Since all three of my questions are unlikely to be answered during the Table Talk I will post them here for posterity:

1. Why are new Pro users limited to 10 apps per base?



2. Why was this limit placed before greater than 5% of the Apps can be replaced with Interface Designer’s functionality?



3. What steps will Airtable take to rebuild its now tanked relationship with the developer community?

There are pros and cons to the changes in pricing plans. The “10 apps per base” limit for Pro users is indefensible from every angle I’ve looked at it and am dying to see what the justification could possibly be.

The first non-explicative I can think of to describe that change in particular is still “disrespectful”.

10 apps/base on the pro plan is a serious limitation that conflicts with a lot of the product design. Why have multiple dashboards and copies of apps that can contain different configurations? Those are useful features that are ruined by this seemingly arbitrary limitation. For example having a handful of CSV import apps that all have different configs is very useful.

This change is the first time I have been concerned about the direction/decisions of Airtable. I don’t say that lightly, I love the product, and have multiple organizations using it.

These updates were meant to “give users access to more advanced features in Airtable”?

Um…

Apps were reduced from unlimited apps to 10 apps.

Internal syncs were reduced from 20 syncs to 10 syncs.

External syncs were reduced from unlimited sync sources per base to 7 sync sources per entire workspace.

Amongst other reductions as well.

So, given all of the above, would you care to elaborate on how exactly this has “given users more access to advanced features in Airtable”?

If you guys think that you are generating goodwill amongst your customers & consultants, you are sorely mistaken.

Does the following excerpt from the resource page mean unlimited scripting apps are allowed? The app limit refers only to apps other than scripting?

Do the scripting app and custom block SDK count towards per base app limits?

No. Users will still be able to add the scripting app and use custom block SDK without having it count towards their plan’s app limit.

Plus users get more functionality across the board, and Free users got some new features and some new limitations.

Pro users, the ones who pay the most, got shafted. To clarify: I am aware existing users don’t lose functionality, this is for new customers. That does not change how absurd the change is from a conceptual or practical level.

Correct. My post was specifically referring to Pro users.

And they got massively screwed.

I’d love to hear how Airtable thinks that this is going to help build a healthy or respectful ecosystem.

I shared my thoughts as did a few others in the facebook and slack communities and Ive already lost 4 days of my life to freaking out over what this change means for all of the people I have grown to know and love in this community so I will keep it brief and as civil as possible. yall have had very limited community input so far. We have been the ones providing the support you have proven time and time again to be too inept to handle. When people need real problems solved they some to people like the OPENSIDERS! LIKE KAMILLE FREAKING PARKS whom you have blatantly left out and ignored!!! Not to mention I have never once received a HELPFUL support response that actually solved my issue unless it was an issue caused by airtable in the first place. as a power user, to get any useful help we have to help EACHOTHER! Do you know where I go to get that? DAN FREAKING FELLARS whom you have just undercut his entire business as the original hole filler for your incomplete product.


it doesn’t matter what you release or announce! it doesn’t matter what you think you’re ‘gifting’ us, you blew it. screwed the pooch. crumbled the cookie on Developer relations with your handling of the entire situation before during and after. Then on top of that, you basically made a list of developers you care about and a list of developers you don’t. sounds like all that angel money is going to some heads. don’t forget who advocates for your product! don’t forget who tells companies whether they should or shouldn’t use airtable. all the airtable developers you push out are just going to go become coda consultants or learn google sheets and integromat. you’re not the end all be all for business systems. infact ITS NOT EVEN DONE! this isn’t SALESFORCE!

I’m adding my voice those these messages. Won’t leave much more here, 'cause it wouldn’t be pretty :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Very, very disappointed in Airtable at this moment. And how much love and effort and input does it take for these and other amazing community contributers to get some freaking respect…

I just wanted to append that by “you” I mean Airtable as a whole.

Apparently, more than 3 apps in the Marketplace and/or more than 312 solutions here in the forums.

Appreciate that, @Rebecca_Elam! I understand the frustrations and I’m making sure all of these comments are documented and escalated accordingly.

And what 2-3 podcasts a week?

I’ve been trying to remain somewhat optimistic about this whole situation, but I absolutely echo the frustration present in this thread.

This is the way I’m looking at it. I’m comparing the current situation to how it was when I started. I signed up in February of 2019, and four months later I was convinced (and had somehow convinced my wife) that the Pro plan was the way to go.

If, today, I was four months into using Airtable on the Free plan, would I make the same decision to pay for the Pro plan—the one that exists now after the announced changes earlier this week?

Back in 2019, I saw a lot of potential in the Pro plan. Sure, part of that potential was for me, but I was also beginning to see how I could help other users and possibly build a business. And that was before custom apps were added, before scripting, before automations.

Looking at what the new Pro plan offers compared to what I’ve got as a legacy user on that plan, it almost literally makes me shudder. Yes, it’s a clear upgrade from the Free plan, and a lot of the things that I use on a daily basis—both for myself and my clients—are still there. But frankly I don’t see nearly as much potential with the limits that have been put in place.

