Airtable Review: Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons

Airtable isn’t an ordinary project management software: it’s a relational database that helps your team build low-code applications. Boasting extensive configurability, affordable plans and innovative features, Airtable’s workflow capabilities can enhance nearly any team or project’s prospects.

In this Airtable review, we evaluate its features, pricing structure and the real-world pros and cons of this powerful software. And if Airtable doesn’t meet your needs, we also reviewed some alternatives to help you determine the best project management software for your company.

Jump to:

• What is Airtable?
• Hands-on Airtable review results
• Airtable pricing
• Core Airtable features
• Airtable ease of use
• Airtable customer service and support
• Airtable pros and cons
• Airtable integrations
• Best uses for Airtable
• Airtable alternatives
• Airtable review methodology

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a relational database that anyone can use to build low-code applications. While Airtable can be used for project management, this flexible platform has many different applications besides that. Airtable can be accessed via your web browser or downloaded as an app on your Mac, PC, iOS or Android device.

Hands-on Airtable review results

We assessed Airtable according to more than 30 variables. Here’s how it scored in several major categories:

Airtable pricing: 1.4/5

Free

Airtable’s Free plan costs $0 and supports up to five users. It allows users to create unlimited bases with a limit of 1,000 records per base. Users also get 2GB of storage space for attachments, up to 100 automation runs per month, and two weeks of revision and snapshots history.

Team

The Team plan supports up to 50,000 records per base, 25,000 automation runs and 20 GB of attachments per base. It also offers Gantt and timeline view (expanded color, formatting and calendar options) standard syn integrations and extensions to boost the capabilities of the bases.

Business

The Business plan supports up to 125,000 records per base, 100,000 automation runs and 100 GB of attachments per base. It also offers premium sync integrations, two-way sync, verified data and SAML-based single sign-on.

Enterprise Scale

The Enterprise Scale plan supports up to 500,000 records per base, 500,000 automation runs and 1,000 GB of attachments per base. It also offers on-premises sync integrations, enhanced security and admin controls, enterprise API, extension and integration management and audit logs and DLP.

Core Airtable features: 4.9/5

While Airtable can be used for many different use applications, we are mostly going to be testing its project management capabilities in this review.

Data management

As a relational database management app, Airtable is a flexible solution for creating and storing data. First, users must create a base (short for database) and then a table, and then they can fill the table with data (a.k.a. records) (Figure A). After the data is in the table, you can organize it with fields or connect linked records. If you want to customize the appearance or functionality of your base, that can be done using the Interface Designer or Airtable’s template library.

Figure A

Project views and templates

Airtable only offers about 20 project management focused templates, such as the project tracker template (Figure B), which is far less than most dedicated project management platforms. Fortunately, it does offer a variety of project views: Free accounts come with grid, calendar, form, Kanban and Gallery views (Figure C). If you want Gantt or timeline views, you’ll need to upgrade to a Team plan, and that price might be prohibitive for small business owners.

Figure B

Figure C

Extensions

Airtable has a unique feature called extensions (Figure D), which allow users to add visuals and additional functionality to their bases. Some examples of extensions include a CSV import function, an org chart generator and time tracking. Only paid plans get access to extensions, so if you want this extra functionality, you need to be prepared to pay for it.

Figure D

Automations

Airtable’s automation triggers (Figure E) are very high level; some examples include “when a record is created” and “when a record is updated.” This means that it takes some time and work to customize them to do something more specific, such as marking a record as complete and removing all assigned people when the record is moved to the “complete” column. Airtable allows you to add up to 50 automations to a single base, and each automation can contain up to 25 actions. Inactive automations that are turned off still count towards this 50 number limit, though, so bear that in mind.

Figure E

Team collaboration

In Airtable, you can comment on items (Figure F), tag coworkers in messages and reply to comments directly. However, Airtable does not support emoji reactions, which is a capability that many other software platforms do offer. You must leave a reply every time you wish to acknowledge a coworker’s comment. Users also say that the real-time collaboration function is clunky and doesn’t always work well.

