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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.

I understand the pricing strategy. A question to clarify. I pay annually for the Pro version so instead of paying USD24/Mo, it comes to USD/20$. If I invite a collaborator on my Base which is held in the Pro workspace, would I be charged a full year for that collaborator right away? Be billed USD24/ every month, or be billed USD20 every month for this added collaborator?
Thanks!

Sadly, after 2+ years of waiting I ve finally pulled my team out of AT.

Apparently my needs are out of the development pipeline & the business model

El El mié, 19 feb. 2020 a la(s) 18:01, Melanie_Dumont via Airtable Community Forum airtable@discoursemail.com escribió:

MichaelChoi
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

The company where I belong is currently using the Airtable with fourteen editors and one reader. If an owner upgrades it to Pro, is it possible for some editors to be not upgraded to Pro and still be with Free account? It appears it is not feasible, but asking in case.

Mike_Hurley
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

I love Airtable, but this is a deal breaker for us. We are a professional services organization and need to give customers the ability to enter updates during a project. Paying $20 per month, for every customer (usually multiple contacts for each customer) makes this price prohibitive.

We have looked at a few tools and Airtable is my favorite so far, but they need to fix this pricing gap before pro services can use it.

Robert_Merrill
5 - Automation Enthusiast
5 - Automation Enthusiast

One quick question I am not sure it has been answered:

  1. It seems free users can share to other free users
  2. All the free users can edit
  3. Can a FREE user give edit access to a paid user so the paid user can edit the free user’s base?
  4. Can this happen without any additional costs incurred to either user?

Yes, certainly a free user can share a base with a paid user and can give the paid user whatever level of privileges the free user wishes to give. As for the other question, the answer is also yes – when free user shares base with paid user, the sharing doesn’t in itself cause either user to have to pay more. But there are some caveats and I confess I’m not 100% I understand them myself.

First, paid users (the “sharees”) are given editor privileges, they will be able to add features to the base by adding blocks. But the free users won’t be able to access those enhancements because blocks are a premium feature. Base editors always need to keep in mind what level of access other users of the base have.

The other problem has to do with workspaces. I don’t think this is clearly enough explained on the pricing page for Airtable, but a paid (Pro) account gives a person as many free workspaces as he or she wants, but it only covers one workspace. So when Airtable’s pricing page talks about users and plans, it really ought to talk about user workspaces.

William