The Pro plan that I have now gives me freedom. I don’t use a ton of apps, but if I feel like I need to add one, I don’t have to think about how many I’m using. I can add one, or two, or five, or whatever I need, and that’s the key word. What do users need? If someone on the new Pro plan needs more than 10 apps…um, well, they’re stuck. There is literally nowhere to—oh, that’s right, there’s the Enterprise plan. How much is that? …I’m sorry, what did you say?!

Looking at just the app allotment, the lower plans now make a series of baby steps: 1 for Free, 3 for Plus, and 10 for Pro. But the transition from Pro to Enterprise is not even close to a baby step. Not even an adult step. More like a several-giants-stacked-on-each-other’s-shoulders step. I actually charted it—using Airtable’s own Chart app—and it’s literally not a pretty picture. I’ll refrain from posting that for various reasons, but suffice to say it’s a) the only step left, and b) way too big a step for most to make.

In short: unless the average Pro user comes into a windfall of cash, they literally have no other option but to live with what Pro gives them.

Under the new plan, that’s not freedom. That’s not potential. Compared to my legacy-Pro options, that’s downright depressing.

In fact, after sharing news of these plan changes with my newsletter audience, one subscriber (who’s also a client) replied with his own frustrations, concluding with this statement that hit me hard:

I’ll have to be careful never to upgrade.

As I said at the start of this, I’ve tried to be optimistic about this whole thing. Part of me is still (surprisingly) thinking that way, hoping that something announced soon-ish might make me look back on this and repent for being so quick to anger. But I also can’t ignore a very wise statement made elsewhere (I won’t say who unless they give me permission):

You can’t “spoon full of sugar” a week after the medicine

I’m glad that I got Pro when I did, and I’m immensely grateful that my plan isn’t being downgraded to the new Pro level. If I’d joined four months ago, would I make the jump from Free to Pro now? Probably not. And that truly, genuinely, scares me.

Isn’t it amazing the lengths that Airtable will go through — for years now — to continually slap their customers and consultants in the face?

Over and over and over and over again?

And now, they’ve upgraded from daily slaps in the face to just coming out and shooting us point blank in the face.

To be a supporter of this thing called Airtable, you have to be a masochist.

It’s better you channel those resources put on marketing and table talk to more customer engagement and app improvement rather than lowering down the limit.

The huge problem with new pro plan is that record limit is still 50k. You can’t scale with Airtable with pro plan. As what @Justin_Barrett had mentioned, from Pro to Enterprise is a giant leap!

Inspired by @Justin_Barrett, I used Airtable’s own Charting App to create the chart below.

This chart shows the difference in pricing between Airtable’s 4 plans:

And as we are all painfully aware, the Enterprise plan doesn’t even offer that much more than the Pro Plan.

The Enterprise plan still comes with ridiculous & severe limits, such as 100,000 records, 25 Automations, and an almost unlimited list of other restrictions.

But Airtable seems to forget that users on Pro Plans is what built their business, not Enterprise Plans.

I thought that Howie Liu was all about “democratizing software creation for people”? I don’t know how democratic it is to force people to pay $3,000 per month for faaaaar less than what you get with a competitor like FileMaker for only $100 per month.

If Airtable is trying to hand over all of their business to competitors like FileMaker — who actually offers ZERO LIMITS, a COMPLETE APP with no missing features, a RESPONSIVE development & support team, and MUCH CHEAPER PRICING than Airtable — this is the best way for Airtable to do it!

It’s almost as if Airtable thinks that people don’t have access to a web browser, where they can easily search for alternatives to Airtable.

Not to mention that the product itself is incomplete and buggy, but that’s a story for another day.

Oof that chart makes me nauseous any time I see it.

Here’s the thing. I’m the only person competent enough to use the airtables needed in my business. I don’t want anyone else to touch my data. My structure. Not to mention. I own the IP on structure of things so ideally I don’t want anyone who IS competent enough to just go rebuild what I’ve built and sell it. AND no one else but the data architects need to see the sums, percentages and Rollups at the highest level. The only way I can confidently do that with the current structure is just. NOT GIVE ANYONE ELSE LICENSES. So no I cannot justify paying for 50 users when I will only be using one license. But I NEED 100k+ records. And I NEED ideally unlimited automation runs but I get it’s a business and that costs money. Even the “custom enterprise” or whatever is SEAT based. I DONT NEED SEATS! I need to run the BACKend and give them the fruits. Keep in mind the fact that a new user can’t just jump on and understand in an enterprise product is unacceptable.I’ve spent 5 years using and learning airtable so they shouldn’t have to.

Vice versa, a client still has to pay $ 240 a year extra for an AT consultant to help them out. I have a client where I’m onboard as an AT expert and 2 external ICT guys for the scripting, etc. Then don’t even need the fruits, they’re needed to gap the defects that AT still has. Result: an extra $ 720 a year :woozy_face:

I’ve been active on these forums almost every day for the past two years. I’ve seen a variety of firestorms on these forums, and I decided to look up the first that I remember.