Figure F

Airtable ease of use: 4/5

Airtable’s interface is intuitive and attractive and presents a relatively low learning curve given the complexity of the app. However, Airtable does use different terminology and navigation, which can take some getting used to if you’re coming from a different project management tool. For instance, if you want to switch project views, you have to go to the bottom of the left sidebar, instead of the menu at the top, like most project management tools.

Airtable offers many different data import options that make it easy to migrate your existing projects. Once you’ve got the information in Airtable, the tool does present a slightly more complicated setup than some other tools due to its sheer complexity. However, once you’ve created all your automations and workflows, the tool eliminates a lot of redundant manual work.

Airtable customer service and support: 4/5

While Airtable doesn’t offer phone or live chat support, it does have a ticketing system, community forum and comprehensive help center.

Help center

Airtable offers many different resources for users to educate themselves. There’s a help center full of how to articles and as well as more in-depth Airtable guides. Airtable also has a YouTube channel that has some educational videos as well.

Community forum

Airtable has a very active community forum that boasts more than 57,000 users and more than 136,000 posts. Members can show off their bases, ask for help or submit a feature request via the forum.

Customer support

Airtable’s customer support can be contacted via a ticketing system built into the tool itself, which means that you must be logged in to Airtable in order to submit a support ticket. Airtable generally responds to tickets in 1-2 business days.

Airtable pros and cons

Airtable integrations

For teams with needed integrations, Airtable’s extensions include a number of third-party applications for different functional teams:

• Miro: Brainstorm and work together through collaborative whiteboards via Miro.
• Jira Cloud: Import tasks and epics from Jira into project data.
• Google Workspace: Connect the team’s video conferencing application.
• BaseQL: Integrate the GraphQL API into Airtable project pipelines.
• Loom: Preview screen and video captures using Loom within the project.
• Tellephant: Connect the team’s WhatsApp Business Account to the platform.
• Typeform: Build and share forms and import responses into the Airtable platform.
• Formito: Transform project tables into data collection forms and chatbots.
• Data Fetcher: Employ no-code integrations for several additional applications.

Best uses for Airtable

Airtable’s flexible design means that it will work for different types and sizes of teams. Here are three scenarios that show how Airtable can be used:

Software development

Airtable’s unique database approach will appeal to many development teams, software testing engineers and quality assurance analysts. The software can be used to launch new products, track data, log bugs and schedule UX tests, among other things.

Marketing and communications

Use Airtable’s templates to create and manage a content calendar, plan out an email campaign or track spending on social ads. Airtable can also be used to log data from your campaigns to help your team track performance over time and make adjustments for the future.

Sales

Sales teams can build their own CRM in Airtable thanks to the flexible database tool. They can also plan out sales campaigns, create a business road map and manage sales assets and collateral, all within Airtable.

Airtable alternatives and competitors

Trello

Trello’s project management software is focused on simple, intuitive kanban boards. With Trello, users can manage to-do lists, store and share files, set reminders and collaborate with teams.

Compared to Airtable, Trello is more affordable, with rates starting at $5 per user per month when billed annually or $6 per user per month when billed monthly. For more information, read our full Trello review.

Asana

Asana project management tools help users monitor project progress, track individual tasks, plan sprints and organize their projects in order to meet deadlines. While Asana and Airtable offer comprehensive project management functionality, Asana is more user-friendly and easy to set up compared to Airtable, making it ideal for those looking to get started with a project management tool. Asana also offers a generous free plan that supports up to 15 users. For more information, read our full Asana review.

Notion

Compared to Airtable, Notion is a productivity app designed for creators and creative teams to help them document their thoughts, manage projects and create wikis. Airtable’s strength lies in data management, while Notion stands out as a document and knowledge management tool, making it a particularly great choice for content and creative teams. For more information, read our full Notion review.

Airtable review methodology

This review is based on our experience registering, configuring and executing a project in Airtable. We familiarized ourselves with Airtable’s product documentation, demos, industry reviews and recognition and a comparative analysis of alternative software applications.