Sep 26, 2021 12:25 PM
Hey there,
Apps should be able to offer a similar pricing model to airtable’s, which is a workspace based pricing model that charges per workspace user.
To all app developers, if you’d like support for this too, please like this post :pray: .
The following apparently simple features are missing from the current apps sdk in order for us app developers to offer that:
Add base.workspaceId to the base model. Without that, a lot of code will need to be developed by apps to try and “guess” and/or ask users if another base belongs to the same workspace and should be added to the same subscription.
Add CollaboratorData.isWorkspaceCollaborator or base.workspaceCollaborators so we can enable billing features only for workspace collaborators.
Since airtable charges only for collaborators with owner, create, edit and comment permissions, add CollaboratorData.permissionLevel to the collaborator model.
Without that, apps will be able to charge per user only after first time app use, after checking if the user has a permission level that needs to be charged for. Even then, it’s not 100% the app will be able to properly figure it out with the checkPermissionsFor… functions.
More importantly, the 3rd point will allow us to enable billing features only for workspace owners.
Would highly appreciate it if this can be added quickly. Otherwise, in our current app in development, we’ll have to:
OR
Thanks,
Ronen
Sep 27, 2021 05:11 AM
That would be a great addition to the dev platform!
Sep 27, 2021 05:32 AM
Agreed. Workspace-based app-pricing would be a very strong incentive to use the Airtable marketplace billing model and move away from my own billing system, even if Airtable takes a cut.
Sep 27, 2021 06:55 AM
Agree, would be really helpful and make better UX to end-users of Apps!
Sep 28, 2021 07:55 AM
Agreed!
If apps could link with Airtable’s native user permission level, then that would help us charge users and offer functionality appropriately.
Sep 29, 2021 07:01 AM
Thanks for sharing, Ronen!
We haven’t met yet, but I’m leading Developer Relations here & am appreciative of your thoughtful suggestions.
Support for billing for custom Blocks is not this years’ product roadmap, but is definitely on our radar. We understand the frustration of having to build your own billing system, but we are laser focused on other parts of the product right now.
@Ronen_Babayoff — This feedback is super helpful for us. I’d love to chat with you live about your pain points, and feature suggestions. If it’s alright, I’ll message you directly to set up some time.