Not sure if this belongs here, but it’s technically a product suggestion, so I thought I’d say it!
There’s a whole group of people who 1) use Airtable casually but prolifically, for personal use, on the free plan 2) would love the ability to use more colors 3) can’t afford the insanely high $20/month for the Pro plan.
Color options are a tangible, immediate improvement to any base that most users go looking for. (Airtable knows this—there’s a reason the “Colors” button is prominent in the toolbar!) I think that if Airtable offered a flat fee for color options alone, it would greatly improve the experience of some of us free users.
As for what Airtable stands to gain here: to put it bluntly, they could make money that they wouldn’t otherwise. Those of us who can’t afford a recurring $20/month and just want colors aren’t going to, say, give in once the desire becomes strong enough, and subscribe for a month or two or something; they’re going to look at the fact that it’s a recurring payment (higher than Netflix!), see that it’s infeasible, and write it off as an impossibility. So, that’s $0.
However, if someone sees that it’s, say, $10, once (affordable!), and uses personal spreadsheets a lot…they’ll probably think it’s worth it, and go for it. I know I would. It’s not $20/month, but if free users weren’t actually going to take the $20/month option anyway, it’s still worth it for Airtable. (And in case Airtable is somehow worried about losing Pro users: given all the other features that Pro users get, I don’t think they’re paying $20/month for just colors.)
Of course, I haven’t done the market research, so I don’t know. But I think it might at least be worth it for Airtable to ask its prolific free users what flat fee they would be willing to pay for color options alone. And, if any free users agree with me here on the forum, it might bolster my case that this is worth investigating… :winking_face:
