Airtable Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 8 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Free; Team $20/seat/mo billed annually ($24 monthly)
- Free plan
- Yes
- Best for
- Operations, marketing and content teams that need a shared relational database with custom interfaces and automations, without writing code
- Platforms
- Web app, desktop apps, iOS and Android; REST API and MCP server
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
What is Airtable, and is it worth paying for?
Airtable is a no-code database: tables that link to each other like a relational database, with grid, kanban, calendar and gallery views, interfaces (simple apps built on your data), automations, forms and AI. Its Omni assistant builds bases, interfaces and automations from a plain-language description, and field agents run AI prompts across every record. It's worth paying for if a team runs real operational data, such as content calendars, inventories, CRMs or request queues, and has outgrown spreadsheets. The Free plan covers up to 5 editors and 1,000 records per base; Team costs $20 per seat a month billed annually ($24 monthly), checked on Airtable's pricing page and plans overview on October 13, 2026. On Team, everyone who can edit or comment is billed.
- Best for
- Teams that manage structured, linked data (projects, assets, vendors, requests) and want custom views, interfaces and automations without a developer.
- Skip it if
- You mainly need documents and simple task lists, or a large team that only needs to comment; Notion or monday.com cost less per seat.
- Strongest capability
- The relational data model plus interfaces, automations, sync and an API, now with Omni, AI field agents and an MCP server available on every plan.
- Biggest limitation
- Per-seat cost and caps: commenters are billable on Team, Team stops at 50,000 records and 25,000 automation runs a month per base and workspace, and support is email-only.
The Verdict
Airtable remains one of the most flexible ways to build an internal tool on top of real data. Tables link like a relational database, interfaces turn a base into an app for people who shouldn't touch the raw grid, and automations, sync and an API connect it to the rest of your stack. Since its June 2025 relaunch as an "AI-native" platform, Omni builds bases, interfaces and automations from a description at no credit cost, and field agents run AI prompts across records. The weaknesses are price and scale. Team is $20 per seat billed annually and bills commenters as well as editors; it caps bases at 50,000 records and workspaces at 25,000 automation runs and 100,000 API calls a month. Support is email-only with a 1-2 business day target. Bending Spoons completed its acquisition on September 4, 2026, and Airtable has since let go a large portion of its pre-acquisition team, while saying nothing changes for customers' plans or prices. We score Airtable 8.4/10.
Best for
Teams that run structured, linked operational data and want interfaces, automations and AI on top of it without code.
Skip if
You need cheap seats for many light users, more than 125,000 records per base without an enterprise contract, or live support.
AlternativesSoftr, Notion, monday.com
The Background
What Is Airtable?
Airtable (airtable.com, operated by Formagrid Inc, dba Airtable, under its terms of service) is a cloud platform for building databases and internal apps without code. A base holds linked tables, fields and views; interfaces are custom pages built on that data for specific users; automations run triggers and actions such as sending email, updating records or running scripts; and sync pulls data in from other bases and tools. Airtable relaunched as an "AI-native" platform on June 24, 2025, adding Omni, a conversational builder and data assistant, and AI field agents that are billed in AI credits. Bending Spoons completed its acquisition of Airtable on September 4, 2026. Airtable's newsroom says 450,000+ organizations use it; the acquisition announcement says more than 500,000, including 80% of the Fortune 100. Those are Airtable's own figures.
The Product
Airtable Features: What You Actually Get
Relational bases, views and interfaces
Tables link to each other through linked-record fields, with grid, kanban, calendar, gallery, timeline and Gantt views. Interface Designer builds app-like pages on top of a base so a team sees forms, dashboards or record lists rather than the raw tables. Every base can hold up to 1,000 tables and 500 fields per table; records per base are 1,000 on Free, 50,000 on Team and 125,000 on Business, according to Airtable's plans overview.
A content team links articles, writers and campaigns in one base and gives freelancers an interface that shows only their assignments.
Omni, the AI builder and assistant
Omni builds bases, interfaces and automations from a plain-language description and answers questions about your data. Airtable's AI billing article says building with Omni doesn't consume AI credits, while questions and web searches cost about 10 credits each. Airtable's October 12, 2026 roadmap post says an Omni upgrade and a new app builder called Canvas are rolling out "in the coming weeks"; those weren't released when we checked.
An operations manager describes a vendor-onboarding tracker and has Omni create the tables, a request form and an approval interface, then adjusts the fields.
AI field agents
Field agents run an AI prompt for every record in a field: generating text, categorizing into select options, producing numbers, suggesting linked records, extracting data from attachments such as PDFs and DOCX files, or searching the web. Each run uses AI credits based on input and output length, and Business and Enterprise admins choose which model providers (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Meta via Amazon Bedrock, IBM) are enabled. Airtable's help article lists field agents on all paid plans.
