Airtable vs Smartsheet vs Notion

Written head to head: Airtable vs Smartsheet, with when to choose each side.

Compared on	Airtable Free plan · from $20/seat/mo VisitRemove	Smartsheet Free trial · from $9/member/mo VisitRemove	Notion Free plan · from $10/member/mo VisitRemove
What it is	Spreadsheet-style database for building team apps, with AI built in	Spreadsheet-style work management for projects, programs and processes	Workspace for docs, wikis, databases and projects with built-in AI
Free plan	Up to 5 editors; 1,000 records per base; 1 GB of attachments per base; 100 automation runs; 500 AI credits per editor per month; 1,000 API calls per workspace per month; 2 weeks of revision history.	No	Pages and blocks unlimited for individuals but limited for workspaces with 2+ members; file uploads up to 5 MB; 7-day page history; up to 10 external guests; 1 chart; Notion AI as a limited trial only.
Cheapest paid plan	$20/seat/mo billed annually (Team)Airtable pricing	$9/member/mo billed annually (Pro)Smartsheet pricing	$10/member/mo billed annually (Plus)Notion pricing
What it covers	Seats are charged for users with edit permissions; read-only collaborators are free. Includes 15,000 AI credits per paid user per month.	1 to 10 members with unlimited free contributors; 250 automations per month.	Notion AI is only a limited trial on Plus. Full Notion AI starts on Business: $24 per member/month billed monthly, or $20 billed yearly.
Free trial	None stated	30-day free trial	None stated
Platforms	Web, API	Web	Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome extension
Integrations (vendor's figure)	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated
Open source	No	No	No
Good for	Tracking clients, inventory or content calendars in a shared database Building a simple internal app or dashboard for a team without code Automating notifications and record updates	Planning a project on a Gantt timeline shared with clients as contributors Collecting requests through forms into a tracked sheet Reporting on several projects in dashboards	Keeping a team wiki, meeting notes and project tracker in one shared workspace Building simple databases for clients, content calendars or hiring without code Summarising meetings and drafting documents with AI on the Business plan
Watch out for	Free plan caps each base at 1,000 records and 1 GB of attachments, with up to 5 editors On paid plans, every user with edit access to a base is billed as a seat SAML single sign-on and two-way sync require the Business plan	No free plan; a 30-day free trial only Pro is limited to 10 members and 250 automations per month SAML SSO, portfolios and scenario planning require Enterprise	Notion AI is only a limited trial on Free and Plus; full access starts on Business ($20 per member/month billed yearly) Free plan limits file uploads to 5 MB and page history to 7 days, and block storage is limited once a workspace has 2+ members Custom Agents and premium AI models use Notion credits, which are charged separately
Made by	Airtable	Smartsheet Inc.	Notion Labs, Inc.

Entry prices are the cheapest paid plan, as each vendor publishes it; “What it covers” says what that price is per (a user, a channel, a brand, a number of contacts). The sources are listed on each tool's page.

Every tool in AI spreadsheet and data tools and AI productivity and scheduling tools is on their category pages, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.