Yes, all external services use Airtable’s API, so it counts towards the API limit.

However, Airtable has given us no way to count the API calls, so we have no idea how many calls are being made.

I do not like Stacker, but one of the best portals for Airtable is Noloco. I’ve heard good things about Softr as well, but Noloco is the more advanced tool. Those are probably the 2 leading portals for Airtable right now — Noloco and Softr. 

@ScottWorld Thanks.  Stacker wasn't my choice but I have a client who gave me no alternative and I was honestly surprised by how much they've improved since my previous evaluations. 

But with any of these tools, every time the client app does any update there is probably an api call.  If you have related tables, multiple api calls.  It's going to add up much faster than most people will realize.

I have a request in to support for information on finding out the current numbers on my accounts, so I'll pass on any useful response.  Of course the first suggestion was to ask everyone on this forum.

Apparently Stacker was only notified yesterday as well.  They will be advising on the impact once they complete their study (targeted for next week).  

No API call limits from Softr's side ))

Aren't API call limits [now] a function of the Airtable plan your Softr account is connected to?

@Bill_French Mariam is referring to whether Softr has its own API limits; Softr doesn't expose API limits on its own. However, if users use an Airtable connection (API Key, PAT, or OAuth) with a Free or Team plan user/workspace, then Airtable API limits still apply; hence, we would recommend using either a Team or Business account/workspace to avoid hard API limits from the Airtable side.

Thanks for the clarification. In the context of this panic thread, some visitors including me, read that and wondered if Softr provided relief to the recently announced plan limitations. It's a nuance that needs considerably more predicates.

I messaged support about removing features from Pro, and got back a clearly copied-and-pasted message that’s basically “yeah you have to upgrade!  Sucks to suck!” 

EVERYONE in this thread needs to message support and DO NOT LET THEM CLOSE THE TICKET until this is addressed.  We need to do something to get their attention because they clearly don’t give a **bleep** what **bleep** we talk in the forum.

---

I messaged support yesterday as well. Still no official response after the initial auto-bot "we've received your blah blah blah..." email. *Insert red expletive emoji face here*

You spend years building on Airtable and then they double the price with 3 weeks notice.

Nono Airtable, not cool. Not professional. 

I've got this in response to my two tickets: "We wanted to let you know, we're experiencing a higher than expected volume and it's taking us a little longer to respond than we’d like. We are working diligently to get through other issues and will be in touch soon."
Me: "Oh really? Why that?" 🤣

Just poor support team, its not their fault and I wouldn't like to be on their place right now 😬

Your point about trust has sadly become central to a lot of customers as Airtable continues to introduce change that shatters expectations.

Customers don't like surprises unless they are magical surprises. As you point out, Airtable has endeared many customers with magically useful UI design over the years. Unfortunately, they have consistently surprised us with product and service changes that erode trust.

Setting aside the recent financial turmoil of the new pricing model, the short fuse they lit for critical underlying feature changes shatters any remaining confidence that its product marketing team actually understand how Airtable is used.

@Ksenia_Eckly 

Thanks for the update.  It's really frustrating, and I was ready to follow up with them, but it shouldn't be a  support issue so I'm trying with sales.  Not that I'm expecting anything better from them...

From the follow up to the Announcement

 https://community.airtable.com/t5/announcements/updates-to-our-pricing-plans/ba-p/162829

"Our goal is to balance the costs of heavy API usage with the impact on customers. If you exceed the monthly limit, you will continue to have access to our APIs, but see a lower rate limit for the remainder of the month. "

words fail me

"Teams" is not a "new Pro". We are an existing small business on the Pro plan, and are now COMPLETELY backed into a corner.  Until this news we were at 40 something percent of our allocated Attachment Storage Space: .  Overnight we are now at 80 percent. The unique crucial feature for us is storage space.  Having our costs double in the next year was not something we factored for for fiscal year 2024. As another unhappy client said, don't slap us in the face and tell us it's a hug.

Heard back from support again today.  More of the "we made these changes based on feedback" (which is weird because I don't recall being asked 🤔 🤔).  They also provided a (not very good) "workaround solution that fall within the capabilities of your current plan" –– I think they misspoke, though, clearly they don't mean my current plan.  I have no problem with the current plan!  It's the plant they're sticking us on that's the issue.  

Alright, fellow Airtable Community.  Like many of you, I have not only used Airtable for 5+ years, ive evangelized for it.  We've gotten several of our clients on the platform, and even other business owners who have liked how organized we are — I can think of five teams on Airtable now because we pushed them to use it.  Like you all, I love this platform because it is genuinely the best option, but now I feel like they're pulling the rug out from under us.  This is just an unbelievably shtty way to treat loyal customers, and they need to do better.  Something, anything to help us out.  