The change that triggered this issue was actually a really good change. The initial problem was not with the change itself, but with how the change was rolled out.

Here are some things that I liked about how Airtable handled that situation.

• 
  
  

  The changes were publicly announced by Airtable, not shared to only a handful of users that Airtable thought might be interested, and not discovered by a user stumbling across it.

  
  
  



• 
  
  

  The announcement acknowledged that some people would be unhappy with the changes.

  
  
  



• 
  
  

  The announcement made it clear that feedback had been solicited from the community before making changes.

  
  
  



• 
  
  

  The announcement invited further discussion.

  
  
  



• 
  
  

  It took only two posts pointing out how the mismanaged rollout hurt users before Airtable issued an apology along with explanations of what Airtable was doing on behalf of users to remedy the situation.

  
  
  



• 
  
  

  The person behind the rollout problem publicly owned the mistake and made specific promises regarding how such a mistake would not occur again (and those promises have been kept).

  
  
  

And think about all the clients that one Airtable consultant might work with. Airtable collects hundreds of dollars (if not more) for that ONE HUMAN every single month.

Could we get more clarification on why these two specific apps are exempt from the app limits? I recognize that they are extremely useful for “democratizing software development”, but I wonder if it is more than that.

When pondering possible reasons for the app limit, one possible reason was the fact that having a lot of apps that “watch” records can slow a base down. Scripting app happens to only run when a user clicks a button, and thus is unlikely to slow down a base.

I feel that there are other extremely useful apps that help base users but do not “slow down” the base because they do not “watch” records. Could Airtable consider also exempting these apps from limits for Pro workspaces?

At the very least, Description app should also be exempt from base limits in Pro workspaces. The Description app is useful for documenting how a base works and how to use a base. If people have limited slots for apps, this app is most likely to never be used, yet it can provide immense value when onboarding new users to a base or dealing with complex issues that relate to maintaining a base.

Similarly, Base Schema can help users understand their bases better, and it only watches for schema changes, not record changes. It is the one app that I always recommend to anyone trying to understand their base, and many times when I show it to clients who struggle, they have a “lightbulb” moment. This app really helps people better understand the concept of links and backlinks, which is essential to developing on the Airtable platform.

Other apps that are extremely useful but do not watch records (and thus should have minimal performance impact) are the CSV Import, Search, Dedupe, and Batch update apps.

I understand that having multiple tiers of apps (those subject to installation limits, and those not) can be confusing. However, if you already are making an exception for scripting app, this two tier system already exists. Plus, there will always be a multi-tier system when you include third party apps.

Having more apps not subject to the base limits may or may not be the way to go. Maybe you have a creative solution that we are currently unaware of. I don’t know how many of these considerations you have already dealt with, as you have not yet explained your reasoning for the limit. I am simply trying to add to the conversation.

[Edited by Author]

After a day of reflection, I decided to remove my previous post. My intent is not to publicly shame Airtable management to change their pricing model. My intent is to help them foresee the ramifications I believe will come from this decision from a business perspective.

I decided that sharing my feedback with them privately (which I have) instead of publicly will be more effective to help come to a workable solution for all parties involved.

I love Airtable. I want nothing more than to see it successful, but not just as a Company, but as a thriving ecosystem of partners/developers/community members. I have too much personally invested in seeing that success to not try to help create that. Maybe that is not possible at this point, but that is my hope.

They are. If you know how to script. I wonder how many people that AT is trying to involve in their “democratizing” mission can do that. Yes, there are premade scripts you can use, but if you look at the type of questions mostly posted in this community, even that is a bridge far away I’m afraid. That’s why I find it so important to include other very useful apps for those kind of users, like you very justifiably mentioned. So imo it shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the limited number of apps that will be possible.

Also:

• If the app limit for Pro users is performance-related then the limit should have been x apps per Dashboard, not x apps per base since apps don’t run when its Dashboard isn’t open. And @kuovonne is right to point out that not all apps have an equal impact on performance. Even if that were the direction the following points still remain true:



• The specific number of 10 is shortsighted. If you wanted to summarize records from each month of a calendar year, a very simple ask, you would get to November and scramble. Why should a "Pro"ffessional accept that?



• There are 87 apps in the Marketplace: 43 by Airtable and 44 by 3rd parties. Despite representing over half the share, developers were not notified ahead of time of this change.



• Of those 87 apps, by my count only 5 can be replaced by Interface Elements: Summary, Description, Chart, Timeline (now sunset’ed), and Record List. So the only alternative to use the gated features is to become an enterprise which is notoriously difficult and far too expensive to do.

The limit on the number of apps is extremely disappointing, but I appreciate the heads up that it’s time to develop for other platforms instead.

I’ve recently been working on a commercial app for launch on Airtable, after choosing it out over other similar platforms like ClickUp, Monday, and Notion due in part to the flexibility and power of the developer platform and app integrations.

This change not only greatly increases the competition among apps, it also gives a massive advantage to existing apps that pursue the “super app” approach where they bundle a lot of functionality into one app. New apps will barely have a chance, which is disappointing, but I guess I’d rather know sooner rather than later.