Sharing a base between a paid and a free user?

[Alvaro_Martinez]

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!

[Square_Candy]

I’m in a similar situation to a lot of the responders here. I’m basically a one-man web design shop, but I often bring in contractors on a per job basis. These contractors would usually only need edit access for 1 or 2 views - the rest I would manage on my own. If I have 4 or 5 contractors, each only working on tasks for a single project maybe 2 months out of the year, the price tag of $1728/year seems quite steep for what I would be getting. I mean, mostly they would only be switching task items from “TODO” to “In Progress” to “Complete” - that’s all I need, and there seems to be no way to do it execpt adding people at $24/mo.

Related to what @Philip_Barber was saying my question is:
Assuming I am using the monthly payment scheme - can I add paid user accounts to a base at the Editor level for the duration of a project, and then switch the users to Read Only once the project is complete?
Would there be any data loss using this method?

It would be sad to abandon this awesome product due to this pricing structure. But for the cost of 1-2 years of service for 5 users I could build something similar with custom code and have unlimited users and a tool that will last several years.

[Square_Candy]

You know - even just adding a setting to allow dragging items between stacks in a private link Kanban view for the free user level would be so great. I know that’s technically allowing someone to edit the data… anyways…

[Fred_Petry]

I’m becoming a big fan of AirTable. I’m using it in a pre-opening setting for a hotel where I and some collaborators are working on putting together a 1000+ item list of Operating Supplies & Equipment. Different department heads are collaborating and adding items from their respective departments. Working great, but I feel we will shortly have to upgrade because of the number of items and the need for special features like custom layouts for printing. Again, love the program but I somehow the pricing model needs to be tweaked preferably in some way where the person who maintains the table for a longer period has the pro account and populaters can have the free or reduced cost option. Keeping the current pricing system will alienate some smaller companies who will just eventually switch back to Excel. Also, I want to keep this particular table in perpetuity for our records. That can end up being quite a costly endeavor.

[Brian_Barrus1]

This is a huge mistake on your part, Airtable.

It actually penalizes users for upgrading to pro because they lose a major, critical feature (the ability to share access with free users). If fact, I’m considering downgrading my pro Bases because it ties my hands collaborating.

[Elias_Gomez_Sai]

You can share access with free users, when they have read-only permission:

Sharing a base between a paid and a free user? Views

“Self-service” means the free plan or any of the paid plans that are NOT enterprise—basically, any of the plans where you can just pay (or not) with a credit card. It might help if instead of thinking of “paid users” and “non-paying users,” you instead think of paid teams. Features like personal views and extra select colors are a function of whether or not a base is part of a paid team. Let’s say that there’s a company, Blankcorp, with 5 people working on product and 2 people working on marke…

[Brian_Barrus1]

Yes. Read-only.

If I’m on a free account then all users can fully participate (minus the pro features, blocks etc). If I upgrade my base all the free users are basically locked out and can only view the base.

Unless I am going to purchase an account for every casual participant (freelancers, reviewers, etc.) I’m better off just staying on the free account.

The more I consider it the more I feel I’m better off downgrading…

[Alex_Mills]

I’m in the same boat. We’ve got a core team of a few people who’ll need to edit things and would be happy as pros, but the large number of casual users not being able to edit things is a real downside. I’m literally forced to stick with not paying for this product.

[Biggles_Bristol]

I just wanted to chime in here as well. I love my AirTable, but I’m the main one maintaining it. I don’t mind paying personally for a pro account, but there’s no way I can persuade casual collaborators to pay, and the potential for collaboration is severely limited as a result so we’re using Google Docs instead.

Might I suggest that Free users might be able to edit but not configure bases or tweak column settings?

[Matthias_Jahn]

I love my Airtable too and have the same problem mentioned above - I would like to pay, my collaborators in temporary projects can‘t.
Maybe this two approaches can help?

• Me with two accounts; one paid for me only and one free for collaborating with other free users.
• Feature Request for base-based featureset option; On the base it should be possible to define if it‘s paid (pro) or free.

[Abdullah_Khan]

Hi Airtable team,

It seems like a hybrid base that allows unpaid users to just edit records while pro users have advanced privileges is a popular demand. Is there any chance in the foreseeable future of offering such a plan?

Airtable’s viability as the primary project management tool in my org depends on the answer (seems to be the case with multiple users in this forum!)