Airtable Review: Pros and Cons After Running My Business on It

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Last updated: October 2026

If your business lives in a Google Sheet nobody else understands, a notes app full of half-finished ideas and about 14 browser tabs you’re scared to close, you’ve probably wondered whether there’s an easier way.

There is. For me it’s Airtable. This is my Airtable review, with the pros and cons from someone who’s run a business on it since 2021.

Before Airtable my business lived on paper. I had a million notebooks on the go and never knew what was in which one. Every time I needed a link to something, I had to go to my website, find the page and scroll until I spotted it.

My digital organisation was so chaotic that I once shared my screen on a Zoom call and an attendee told me my desktop hurt their eyes. Fair.

Then in 2021 I started using Airtable properly.

Now pretty much every part of my business runs through it. And I’d have no problem letting someone see inside my business – or my desktop screen!

In this post I’ll share what I love about Airtable, what I use it for, where it falls short (it does but not often) and how to start without getting overwhelmed.

What is Airtable, in plain English?

Airtable looks like a spreadsheet, but it works like a small database.

You get rows and columns and every row can link to a row in a completely different table. Your offers can link to your sales. Your blog posts can link to the lead magnets they lead towards.

The same information can show up as a grid, a calendar, a countdown, a gallery or a list, depending on what you need that day. You never type anything twice.

Google Sheets always felt a bit intimidating to me and Excel felt very intimidating. Airtable felt friendly from day one.

Why use Airtable instead of Google Sheets?

Airtable does a handful of things that Sheets can only do with extra code or extra tools. These are the ones I use most.

• 🔗 Linked records. Rows in one table can connect to rows in another (or even to another row in the same table). This allows you to pull in information from other tables or summarise data and stats e.g. as an average or sum. I’ll share some examples of how I use this below.
• 👀 Views. The same information shown as a calendar, a gallery, a kanban board or a plain grid. You can also use filters so that you only see records that fit your criteria e.g. only sales of a particular offer or filter subscribers by the lead magnet they joined your list from.
• 📝 Forms and automations you click together. Someone fills in a form and it instantly fills the database with their answers. But then you can take it a step further and Airtable can email you, email them and create the records, all without code. Sheets can send emails too, but you’d need to write a bit of code or connect another tool like Zapier or Make.
• 📊 Interfaces. Pages that put tables, lists, stat cards and charts side by side. Sheets has charts and pivot tables, but it doesn’t have app-style pages like these built in. And they are SO useful for surfacing data that is otherwise hard to find or understand.

My early automations were tiny. A form got submitted and Airtable emailed me or my VA so nothing got missed. That was enough for years.

Now I’ve got scripts running between bases, interfaces I’d never have dreamed of back then and fancy formulas that make my brain happy. But you don’t need any of that fancy stuff to get started!

My bookkeeping sorts itself now too, which took years to get right. I used Airtable for my records for several years, but a lot of it was still manual.

In January 2026 I built a new profit and loss system that’s pretty much fully automated. I set a rule the first time a brand pays me or I pay for a new subscription, and from then on everything from that brand lands in the right category without me.

For example, my affiliate commissions get categorised as affiliate revenue, then further categorised by the program and the type of program. This means I can search an affiliate program and instantly see how much money it’s made me over months/years/all time etc!

That’s thousands of transactions I’m not touching. When my accountant needs the figures, I download a CSV and email it to him. You can fake a rough version in Sheets, but it gets fiddly fast.

What do I actually use Airtable for?

Short answer is everything. Every part of my business has its own Airtable hub. I also use each Airtable hub with AI via the built in Claude and ChatGPT connectors. My AI skills know where to find things in Airtable and how to write to them when ideas crop up or decisions get made.

Here are a few of the things I have Airtable hubs for (each hub is essentially one base with multiple tables, automations, forms and interfaces all working together).

• 🤝 Collabs
• 💌 Customer service
• 🎪 Running events
• 🎟️ Joining other people’s events as a collaborator
• ✉️ Email marketing
• ✍️ My blog
• ⚡ Flash sales
• 💰 My affiliate program
• 📊 Tracking sales, income, expenses & all my business metrics
• 📌 My fully automated Pinterest strategy
• 👥 My 95% automated social media strategy
• 🔗 My lead attribution hub where I create and track UTM links so I know which strategies are actually growing my list
• 🚀 Launches

Here are a few more specific examples…

Affiliate coupon collabs that run themselves

Sometimes I give one of my affiliates a coupon code for their audience that lasts a few days of their choosing and the whole workflow goes via Airtable.