A sales-ops team adds a field agent that reads each inbound lead's company website and tags its industry and size, running automatically on new records.
Automations
Automations combine triggers (record created or updated, form submitted, schedule, webhook received) with actions such as sending email, creating records or running a script. Runs per workspace per month are 100 on Free, 25,000 on Team, 100,000 on Business and 500,000 on Enterprise Scale, and failed runs count. Free can't use the Run a script action. Limits reset on the first day of each month.
A recruiting team emails candidates when their status changes and posts new applications to Slack, using about 2,000 runs a month.
Sync, API and MCP server
Airtable syncs data in from other bases and tools such as Salesforce, Jira and Zendesk, with two-way sync listed on Business. The REST API is capped at 1,000 calls a month on Free and 100,000 on Team (no monthly cap on Business and up), with rate limits of 5 requests per second per base. The MCP server, available on all plans at no extra charge, lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other assistants read and write records, create bases and draft automations within your permissions.
A developer connects Claude Code to the MCP server to query a project base and draft a new automation that a teammate then reviews and turns on.
Feature recap
- Relational tables with grid, kanban, calendar, gallery, timeline and Gantt views
- Interface Designer for app-like pages on top of a base (paid plans)
- Omni builds bases, interfaces and automations from a description
- AI field agents for text, categorization, extraction and web research
- Automations from 100 runs a month (Free) to 500,000 (Enterprise Scale)
- Sync from Salesforce, Jira, Zendesk and other bases; two-way sync on Business
- REST API and an MCP server on every plan
- SAML SSO, admin panel and HIPAA eligibility on higher tiers
The Numbers
Airtable Pricing: Every Plan Explained
Airtable charges per seat, per workspace. Prices below are from Airtable's pricing page and its plans overview help article, checked October 13, 2026, in USD; annual prices are shown as a monthly figure. Business requires a private email domain, and Enterprise Scale is sold only through sales. AI credits are pooled across the workspace or organization each month.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Up to 5 editors and 50 commenters, unlimited read-only users, 1,000 records and 1 GB of attachments per base, 100 automation runs and 1,000 API calls a month, 2 weeks of revision history, 500 AI credits per editor; no interfaces, extensions or Run a script | Individuals and very small teams |
| TeamBest value | $24/seat/mo | $20/seat/mo | 50,000 records and 20 GB of attachments per base, 25,000 automation runs and 100,000 API calls a month, 100 automations per base, 1 year of revision history, 15,000 AI credits per billable collaborator; editors and commenters are billed | Teams building shared workflows |
| Business | $54/seat/mo | $45/seat/mo | 125,000 records and 100 GB of attachments per base, 100,000 automation runs a month, no monthly API cap, two-way sync, admin panel, SAML SSO (per the SSO help article), 20,000 AI credits per paid user; commenters free | Departments that need admin controls |
| Enterprise Scale | Custom | Custom | 500,000 automation runs a month and 3 years of run history, 25,000 AI credits per paid user at list price, unlimited org units and workspaces, HIPAA eligibility, Enterprise Key Management, EU data residency option, 99.9% uptime SLA | Large organizations |
| Extra AI credits | $20 per 10,000 credits | $200 per 10,000 credits | Self-serve packs from 10,000 to 400,000 credits a month ($20 to $800 monthly, $200 to $8,000 a year); Omni building is free, Omni answers about 10 credits each | Heavy field-agent use |
Seat counting decides the bill. On Team, Airtable's plans overview bills workspace owners and every creator, editor and commenter with access to at least one base, while read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links are free; on self-serve Business, commenters are free. A 10-person team on Team billed annually pays $200 a month, or $2,400 a year (our arithmetic from listed prices). AI credits are generous for occasional use (15,000 per Team seat a month) but field agents set to run automatically on large tables can use them up. New accounts get a 14-day Team trial on their first workspace; adding a payment method upgrades the workspace and starts billing. Airtable's terms (last updated May 31, 2024) say subscriptions renew automatically for the same term at the price in effect on the renewal date, price changes take effect in the billing cycle after notice, and payments are non-refundable, with no refund for the remainder of a term when you cancel. Customers in the EU or Turkey can cancel within 14 days of purchase for a refund. Airtable's refunds article also offers courtesy refunds if you accidentally upgrade or add billable collaborators and contact support within 7 days (monthly) or 14 days (annual) of the invoice.
Context
The Bending Spoons acquisition and what Airtable says comes next
Bending Spoons completed its acquisition of Airtable on September 4, 2026. In an October 12, 2026 post, Airtable's new product lead said the company is parting ways with a large portion of its pre-acquisition team, with Bending Spoons staff joining, and that "for customers, nothing changes regarding your plan, price, or service offering." The acquisition announcement says Bending Spoons plans to invest in product and customer support.
