Airtable (Productivity and workspace)
Created by: Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, Emmett Nicholas

Airtable prices per-editor with the 5-editor free cap as the mechanical trigger. Automation runs and AI credits are secondary upgrade triggers.

TL;DR: Airtable's pricing structure leans into the database-superpowers-for-non-developers positioning: 5 editors free, per-editor tiers add Interfaces, Automation runs, and AI credits. The lesson for indie founders: when your product has multiple value-capture moments (per-editor, per-automation, per-AI-call), layered triggers convert at different growth events. Single-axis pricing misses the secondary monetization paths.

What they sell: A relational database platform for non-developers with Interfaces, Automations, and AI for building no-code internal tools.
Who it's for: Operations-heavy teams, marketers, ops leaders, and product managers who need structured data and internal tools without engineering.
Pricing model: Per-editor tiered subscription with Automation-runs and AI-credits secondary triggers
Payment frequency: Monthly or annual with annual discount; per-editor pricing with automation runs metered separately at higher tiers
Free trial behavior: Free tier IS the trial for small teams; paid tiers offer time-limited trials for full feature evaluation.
Number of tiers: 4

Anchor pattern: Business tier as anchor
Business at approximately $45/seat/mo anchors the page for scaling ops teams. Team at approximately $20 reads as the natural starting tier for growing teams; Free is the entry. The unusual structural element is the multiple secondary triggers (record limits, automation runs, AI credits) — each scales independently of editor count, creating multiple paths to upgrade as ops workflows mature.

Upgrade trigger: 5-editor cap plus automation-runs cap plus record cap
Three triggers fire together: 5-editor cap on Free is the primary structural trigger as ops teams grow; 100 automation runs/mo cap forces teams running workflows to upgrade quickly; 100k records per base on Team forces teams with significant data to upgrade to Business. The layered triggers mean Airtable monetizes at three different growth events rather than relying on a single conversion path.

What's working:
5-editor free tier cap is mechanical and predictable as ops teams grow.|Per-editor pricing aligns the bill with team adoption, which matches how Airtable usage scales.|Automation runs as secondary trigger captures teams that automate workflows heavily.|Record limits as tertiary trigger captures teams with significant data volume.|AI credits as quaternary trigger captures teams adopting AI-augmented workflows.|Interfaces feature at Team tier is the canonical differentiator that makes the Free-to-Team upgrade structurally compelling.

What to adapt:
Layered upgrade triggers (multiple caps that scale independently) convert at different growth events and capture more revenue than single-axis pricing.|Editor-count caps + automation-runs caps + record caps map to different team-maturity stages and trigger conversion at each stage.|Anchor with a tier that has real customers (Business at $45/seat/mo for Airtable) not aspirational tiers.

What to avoid:
Do not adopt multi-cap pricing without monitoring which cap actually drives conversion. Sometimes one cap dominates and the others are noise; pricing complexity without conversion data wastes optimization time.|Do not adopt per-editor pricing if your value scales with viewers more than editors. Airtable's per-editor model works because editors are the value-creating role; if your viewers dominate the workflow, viewer-free + editor-paid (Figma model) is better.

Brunson lens:
Stack: Four-rung stack with multiple secondary triggers; Business tier is the visual anchor.
Value ladder: Full Value Ladder with editor-count primary trigger and automation/records/AI secondary triggers.
Decoy/anchor: Business tier as anchor; Team as reasonable growth tier; Free as ops-team adoption surface.
Payment mechanics: Per-editor monthly or annual with annual discount; automation runs and records metered at higher tiers.

Pricing last verified: 2026-05-18