Updates to Our Pricing Plans

@nityadb Now that the Pro Plan limits API calls, where can customers see how many API calls they’ve made in a month? Airtable doesn’t list this information anywhere.

For customers on the $20 Pro Plan, there are 5 downgrades that you should pay attention to:

1. Automation runs have been cut in half from 50,000 automation runs to 25,000 automation runs.
2. API calls have been reduced from unlimited to 100,000.
3. Attachment space has been cut in half from 20 GB to 10 GB.
4. Multi-source syncing has been eliminated.
5. ”Customizable syncs” (i.e. the sync API and emailed CSV sync) are now premium syncs that are only available with the $45 Business plan.

I have similar questions to ScottWorld.

If you're gonna make a massive change in this to limits and such it should be easy to see where you currently stand in terms of usage.

I can't find a place to see any of this info.

I am so displeased with the downgrade in terms of storage and the multi-source syncing. We have built some of our bases around these expectations. It's going to force us to scramble to come up with a solution. I'm hating Airtable's business decisions more and more.

What are people using as alternatives? I'm going to start looking elsewhere.

This really needs to be answered. The link to current rate limits also doesn't make it clear as to what actually happens if you exceed the 100 000 calls. All in all just very dissapointing. 

UPDATE 10/31 - we have changed the way we enforce API limits on our Trial and Free plan. Please see our support center for the latest information.

Hi all, I apologize for the confusion on our API limits and how we'll be enforcing them. Here's some more information on our approach.

First: Why did we make this change?

Certain features we offer to customers, including our API, incur additional costs for Airtable. Over time we’ve learned that a relatively small number of customers are the heaviest users of our API, far exceeding the number of calls that the vast majority of customers make on a monthly basis. Instead of raising prices for everyone to accommodate this usage, we are limiting API calls to manage costs both for customers and for Airtable. We estimate based on current usage that four out of five customers will not exceed these new API limits. For everyone else, we’re being careful in how we enforce these limits to avoid disruption on their current workflows.

Second: How do we plan to enforce API limits?

Our goal is to balance the costs of heavy API usage with the impact on customers. If you exceed the monthly limit, you will continue to have access to our APIs, but see a lower rate limit for the remainder of the month. Once that month ends, your rate limit will go back to normal. We’re working to provide better ways to monitor your current usage in workspace settings and will have more to share soon.

@nityadb I appreciate the followup, but this doesn't answer one of our biggest questions which is how to actually see what our current existing usage looks like.

Both in terms of API usage and attachment storage.

@nityadb This is a very unwelcome change.. 

Usually it is industry standard to maintain current users in their legacy plan - yet we are all downgraded or forced to pay more per month? Halving the automations is very restrictive to us Pro users

Can i also clarify what happened to our email support? Are we now being sent automated replies which point us into a circular loop (i.e. contact support only to get an automated reply to contact support again) because our plan was on a lower tier than enterprise? 

Please setup a meeting for me to speak with one of your support or sales staff asap!!

@nityadb  All I heard was kick rocks.

Is there an extension for moving all my clients from Airtable to Google Sheets, Smartsheets, or Glide? 

@nityadb your initial post omits the removal of multi-source syncing.  I know at least my team uses this in a lot of our bases in a system we’ve built over several years — asking anyone  to rebuild our whole setup in less than a month is not a reasonable ask.

And honestly, I get that feature probably incurs higher costs blah blah, but what’s with the rush?  Surely Airtable could afford to honor our existing plans, at least through our current annual billing cycles.

I, and it seems many people here, have neither the budget to double my spend nor the time to rework my entire system in Airtable around new limitations.  Asking us to do that with just three weeks notice is entirely unreasonable.

@nityadb thank your for the follow up. 

I would really appreciate clarification on this, "but see a lower rate limit for the remainder of the month"

What does that actually mean? Can we get concrete details of exactly how much lower the rate limit will be? 

@nityadb 

I also have no idea what you're saying with "Our goal is to balance the costs of heavy API usage with the impact on customers. If you exceed the monthly limit, you will continue to have access to our APIs, but see a lower rate limit for the remainder of the month. "  

Airtable is exceeding the limits of their clients patience, and I can assure you that no one is considering lowering their patience limit as an appropriate response.

While I appreciate the new Business plan, there are a few things that aren't nice at all:

1. Forced upgrade: By cutting in half 2 items that have hard limits (no addon), you're essentially forcing existing customers to follow the flow or have their whole system break down. That's a x2 pricing. Ouch.
2. No Legacy plan: By giving us a 3 weeks notice, you don't leave us with much room for error. I'm glad I'm not in a 4weeks holiday right now, because our whole system would go down as soon as those news limits would be applied. People who chose Airtable made a choice based on pricing (amongst other criteria), and changing it without prior notice, while effectively cutting by half the power all customers who didn't anticipate paying x2, it's really not a nice business move. As stated before, the SaaS best practice and standard is to introduce Legacy plans to help customer anticipate the migration. I mean, the recent Bubble pricing change was awful but even them didn't do it so abruptly as to apply it within 4w notice.
3. Transparency: You're introducing a new limit without allowing customers to know where they are within that limit. That's really dumb. Dumber even, because Bubble did something similar like 4 months ago, don't you learn from other's mistakes? You just created a lot of stress for tons of customers who have no idea how much API requests they are consuming. (I have not the slightest idea about ours)
4. Trust: You broke it by not following the industry best practices (Legacy plans), and now you're going to have to get it back, but that takes time, and good business decisions.