They request a coupon via a form. I get an email alert. Then there’s just one manual step. I create the coupon in ThriveCart and pop it into Airtable.

After that it’s all automatic, from the reminder emails before the promo starts to the email with their coupon code and a link to the swipe copy.

I couldn’t run these low-effort collabs without Airtable.

A roundup page that updates itself

I use a tool called Shareables to pull information from Airtable onto a page.

My Black Friday roundup pulls in all my offers and all my affiliate offers on one page, and it follows the dates in Airtable. When one offer expires and another goes live, the page changes itself. No more editing things at midnight.

The Flash Sale Command Centre uses this strategy and what I love about it is that there’s now one table, one Shareables widget and one flash sales page for every promo I ever run.

The only thing that changes is what shows up in the ‘live now’ view. There’s 2 views, one for my offers and another for affiliate offers. What shows up in them depends on the dates I set an offer to live.

Libraries that remember things for me

I’ve got Airtable tables for my offers, affiliate links, blog posts, freebies, embed codes, frameworks, customer results, opinions and stories.

Every night an AI skill reads through my old blog posts and emails and files what it finds into those libraries. It’s all stuff I’ve already written, so it’s just helping me remember it.

I’ve got ADHD so admin slips and I forget I ever told half my own stories. This gives them back to me when I’m writing something new.

The best bit is that AI can use those libraries too. Airtable connects to both Claude and ChatGPT, so I can ask AI to find a blog post, grab an affiliate link or add links to my related posts and freebies while I’m writing.

It reads from my tables, so it never uses an old link or the wrong price. I update something in one place and everything AI writes after that uses the new version.

Is Airtable hard to learn?

The basics are easy.

If you can use Google Sheets you can use the basics of Airtable, and you can import a Google Sheet so Airtable sets it up exactly as it was.

The learning curve only shows up when you go past the basics (the bits a spreadsheet like Google Sheets can’t do easily or well).

Some people won’t ever need to go beyond the basics. When you do, there are people selling templates with the fancy stuff already built (I’m one of them and you can see them here).

If you’d rather build it yourself than use templates, I’m planning an Airtable course for you. It’s on the roadmap.

If it feels overwhelming, you don’t need the bells and whistles straight away. Use it like a really pretty spreadsheet to begin with. I only did the basics for a few years before I tried anything fancy.

Start with views, filters and groups, and leave scripts and interfaces until you’re ready.

I used Airtable for years with no linked tables and only basic automations. People back then referenced me as knowledgeable about Airtable and I never corrected them, because I felt knowledgeable and was using it in so many ways.

Then I took a deep dive and found out how much I didn’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?!

Now I’m a bit of an Airtable whiz but it took me a long time to get to this point and for most of that time, I didn’t feel the need to go further. That said, now I know what Airtable is capable of, I do occasionally wonder how I managed to run my business without interfaces, scripts and formulas!

The thing that tripped me up most was linked fields. I thought linking 2 tables would automatically update one from the other. If I added income in one table, I figured it would just show up in the other. It doesn’t.

A link just connects 2 tables. That’s all. Nothing from the other table shows up until you bring it across, and you do that with lookups and rollups.

• 🖼️ Lookup. Brings across one piece of information. My offers table is linked to my images table, so a lookup shows each offer’s image without me adding it twice.
• 💷 Rollup. Summarises everything in a linked field. My offers table is linked to my transactions table, so a rollup adds up the money made from each offer. Swap the sum for an average and I can see the average order value too.

It took me a year or 2 to find out lookups and rollups even existed. I thought linking the tables was the whole job. It’s only the start, and it changed the way I use Airtable more than anything else.

Top Tip | Every link creates 2 link fields, one in each table. Label them “to” and “from” so you always know which is which.

Will I break something while I’m learning?

Not if you duplicate the base first. Make a copy, test and learn in the copy and your original stays exactly as it was. It also gives you something to go back to if you break anything later.

