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Re: Sharing a base between a paid and a free user?

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Alvaro_Martinez
6 - Interface Innovator
6 - Interface Innovator

Hi all,
I am a free user and I´ve been sharing a few bases with other free users for a while.
I am thinking of upgrading my account to a paid subscription, but I am afraid this might affect collaboration with non paid users. How does this work?
If this sort of collaboration is possible what happens to the product features available only for paid subscriptors when working on a shared base?
Thanks!

55 Replies 55

They need unlimited guest accounts that allow commenting and editing. No creating tables etc is required. I would start recommending the platform in a flash.

I’d give’em my CC# tomorrow!

Alfredosos
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Ok so I guess we have established that this is an ongoing issue and not much has happened about it.

I will need more records soon, but won’t be able to pay for the number of users I need. So Im thinking about workarounds.

Thoughts so far are to use a paid version for archiving all the information and free versions for doing the data entry etc. THen the tables that accrue a lot over time could potentially be copied and pasted into the paid base which the users can view but not adapt.

I guess other workarounds are to use forms with a paid base, and use the forms to update the paid base.

Is there anyone out there who has figured out a satisfactory workaround?

Thanks in advance!

And that would create a flood of new users who, while putting a fair bit of pressure on Airtable’s infrastructure, would also likely result in a number of new tire kickers and a sizeable injection of new paying users - rinse, repeat (exponentially).

Indeed, it’s how they could grow their business rapidly, well - at least their user base. But this idea comes at a cost - the infrastructure would take a hit and if it’s not ready for prime-time, my service will degrade as a result of your new collaborative-user windfall. I’m sure this is in their calculous of trade-offs.

You’ve probably noticed that Comcast doesn’t perform this calculous. When five new families each with five iPhone-carrying kids move into the neighborhood and start sucking on the Internet pipe, all y’alls are faced with really slow load times and streaming interruptions. Airtable probably doesn’t want to be that company, and neither do we.

The fact that there’s a practical ceiling on records suggests they’re not ready for prime-time, and despite perhaps wanting to do exactly what you suggest, they are simply unable or unprepared to do it for any number of technical reasons [at this time].

I don’t want to necessarily defend this posture by Airtable or even suggest I know or I’m speaking for them. But I suspect they’re holding the reigns pretty tight because they don’t want to risk the brand equity of their pretty thrilled [existing] user base.

Bree_J
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Might as well add my two cents here as well, to show Airtable that there is a sizable market of users for whom this is an issue. I’m a solopreneur with third party contractor-partners that I’d like to give collaborator access to simply edit a few records on a monthly basis (mostly to pass project tasks along a kanban when they’ve completed their part of the process). I was surprised to see that the pro account only comes with 1 seat and each additional seat is $24/month. An easy way to solve this would be to offer the first 3-5 seats free and then maybe $5-10 per seat thereafter. To echo others’ points, it disincentives what could be really great small-mid sized users from upgrading to pro.

Adrien_Bird
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I second all of what is said here. Marketing agency with contractors and only need limited edit capabilities for them and full edit for me. I cannot justify dropping $24 a month per contractor. Please change this. I will literally pay you and so will all of these people.

Rocky_Harding
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

The cost is a deal-breaker. The upgrade is a bit steep for one workspace, but I could just about warrant it. Not per collaboration, though. Not when the market rate for other platforms that more or less have the same functionality is free. I’ll stick to the free version, google sheets or apple numbers until the price is right to justify using solely airtable.

Frederik
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

Absolutey agree! I was about to drop quite some funds until I realied how weird that pricing is.

Change the pricing and add a way to link bases and move tabs from one base to another and airtable is the perfect all-in-one tool.

Nestor_Estrada
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

hola amigos, yo tengo una duda, yo pago por la versión PRO, pero mi método es el siguiente.
tengo 30 usuarios que solo usan la base para lectura
y 2 para editar y yo como único Creador.
lo que quiero es que los dos que pueden Editar no sea cobrable.
es posible.?
ya que solo modifican una celda selectiva.
no veo necesario el pagar por alguien que solo cambia la celda selectiva
alguien me puede apoyar con este tema?

steven_borris
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

We are also considering dropping AirTable for this reason. A great and powerful tool, but when you have a large community that need minor functionality, the pricing plans just don’t make sense for us to maintain. It’s a shame, but we are going to be forced out due to a large community of people that just need to do minor editing.