Airtable
A database that looks like a spreadsheet, with an API, forms, views and AI fields on top — the place most small businesses end up keeping the records an automation needs to read and write.
What you'd use it for
Keeping the customer, job or order records that several people and several pieces of software all need to read and write, without commissioning a database to hold them.
- Import an existing Excel or Google Sheets file and end up with typed fields and real records rather than cells
- Collect submissions from outside the business through a form that writes straight into a table
- Link a job to the customer it belongs to, then see every job from the customer's own row
- Let other software read and write the same records over the REST API, using a token scoped to one base
- Fire an automation when a record changes, to send the email or move the status without anyone watching
The verdict
Airtable is the right answer when several people and several pieces of software must agree on the same records, and the wrong one when what you actually have is a spreadsheet. What it costs you in practice is not the subscription but the shape of it, per user rather than per base, so adding one colleague to one table reprices the whole account. Buy it as the cheaper alternative to keeping a bespoke database alive, and it earns its money; buy it as a nicer spreadsheet and it will not.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | One person, or a very small team with lightweight needs. | Bases, views, forms and the API, with record and attachment limits. |
| Team | $20/user/month when billed annually | A team that has outgrown the free record limits. | More records per base, longer revision history, more automation runs. |
| Business | $45/user/month when billed annually | Departments needing admin control and data scale. | Additional customisation, data scale, flexibility and administrative features. |
| Enterprise Scale | Custom, based on the organisation's needs | Large organisations. | Extensive customisation and enterprise administration. |
Read from Airtable's own pricing page on 15 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- A modern browser; Airtable is browser-first, with mobile apps but no real desktop application
- An email address, and nothing else for the free plan, which needs no card
- A personal access token, created in the builder hub and scoped to specific bases, before any other software can read or write; the old API keys stopped working in February 2024
- A paid plan before any one base passes 1,000 records, which is the free ceiling
Ten minutes to a base holding real records, following Airtable's own quick start; a day or so before the linked tables, views and automations are arranged the way the business actually works.
Your first run A template or an imported spreadsheet gives you a working base with typed fields, a grid view and records you recognise in about ten minutes, which is the span Airtable's own quick start is written to. The first form or automation is the same afternoon's work.
Where it breaks
The free tier's record limit arrives faster than anyone expects, and the upgrade is per user rather than per base, so adding one colleague to one base prices the whole account. Only the annual per-user prices were displayed on the pricing page at the last check; the monthly-billed figures were not shown, and monthly billing is normally higher. Linked records are powerful and are also the thing that makes a base impossible to explain to the next person.
Browser-first, with iOS and Android apps. There is no desktop application in any meaningful sense, so Airtable is a thing your automations talk to rather than a thing you sit inside.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Not for one person keeping a list nobody else reads and no software touches, because a spreadsheet does that faster and for nothing. Not for the team that wants a proper application either, since Airtable is a place your automations talk to rather than a thing you sit inside. And if a single table is heading past a few tens of thousands of records, the per-base ceilings and the per-user pricing start to bite at the same time.
Airtable earns a place here for an unglamorous reason: automation needs somewhere to put things. A workflow that reads an email and drafts a quote has to record that it did so, or you will have no idea what happened while you were not watching.
Spreadsheets do this badly. A spreadsheet has no notion of a record, no API worth the name, and no way to stop two people editing the same row. Airtable has all three, and it still looks enough like a spreadsheet that nobody needs training.
What it does on its own, and what it does not
Airtable by itself does not run anything unwatched. It stores, displays and — with AI fields — summarises. It is connected: forms collect from outside, the API lets other software read and write, and the automations feature fires on record changes.
Something outside your own hands can now reach your data, on purpose. What runs unattended against it is a separate tool.
The honest limitation
The category Airtable belongs to solves one problem very well: custom software is brutally expensive to keep alive. Industry estimates put ongoing maintenance at roughly 15 to 25 per cent of the original build cost every year, and over a system’s life maintenance runs to 50 to 80 per cent of total spend. A subscription is not a fee for a drag-and-drop interface. It is the alternative to employing the fraction of an engineer who would otherwise keep a bespoke database alive.
It follows that Airtable is the wrong answer when the thing you need is genuinely a spreadsheet, and the right one when several people and several pieces of software all need to agree on the same records.
Alternatives
Records & databasesAppsBaserow
An open-source, self-hostable database with a spreadsheet-like interface and AI fields that classify or summarise rows for you automatically.
Records & databasesAppsNocoDB
A spreadsheet-style interface laid over any database — your own Postgres, MySQL or a hosted table — so a non-technical team can view, filter and edit records without touching SQL.
Records & databasesAppsSmartsheet
Spreadsheet-style project and resource tracking used by most of the Fortune 500, with AI generating formulas and status summaries and running automations on a schedule.
Records & databasesAgentsNotion
Docs, wikis and databases in one workspace, with AI that can write inside a page and answer questions across everything the workspace holds.
Our writing about it
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