If you get into formulas, here’s my hack. I ask AI to find every formula I’ve made in a base and list them in a table in another base. If I mess one up, I copy the original back in.

How does Airtable compare with Notion, Google Sheets and Trello?

I’ve used all 3, so here’s my take on how they compare…

🗒️ Airtable vs Notion.

I’ve used Notion the most and I still love it for pages and documents. It was built around pages and added databases later.

Airtable was built around databases and added pages later. My whole business hub once lived in Notion and I ended up with pages everywhere. I never filled it in. I do fill in Airtable.

🧮 Airtable vs Google Sheets.

Google Sheets is fine for the basics. When I tried anything more advanced it felt overwhelming and I never worked it out. Airtable felt a lot more straightforward.

These days I only use Sheets as a go-between for my bank and Airtable.

🗂️ Airtable vs Trello.

I used Trello when I first started my business and never kept it up. It only does kanban boards, and kanban only suits some kinds of information.

I’d still have needed another tool for anything more like a spreadsheet and I’d rather have one tool that does the lot.

I also looked at Excel a few times and ran away. It looks very techy. Airtable’s colour-coded categories make everything look manageable straight away.

Airtable pros – the features I love

One tool for everything

I’d rather have one tool than 3 I have to keep in step, and Airtable does the lot for me.

It works brilliantly with AI

Claude looks in my Airtable over 100 times a day. My skills know to check it first, so they use my real links, prices and stories instead of guessing.

Automations that do the boring bits

Coupon emails, follow-ups and even linking my tables together happen without me.

Interfaces

I only started using them properly this year and now I wonder how I managed without them. I’ve got stat cards for things like what the average customer spends, a bar chart of how much each offer has made and a list of checkouts that are missing a bump or upsell, sorted so the ones losing me the most money show first.

It looks friendly

Colour-coded categories make a pile of information look easy to handle.

It grows with you

I used it as a pretty spreadsheet for years and added the clever bits when I needed them.

Airtable cons: what I don’t love

Interfaces can’t hold free text

You get a subheading with a bit of small text under it, and you can’t change the size. I do it, but it’s fiddly, especially on customer pages where I want to give instructions. If Airtable added proper text I’d probably stop needing Notion.

Two-way syncs need the Business plan

It’s the only reason I’d upgrade from the Team plan, and I haven’t. I keep one original table as my source of truth and sometimes forget which one it is.

That’s why I now give a bonus brand kit with each one of the Airtable hubs I sell. It’s where your offers, links, freebies & brand/voice rules live once and every hub uses them. There’s an automation that runs a script to send that same data to any other table that needs them.

Buttons that trigger automations

I’d love to use them. I’ve never got them working, even after a lot of troubleshooting.

The AI/automation/record limits add up when you run everything from it

If you only use a table for a couple of jobs you won’t notice. When you run a whole business from it, you’ll use up the free records and automation runs quickly.

It’s never really been a problem on the Team Plan but those on the free plan may find themselves sometimes running out.

The learning curve past the basics

Linked records took me far too long. It’s easy to stay on the basics, which is fine.

Is Airtable free?

Yes, there’s a free plan and it’s plenty to start with. I used the free plan for years before I moved to the paid version. The catch is a limit of 1,000 records per base, so you’ll need to upgrade once a base grows past that.

I moved to a paid plan about 2 or 3 years ago. People who buy my Airtable templates often sign up for free through my link, so I had credit and thought I might as well test it.

For a long time I barely used the extras. Now I use them all the time, because I’ve got every email, blog post, transaction and subscriber in Airtable, I sync tables between bases and I run a lot of automations. I’m on the Team plan and I’ve never needed more than that, so I’d say it’s plenty for most people.

I’ve gone over the record limit in my other workspaces a few times. Airtable just sends warnings and nothing broke for me. A paid plan only covers one workspace, so I moved those tables into my business one. They could lock a table though, so don’t ignore the warning.

Here’s how it compares with a few other tools, with prices in US dollars per person per month, billed yearly. These prices are accurate as of October 2026, but check each tool’s own pricing page before you buy.

