Our team started with just 5 Airtable licenses but now around 25 people need access to our database. The thing is, having more users actually makes our data quality better since everyone can contribute and keep things updated. But the pricing is getting really steep as we add more seats.
I checked out Softr as a potential solution to reduce costs, but even that seems pretty pricey when you factor everything in. Has anyone found good workarounds for this situation? What other platforms or methods have worked for teams trying to give broader access without breaking the budget? Would love to hear about any alternatives that might be more economical than what I’m looking at right now.
Dealt with this exact problem 2 years ago when our team went from 8 to 40 people after a merger.
What actually worked without breaking the bank:
Audit who needs write access vs read-only. We cut from 40 potential licenses to 12 editors by being realistic about who actually edits data.
Set up Slack notifications through Zapier for read-only people - they get pinged when key fields update. Costs maybe $20/month vs hundreds in extra seats.
Had our junior dev build a simple dashboard using Airtable’s API. Took a week and shows everything people need without them touching Airtable directly.
One trick that saved us tons: “batch update” sessions twice weekly. One licensed user sits with department heads and makes all their changes together. Sounds clunky but actually improved data quality since we caught conflicts immediately.
Tested Softr but skipped it - just shifts costs around without real savings for bigger teams.
If you’re technical, definitely try the API route. Airtable’s API is straightforward and you can build exactly what you need.