If you want to save the day, introduce Legacy plans, even if only temporary (1y+ please). You can keep your deadline, but don't force thousands of customers to be ready to change within 3 weeks, that won't go well.

And next time you bring a new limit threshold (API call limit), don't announce it until you give your customers a way to measure it, that's pretty basic.

@nityadb If I'm reading this correctly, the "give" from airtable is unlimited extensions. So you decrease in several areas but give unlimited extensions. Is that the simplest terms of this change?

If so, has charging for extensions ever been considered? Glide is a good example of this.. They offer upgrades for $5, $10, etc per month on different features. For instance, if you want to private label your app on Glide, you can pay extra monthly. In my case, where I use extensions often, I would see the value in paying excess charges there as opposed to changing limits that change my operation. Make sense? 

@nityadb clearly airtable has a way to track the number of automations, the amount of storage being used, and the number of API calls that are happening each month. why is this information not visible in the workspace? i suspect that my workspace doesn't come close to maxing out our automation limits. but i have absolutely no way to tell this. how can i plan without information?

you would reduce the rage level significantly if you just made this information available. 

Hello @nityadb ,

This is a very strange way to take care of your existing customers.

I came to Airtable, because of a price and specs that fitted to us.

Now, you are breaking this equilibrium. If the consequence of that is to upgrade to an upper plan, my boss will tell me to find another solution, for sure !

@Ronan yes, one thing I think Airtable often forgets is that we have to explain price hikes to our boss or client who as I've found, don't like talking API, syncing, database, lingo. They just want to know what am I getting for the price. This update in particular handcuffs us in that discussion. 

I have several people to present this to. Definitely not excited to tell them their price is about to double so they can have unlimited extensions of which they currently have 2 or 3. 

Hey @nityadb, if you accept feedback, I have some ideas for how you guys could handle this better.

• Let pro users keep the pro plan through the end of their annual billing cycle, or better yet, give a full 1-year window to adjust
• Give Pro users who use features they are deleting a free upgrade to Business the same way they gave plus users a free upgrade to Pro
• Give Pro users the same discount that formerly Plus users get because of the reduced value
• Give Pro users some discount – even a little one – on an upgrade to Business

Just some suggestions for how you could make a gesture of good faith to show that you don't actively fking hate us.

@Erin_Alter 

clearly airtable has a way to track the number of automations, the amount of storage being used, and the number of API calls that are happening each month. why is this information not visible in the workspace?

You can track Automation runs and storage already, it's on your Workspace page.
But the number of API calls is a mystery for all of us.

https://airtable.com/wspXYZ/workspace/billing

But to clarify @DNA_PC post,   while it does show automation usage & storage usage for the current month, it does not show any historicals.
We run a seasonal business that spikes in usage in October. 
And right now we don't have the feintest idea of how many automations we ran, how much storage we used, and how many api calls we made last October of 22.

Businesses raise prices all the time. What's new.
But not giving transparency required OR any reasonable amount of time to make a change - that's ridiculous.

@nityadb One important clarifying question, that is not self-evident from the post, help link, or api docs rate limit:

Is the rate limit being removed before you hit the max calls per month? Below it says 100k calls on pro BEFORE rate limit imposed.  If this were the case, I could see how Business could be an improvement, because there would be no rate limit on unlimited calls (but that seems unlikely).

Or is the global api limit of 5 per sec still in place, and there is a MORE AGGRESSIVE rate limit that is imposed?  If so, what is this limit?  If this is the case, there is not an answer on this unless I am missing something. 

Any help appreciated.

Quote:

• PRO:
• API limits: 100,000 API calls per month before rate limits are imposed. You can review current rate limits in our developer docs.

Something that I just noticed: Teams previously on Pro will no longer have access to email support.

> Teams previously on Pro will no longer have access to email support

Yo, what the fck

@Drew_Schumacher Completely agree.

Believe it or not, I have a monthly recurring task of checking our monthly automation runs, I've been doing that manually for the past 5 years. 

Could use a nice graph and some more transparency!

Also from the New Plan page

If you reach (or are over) our record or attachment limits, you’ll still be able to use your bases and we will never remove your data. We’ll notify you of the overage and you will not be able to add more records or attachments until you upgrade to a new plan. For automations and API limits, you will be capped at the usage limit on your current plan.

I highlighted the portion in bold.

Sounds more like a stop than a speed limit.