Tool	Free plan	Paid, 1 person, per month
Airtable Team	Yes, up to 1,000 records per base	$20
Google Sheets	Yes	Free with a Google account
Trello Standard	Yes	$5
ClickUp Unlimited	Yes, unlimited users	$7
Notion Plus	Yes	$10

Airtable isn’t the cheapest and I won’t pretend it is. My advice is to start on the free plan and upgrade when your records grow.

For the people using Airtable lightly in their business, the free plan is enough. For the people using Airtable more heavily, they might need to upgrade but at that point, the cost is well justified.

One more thing worth mentioning. Airtable has a new owner, a company called Bending Spoons. The sale went through in early September 2026 and Airtable hasn’t announced any pricing changes. I’ve no idea what happens longer term, so I’d start free, see if you love it and check the prices when you’re ready to upgrade.

If you’d like to have a look around, here’s my invite link. Airtable doesn’t have an affiliate program, so this isn’t a classic affiliate link, but I do get a credit when someone joins and it’s the same credit whether you sign up for free or paid.

When is another tool better than Airtable?

Airtable isn’t the answer to everything.

• 🔢 Huge piles of data. Google Sheets now holds 20 million cells and Excel handles over 1 million rows in a sheet. Airtable’s free plan stops at 1,000 records per base, so for heavy number crunching a spreadsheet wins.
• 📌 A simple to-do board. If all you need is cards in columns, Trello is simpler and cheaper.
• 📄 Documents and wikis. Notion is better for those. I use both. There are things Airtable can’t do, like creating onboarding documents for a new team member.
• 👥 Big teams on a budget. Airtable charges per person, and ClickUp gives you unlimited users for free.

The other downside is that Airtable can do so much it overwhelms people, and some give up. You don’t need to start with the complex stuff. Start with one table.

What should you build first in Airtable?

A table of your most important pages and links. Offers, freebies, affiliate links, blog posts, brand colours and the canned emails you type out over and over again. It’s a huge time saver to have somewhere central to find all of it.

Then save your most-used tables as bookmarks in your browser. I’ve got a few bookmark folders, each with several tables inside, and I visit some of those tables 10 to 30 times a day.

Finding a blog post link used to mean scrolling through my blog, sometimes across 3 or 4 pages, and it could take 5 to 10 minutes. Now it takes about 20 seconds. It’s a small thing, but it adds up, especially when you work part-time hours around a toddler and a baby like I do.

What have I built with Airtable?

Everything above lives in hubs, which are Airtable bases built around one part of a business, with AI skills that keep them up to date.

The one I’d show you first is my Flash Sale Command Centre. It’s an Airtable hub with 7 dashboards and 8 AI skills, plus a complete course covering every strategy you need to plan, run and review your flash sales. It works in any AI tool that supports skills.

Here are all my Airtable offers in one place, so you can have a browse.

I’m building a hub with AI skills for every part of a business. On the roadmap you’ll find command centres for customer service, collabs, affiliate programs, email marketing, your website and blog, launches, Pinterest, money tracking and AI, plus a business hub that ties the lot together.

There’s also an Airtable course on the roadmap for anyone who prefers to DIY it.

Is Airtable worth it? My verdict

Yes. I couldn’t run my business the way I do now without it.

The clearest way I can show you is the time it saves.

When I ran freebie swaps, I set up the email template, the forms, the follow-up emails and the automations once. Doing each swap by hand would have taken me a couple of hours. Instead new subscribers turned up every week and all I did was tell people they could ask for a swap.

My affiliate coupon collabs save a similar amount of time. So do the automatic follow-ups for people who miss a payment, because I don’t have to remember to send them.

I think everybody needs Airtable, whether they run a business or not. I’ve built family bases too, including one that finds local events, classes, and days out and one that tracks films we can’t get to the cinema for and tells us when they land on Netflix, Amazon Prime or Now TV. My friends all use copies of my family hub now.

If it sounds like a lot, start small. Use it like a really pretty spreadsheet and come back for the fancy bits when you’re ready.

Airtable FAQs

If you’ve got a spreadsheet you’ve been meaning to tidy up, that’s the one to try first. Open a free account, import it and have a look around 👉

If you’d like to watch me build Airtable products with AI, grab my free Watch Me Build page too.

What’s the one spreadsheet in your business you’d most love to retire? Tell me in the comments!