Re: Team Plan Automation Limit Reached & 100 external emails per day

Ryan_Campbell · ‎Sep 05, 2023

On September 3rd I received an email that our automation limit had been reached. This is not likely, not in three days, I checked run histories and all is good. The only limit that we exceeded was the 100 external emails a day. This shut off all automations not just emails. Airtable is now unusable for our team.

ScottWorld · ‎Sep 05, 2023

I would send an email to support@airtable.com about this.

Ryan_Campbell · ‎Sep 05, 2023

I reached out to support last night, and it hasn't been 24 hours yet. At first, I didn't have any concerns about the changes to the plan, but I was completely unaware of the new restrictions regarding outgoing emails to external users. This could potentially be the cause of the issue, but it remains unclear, and I'm uncertain about how to go about resolving this issue.

ScottWorld · ‎Sep 05, 2023

The restrictions regarding outgoing emails to external users didn't change. The limit was always 100 on the Pro Plan. They increased it to 1,000 on the Business Plan.

However, for no limit at all, I would recommend taking a look at Make for your Airtable automations.

Let us know what Airtable Support says when they respond to you!

Ryan_Campbell · ‎Sep 05, 2023

It is possible this is the first time I have reached the 100 external emails limit in a day, this is the only legitimate limit that I can see that I have exceeded. Disabling all my automations for the rest of the month should not be the appropriate action by Airtable. It is the 5th of September, a lot of days to go.

ScottWorld · ‎Sep 05, 2023

Reaching the 100 external email limit is different than reaching the 25,000 run limit, so it sounds like a bug of some sort.

But yes, I agree with you that it is a terrible business practice for Airtable to disable people's automations for an entire month if they reach the run limit... with no ability to pay for more runs. They are literally disabling people's entire businesses for an entire month. There is no other company that I know of that acts like this.

That's one of the top 20 reasons why I highly encourage everybody to use Make’s Airtable Automations and Integrations... you can never run out of automations with Make, because they offer unlimited automations. And you can never run out of automation runs with Make, because you can always buy extra automation runs.

There is a small learning curve with Make, which is why I created this basic navigation video to help. In that thread, I also provide the links to a few other Make training resources there as well. For example, to instantly trigger your Make scenarios from Airtable, check out this thread.

The only downside to be aware of when using Make is if you are planning on making more than 100,000 API calls per month to Airtable.

Airtable used to allow unlimited API calls per month for free, but now Airtable only offers 100,000 API calls on their Teams Plan. Airtable now requires you to upgrade to their Business Plan to make unlimited API calls to Airtable.

This is yet another slap in the face by Airtable to its customers, so it doesn’t surprise me that customers are angry with Airtable.

But Make is typically the #1 most valuable add-on that anybody could add to their Airtable experience. Make supports over 1,600 apps natively, and it also supports all other apps that have a REST API with its HTTP module.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

Ryan_Campbell · ‎Sep 06, 2023

One of our creators give me a call towards the end of the business day yesterday letting me know that automations had resumed working. I checked on our workspace and saw our limit had been reset. I have not received any communication from Airtable regarding the issue or what may have caused it. It is clear I need a back up plan for automation runs, I will look into Make. thanks for the advice.

ScottWorld · ‎Sep 06, 2023

Wow, that's great that it was fixed for you! They must have realized it was a bug that was affecting other customers, and must have fixed it behind-the-scenes. But yeah, I think that using Make is the way to go. I love that platform.

Bill_French · ‎Sep 08, 2023

I read the thread over on Reddit, and I have great empathy for you and the many others in similar lifeboats because of recent Airtable policy changes. A word of caution, however... while I like what Make offers, I don't like the odds of changing seats on the deck of the Titanic. If that sounds ominous, consider the new API limitations and how Make generally works to create seemingly high-functioning workflows and integrations. To achieve this immediate gratification, it almost always uses API polling which is technically an abusive approach to using an API. And now, this matters greatly with Airtable if you are not paying the additional vig to get increased API limits.

Think carefully about your next steps because it could get worse. To truly address these challenges in all no/low-code systems, you need to become an event-first developer. It's contrary to the no-code mantra, but this should be expected whenever your no-code MVP tries to act mature. No-code builders need to mature as much as their architectures must when faced with the need to sustain a no-code process that has proven to have great merit.

There's nothing inherently wrong with adopting a high level of Make dependency as long as the integration architecture is aligned with the services, their limits, and the anticipated costs. This article explores these no-code adhesives - might be worth a read.

Bill_French · ‎Sep 08, 2023

@ScottWorld wrote:
Wow, that's great that it was fixed for you!

"Fixed" is a loaded term. It's possible they just unbroke it without even knowing it. Equal odds no one did anything and the system self-healed from some other brain-fart feature push.