits: With self-hosting, Baserow users can customize 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 organizations, 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.

Airtable pricing FAQs

Is Airtable free? What are the limitations of the free plan?

Yes, Airtable offers a free plan, but it has become more restrictive. The free plan now limits records per base to 1,000 (down from 1,200), attachment space to 1 GB (down from 2 GB), offers no synced tables or integrations, and allows up to 5 editors and 50 commenters. API calls are capped at 1,000 per month.

How much does Airtable cost?

Airtable’s pricing varies across several plans. Following recent changes, the Team plan increased from $10 a month per user to $24 a month per user (billed monthly), and the Business plan increased from $20 a month per user to $54 a user per month (billed monthly), essentially doubling in cost compared to their predecessors. The Enterprise Scale plan, suitable for large organizations, starts at around $60+ a month per user.

How does Airtable’s pricing compare to Baserow?

Airtable’s pricing changes have made it more expensive than Baserow. Baserow costs less and offers significantly higher limits on records, attachments, and resources. Baserow Advanced (Cloud) costs $20 and offers 250,000 rows with 20 GB storage. Baserow Enterprise costs $35 and offers unlimited rows and storage when self-hosted. This makes Baserow a more appealing choice for businesses handling large datasets.

What do Airtable’s pricing changes mean for businesses and enterprises?

Small to medium businesses previously on the Pro plan have either downgraded to the Team plan with fewer features or upgraded and paid 2.5 times more for the Professional plan. Large teams and enterprises will have faced significant cost increases with the Enterprise Scale plan despite minimal feature changes from the legacy plan. Some users are likely to have moved off Airtable to alternative no-code databases like Baserow.

Can large teams benefit from Airtable’s Enterprise Scale plan despite its higher cost?

While the Enterprise Scale plan offers increased record and storage limits, a lot of the features remain the same. It still has a lot of features for user management, but has no self-hosting option and it’s not open-source. Given the significant cost increase and the minimal changes from the legacy plan, large teams must carefully evaluate whether the benefits justify the investment.

Why is the lack of a self-hosted plan a disadvantage for Airtable users?

The absence of a self-hosted plan with Airtable limits scalability, data governance, and security flexibility for enterprises, as they cannot manage these aspects independently of Airtable’s SaaS model. Airtable isn’t suitable if you’re operating in highly-regulated industries with strict data governance policies, like finance, manufacturing, research, government, healthcare, and education.

Are there any open-source alternatives to Airtable?

Baserow is the best open-source alternative to Airtable. Open-source platforms like Baserow grant users greater control over their data and the flexibility to tailor the software to their precise requirements. This level of customization and control is crucial for businesses that may need to adhere to strict data governance and privacy standards or require specialized functionalities not available in off-the-shelf solutions like Airtable.

What are the best alternatives considering Airtable’s pricing changes

In light of Airtable’s pricing changes, alternatives like Baserow have become attractive for users looking for similar no-code databases without the high cost. Baserow’s pricing plans are designed to provide more value for less money. Users can access advanced features, higher resource limits, and greater flexibility at a fraction of the cost compared to Airtable.

Baserow vs. Airtable

If you’re comparing Baserow versus Airtable and aren’t sure which no-code database will best suit your needs, then check out the many advantages Baserow has over Airtable. While both tools offer advanced no-code capabilities, Baserow stands out with its self-hosted plans, open-source core, and competitive pricing.

Here’s why Baserow stands out as a better choice compared to Airtable:

• Baserow is open source, offering greater control over data and customization to fit specific needs, unlike Airtable’s closed and proprietary nature.
• Baserow’s flexibility is ideal for companies with unique requirements, especially in highly-regulated industries.
• Baserow’s open-source model means no vendor lock-in, offering a risk-free option for businesses reliant on their tech stack, in contrast to Airtable’s ecosystem lock-in. This ensures business continuity and longevity.
• Baserow offers both Cloud and Self-Hosted deployment options, providing granular control over data, which Airtable, being SaaS-only, does not offer.
• Baserow Cloud is instantly accessible and managed, whereas Baserow Self-Hosted gives full control and compliance for regulated industries.
• Baserow’s generous limits on records and storage allow handling of larger datasets without limitations, unlike Airtable’s restrictive plans.
• Baserow Self-Hosted offers unlimited row, storage, and row history limits.
• Baserow’s pricing is more cost-effective, offering higher limits and features at lower or comparable prices to Airtable.
• Baserow integrates with automation platforms like Make, Zapier, and n8n for efficient workflow creation.

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 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 to look out for
• 7 reasons to use a database instead of Excel
• Best business plan templates for startups

Contact Baserow