The same post lists work "in the coming weeks": an Omni upgrade, an app builder called Canvas, a more capable MCP server, and bring-your-own agents and API keys for automations; and, for Enterprise accounts "in the coming months," agent permissions, an audit log covering agents and humans, and bring-your-own encryption keys and models. It also cites more than 30 recent improvements, including higher automation limits. These are plans, not shipped features; treat them that way when you buy.
Compliance
Security, compliance and uptime
Airtable's Trust & Security page lists a SOC 2 Type 2 audit (report on request through sales), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certificates, TX-RAMP Level 2 and a privacy program designed for GDPR, UK GDPR and CCPA/CPRA. HIPAA support is limited to Enterprise Scale, an EU data-residency option is offered, and Enterprise customers can hold data at rest with their own keys.
Airtable's AI pages say model providers don't retain customer data or train on it, and Business and Enterprise admins choose which providers are enabled. The 99.9% monthly uptime SLA (last updated March 26, 2024) covers Enterprise and Enterprise Scale customers and some Business customers on the master subscription agreement, with service credits only, not cash.
Read before you buy
Where Airtable's own pages differ
Who is billed: the pricing page FAQ says Team and Business charge for users "who have edit permissions," while the plans overview lists Team commenters as billable too. The pricing page also says users added mid-cycle on Team are charged for the days after they were added, but for the months after they were added on Business and Enterprise Scale.
Plan limits: the plans overview lists Business at 125,000 records per base and 1 year of revision history, but the plan descriptions embedded in the pricing page's code say 100,000 records and two years; those descriptions also list Enterprise Scale at 1,000,000 automation runs a month, while the automations help article says 500,000. The pricing page FAQ says automation and API use is capped at your plan's limit, while the terms say usage above a plan's allotment may result in additional fees on a true-up invoice.
SSO and AI availability: the Trust & Security page says SAML SSO is available only on the Enterprise plan, while the SSO help article says Business and Enterprise Scale. The June 2025 CEO letter says every plan, including Free, gets the new AI capabilities, while the AI fields article lists field agents on paid plans only (the AI billing article gives Free 500 credits per editor).
Customer count: the newsroom page says 450,000+ organizations; the September 4, 2026 acquisition announcement says more than 500,000.
The Tradeoffs
Airtable Pros and Cons
What we love
- Relational data model that scales past spreadsheets, with many view types
- Interfaces turn a base into an app for non-technical users
- Omni builds bases and automations at no AI-credit cost
- AI field agents with a choice of model providers on Business and up
- MCP server, API and ChatGPT and Claude connectors on every plan
- SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and 27701, with HIPAA on Enterprise Scale
What could be better
- Team bills commenters as well as editors, at $20 to $24 per seat
- Free is tight: 1,000 records per base and 100 automation runs a month
- Team caps bases at 50,000 records and 25,000 automation runs a month
- Support is email-only, with no phone or live chat below enterprise tiers
- Payments are non-refundable outside courtesy and EU/Turkey cases
- Ownership change and staff cuts in 2026 add roadmap uncertainty
The Audience
Who Should Use Airtable?
Best for: content and marketing operations
Teams running editorial calendars, campaign assets and approvals get linked tables, calendar and kanban views, request forms and interfaces for freelancers, with automations for status changes.
Best for: operations teams replacing spreadsheet trackers
Inventory, vendor, asset and request trackers that need relationships between records, permissions and an API fit Airtable's model better than spreadsheets or doc tools.
Skip if: you need a cheap wiki and task list for many people
Teams that mostly write docs and manage simple tasks pay less per seat with Notion or monday.com, and Airtable's Team plan bills every commenter.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Airtable
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. We didn't use an Airtable account for this review. It's based on Airtable's pricing page (including the plan data in its page source), help-center articles on plans, AI billing, automations, API limits, AI field agents, the MCP server, SSO, contacting support and refunds, its terms of service (May 31, 2024), service level agreement (March 26, 2024), Trust & Security page, AI product page, integrations directory and newsroom posts from June 2025 to October 12, 2026, all checked on October 13, 2026. Where Airtable's pages differ, we report both statements. No performance or time-saving results are claimed.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Airtable's pricing page, help-center articles on plans, AI billing, automations, API limits, AI field agents, the MCP server, SSO, support and refunds, its terms of service, SLA, Trust & Security page, AI product page, integrations directory and newsroom posts, all checked October 13, 2026. Sub-scores are provisional pending editorial approval.