Here are some ideas for how Airtable could handle this better:

• Let pro users keep the pro plan through the end of their annual billing cycle, or better yet, give a full 1-year window to adjust
• Give Pro users who use features they are deleting a free upgrade to Business the same way they gave plus users a free upgrade to Pro
• Give Pro users the same discount that formerly Plus users get because of the reduced value
• Give Pro users some discount – even a little one – on an upgrade to Business as a gesture of good faith that they don't actively fking hate us

This was the response I received just now.

Hi,

Thank you for your patience and for reaching out with these questions – we appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns about API usage and the new plan limits.

If you exceed the monthly limit, you will continue to have access to our APIs, but see a lower rate limit for the remainder of the month. Once that month ends, your rate limit will go back to normal. Rate limited requests will return a 429 status as documented here. We’re working to provide better ways to monitor your current usage in workspace settings and will have more to share soon. We understand your request for better visibility into your current API usage so I will share this feedback with our product and engineering teams. For now, please visit this community post to read more details on the motivation behind this change and to follow along for updates.

Additionally, there have been some questions around what constitutes an API call – this can be defined as a single REST HTTP request to any endpoint documented in our API documentation. If multiple calls are made to any of these endpoints to retrieve or modify data, each individual call is counted as one. For example a "list records" request then a "update records" request would count as 2 requests.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we roll out these plan changes and process feedback. If you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out. We're here to help!

Best,

Airtable Developer Support Engineering Team

tl/dr: Honestly, we didn’t think this API limit thing through at all. Like, how were we supposed to know that people would want to know how many calls they have? Why are you creating so much work for us???

😂😂😁😁😂😂😁😁

How does one find the number of API calls their workspace is using? When I look at the workspace settings, I see the number of automation runs and sync integrations for workspace and each base shows the number of records, extensions and attachment space used, but I don't see the number of API calls anywhere? 

>>> How does one find the number of API calls their workspace is using?

I think that's coming. Until then, you're pretty much in the dark.

Someone asked me if I was surprised by the recent Airtable policy changes. My answer was "No, but I am surprised that so many users are surprised."

This is how Airtable rolls. On more than one occasion, they have attracted users toward a service level and eventually changed the offering, forcing you to make a choice that creates hardship - either higher unbudgeted payments, or hasty re-engineering. That seems to be a pattern that is probably unintentional. At the very least it lacks a moral commitment to its existing customers who have willingly embraced the original offering, paid for the original offering, expanded their commitment based on the original offering, and recommended the same offering to many others. Companies that embrace free markets typically embrace grandfather relationships because they want to sustain trust. They want new customers to know that they treat long-time customers with the honor and respect they probably deserve for helping them grow.

I don't remember ever seeing a drastic price/feature change with this short of notice before.  I'm a new comer to Airtable and really liked this product - at the previous price point.  I brought a client to this platform 5 weeks ago and now I see this crap.  Honestly, I had plans to bring more clients here once I leveled up my Airtable skills and experience.  This makes me realize that their focus is clearly on the Enterprise space and not the SMB community I serve.  I feel for those of you who are consultants who have to somehow extricate your clients from the heap of dung that this company has dropped.  I will definitely be looking for another platform.  At the end of my current pay period I will be putting my development account on ice - changing to the free account or deleting it altogether.

Thank you to those in the forums who helped ease my way into this pool.

D.

edit:  After signing in to the forum to post this, I received an automated email from Airtable … "You earned the Welcome Back badge on Airtable Community" … irony.

@Bill_French 

"I think that's coming. Until then, you're pretty much in the dark."

I suspect they're pretty much in the dark, and that they don't have a way to get the API call number let alone report it to us.  

I've seen internal snapshots of API analytics. They capture the data.

I was expecting a better official response by now (foolish, I know), but I did have an unofficial one that Airtable has no means to accurately count the calls and that the limit is unenforceable. I certainly wouldn't count on that and have advised my effected clients to plan on moving up to Business level.

My expectation has been that every call from an external source, whether its stacker/softr/noloco, make/zapier/powerautomate, fillout/jotforms on and on, would be countable.

But having developed long enough myself, if you build an api it's a lot easier to have your internal teams and consultants develop to that than directly.  In that case, do actions on airtable tools such as interfaces and automations count as well?  If they do it creates a dilemma, and could explain the delay in making the numbers available.

I hadn't even considered that – they have to have an ability to see where the API call came from, at least like the calling IP address.  So it has to be possible to separate those out.  If they didn't and we got blocked because of calls from their own product, well, that would be mighty silly