Commenting should be free on all plans

[Fernando_Campos]

Currently the FREE plan allows for unlimited commenting and read-only users.

This same feature is not available on paid plans which is something I really can’t understand… It does make sense to charge per user who creates and edits data, but to charge the same “seat price” for people who may simply leave some feedback once a month really makes no sense and severly limits the use of AirTable to the point we are considering switching out.

Its even more inconsistent with the fact that this is an unlimited feature on the FREE plan that gets removed on paid plans. And as far as I know commenting on paid plans has no advantages or added features at all… So why charge for something that was already free and penalize paying users??

[kuovonne]

Welcome to the Airtable community!

Fernando_Campos:

So why charge for something that was already free and penalize paying users??

There is a historical for this. Previously, free plans had unlimited editors/creators, but no access to apps. When Airtable revised the free plan to include one app, they also put a cap on the number of editors/creators, but left the number of read-only and commenters unlimited.

[Fernando_Campos]

Thanks :slightly_smiling_face: Well yeah, that does explain why its there, but not why it hasn’t changed…

Honestly i think its first time ever I hear of a Freemium model that removes features from paying users. That’s just counter-intuitive. Seems to me someone high within Airtable stuck their feet on this and really won’t rethink it.

[Fernando_Campos]

I understand the plans have been updated recently...

Does anyone know if this dumbfounding policy of charging paying users for something that is given for free on the free plan (commenting) is still the case?

[ChantelleB]

I convinced my boss to level up to a paid Airtable plan so that we can onboard more team members and ultimately use the interface feature as a client portal for clients to review and leave comments. I did not realize that we would have to start paying for our clients to be able to leave comments when the feature was previously unlimited on the free plan. We are a small business that supports other small businesses and it would cost us thousands in additional fees just to allow our clients to leave comments. Has anyone found a solution? I fear we may need to switch to another platform.

[Fernando_Campos]

Unfortunately only solution for us was to migrate away most of our tables away from Airtable… sheets, excel, or anything else doesn’t charge you for something so trivial. it’s indeed surprising that paying users are penalized like this but it doesn’t seem like the company really cares. 

[samantha_Logan]

I initially thought that this was just a support issue where the FAQs were confusing the pre-pricing update and post-update. I mean how could commenting users be free on a free plan but cost on a paid plan? My free database MUST charge for commenters then right? So I kept looking over and over about whether commenters were an additional charge. They were not - because I was free. 

this is simply CONFOUNDING and I have no idea why they would make this choice. I had to re-migrate back to airtable at the close of Google Tables, but I'm also considering whether I want to onboard an entire university of students to a resource journal hosted on Airtable if this is the case. 0.o 

Such an ODD decision to have made.