The Field
Airtable vs The Competition
Airtable competes with no-code app builders and with work-management tools that include databases. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 13, 2026.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtable | Free; Team $20/seat/mo billed annually ($24 monthly) | Yes | Relational bases, views and interfaces | 8.4/10 |
| Softr | Free; Basic $19/mo billed yearly ($25 monthly) | Yes | Client portals and apps on top of existing data | 8.5/10 |
| Notion | Free; Plus $10/seat/mo billed yearly ($12 monthly) | Yes | Docs, wiki and databases in one workspace | 9.4/10 |
| monday.com | Free (2 seats); Basic $9/seat/mo billed annually, 3-seat minimum | Yes | Ready-made project and work-management boards | 9/10 |
| Smartsheet | Pro $9/member/mo billed yearly ($12 monthly); 30-day trial | No | Spreadsheet-style project management | Not yet reviewed |
Softr: Softr builds portals and internal apps, often on Airtable data, with flat plan prices rather than per-seat billing. Airtable is the stronger database; Softr is the simpler way to put an app in front of external users.Read our Softr review →
Notion: Notion combines documents and lighter databases at half Airtable's Team price, with Notion AI agents on Business ($20 yearly). Airtable handles larger, more relational datasets and automations better.Read our Notion review →
monday.com: monday.com is built around project boards and team workflows with lower entry seat prices. Airtable is more flexible as a database and app builder.Read our monday.com review →
Smartsheet: Smartsheet keeps a familiar spreadsheet grid for project and portfolio work, with unlimited contributors on Pro. BestStacked hasn't reviewed Smartsheet yet.
In The Wild
How People Actually Use Airtable
A five-person content team
Start on Free (5 editors, 1,000 records per base) and move to Team ($100 a month billed annually for five seats) when you need interfaces, more records or more than 100 automation runs a month.
An agency managing client deliverables
Use Team for linked clients, projects and assets, and give clients read-only interfaces or share links, which aren't billed. Keep clients out of commenter roles on Team unless you want to pay for their seats.
An operations department with IT requirements
Business ($45 per seat billed annually) adds the admin panel, SSO per the SSO help article, two-way sync and no monthly API cap; HIPAA workloads need Enterprise Scale.
The Ecosystem
Airtable Integrations
Airtable connects through native integrations and sync, automations, its REST API and an MCP server.
- →Salesforce, Jira and Zendesk (integrations and sync)
- →Slack, Gmail and Outlook Calendar
- →Google Drive, Box and Dropbox
- →Snowflake, Databricks and Tableau Cloud
- →Typeform, Jotform and Stripe
- →ChatGPT and Claude connectors
- →REST API, webhooks and MCP server
Airtable's integrations directory names 27 integrations; it doesn't list Zapier or Make, so check those connectors on their own sites. API and MCP use share the same limits: 5 requests per second per base, 50 per second per token, and monthly call caps on Free (1,000) and Team (100,000).
Common Questions
Airtable FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Airtable?
Airtable is still a top choice for building internal tools on structured data: a real relational model, interfaces, automations, sync, an API and now Omni, AI field agents and an MCP server on every plan. It costs more per seat than doc-first tools, bills commenters on Team, caps records and automation runs per plan, and offers only email support below enterprise tiers. The 2026 change of ownership hasn't touched prices, but watch whether the promised roadmap ships. We score Airtable 8.4/10.
Yes, if
Your team manages linked operational data and wants custom interfaces, automations and AI without hiring developers.
No, if
You need low-cost seats for many light users, very large datasets on a self-serve plan, or live support.
Airtable Is Part Of These Stack Packs
The Free Starter Stack
For anyone starting from zero with no budget
View StackThe $50/Month Creator Stack
For creators publishing weekly on a strict budget
View StackThe Solopreneur Business Stack
For one-person businesses running like a real company
View StackThe Content Agency Stack
For small agencies producing content for multiple clients
View StackThe Agency Automation Stack
For agencies selling automation and ops as a service
View Stack
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the bestselling author of The End of Marketing, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and founder of The Best Network. He brings 15+ years in marketing to practical reviews of AI, SaaS, email marketing, creator, and ecommerce software.
Keep reading
Related to Airtable
Category
Best No-Code Builders
See how Airtable ranks against the rest of the category.
Stack Pack
The Free Starter Stack
Airtable is part of this stack.
Stack Pack
The $50/Month Creator Stack
Airtable is part of this stack.
Stack Pack
The Solopreneur Business Stack
Airtable is part of this stack.
Stack Pack
The Content Agency Stack
Airtable is part of this stack.
Stack Pack
The Agency Automation Stack
Airtable is part of this stack.
Get the best of BestStacked
The AI tools worth knowing. None of the noise.
- New AI tool and software reviews as they publish
- Head-to-head comparisons and stack breakdowns
- The occasional recommendation worth knowing
No fake urgency. No made-up weekly cadence. Unsubscribe anytime.