Automate Basics

Smartsheet vs Airtable

Pick up to 4 tools and see their free plans, entry prices, platforms and limits in one table. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pages, checked 23 September 2026.

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

Compared on
Smartsheet

Free trial · from $9/member/mo

Airtable

Free plan · from $20/seat/mo

What it isSpreadsheet-style work management for projects, programs and processesSpreadsheet-style database for building team apps, with AI built in
Free planNoUp 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.
Cheapest paid plan$9/member/mo billed annually (Pro)Smartsheet pricing$20/seat/mo billed annually (Team)Airtable pricing
What it covers1 to 10 members with unlimited free contributors; 250 automations per month.Seats are charged for users with edit permissions; read-only collaborators are free. Includes 15,000 AI credits per paid user per month.
Free trial30-day free trialNone stated
PlatformsWebWeb, API
Integrations (vendor's figure)Not statedNot stated
Open sourceNoNo
Good for
  • 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
  • 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
Watch out for
  • 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
  • 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
Made bySmartsheet Inc.Airtable

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 is on its category page, with the written head-to-heads on Compare.