Airtable is an app that helps people manage information about their companies. In order to understand how Airtable makes money, we must examine what they do. They offer three main services:
- A spreadsheet-like interface where you can enter your data;
- An API (application programming interface), so you can connect any application to the data; and
- A mobile app that lets you access your data anywhere. The first two of these services are free. But the third service costs $12 per month. So Airtable charges money for something that is already provided for free. This is called freemium. We will discuss this concept later.
Airtable is an online database software platform that offers a free version and three different levels of subscription. It charges for its service.
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About Airtable
Howard Liu, along with Andrew O’Foster and Emmet Nicholas, started Airtable in 2012; they offer cloud-based software that lets people create and share highly functional yet easy-to-use databases.
This startup was started by an entrepreneur who had been working on the idea for several years before launching the product. The founder raised $2 million from angel investment firms including Ashton Kutcher.
With the advent of the Internet and the rise of the World Wide Web, most businesses now depend heavily on web technologies for their core infrastructure.
Airtable is a web application that lets you store and organize your data. It’s not just about storing your data in the cloud — it also enables collaboration across teams even if they are located anywhere in the world. And because it makes use of modern technologies like ReactJS, it gives you the flexibility to create apps for both desktop and mobile devices.
You need to be especially careful when handling sensitive customer information because it has to be handled securely and safely. These aspects are covered for you by Airtable at less cost than if you were using an external database solution.
How Does Airtable Make Money?
You get one free trial before you need to pay for the full product. After that, there is a monthly subscription fee.
According to to grow, annual revenues for Airtable range between $47.9 million and $65 million. The current number of active users is estimated at 250,00+. If they’re not receiving discounts, each one costs them at least $120 per month.
Airtable has grown by 400% since last year. Its estimated annual revenue per employee is now $114,748.
The largest customer base for Airtable is the large tech companies, like Tesla. These companies pay a yearly fee for their 70,000+ employees.
The annual recurring revenue (ARR) from enterprises is negotiated on a per-customer, per year, or per-month, etc., based on the sales team at Airtable. Other major companies using Airtable include A-E Networks, Adobe, Autodesk, BuzzFeed, Conde Nast Entertainment, Costco, Etsy, Expedia, Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, Microsoft, Netflix, PayPal, Pinterest, Reddit, Salesforce, Shopify, Ticketmaster,
Airtable Valuation
Notable investors Airtable includes Grade-A Investments (the Aston Kutcher Fund), CRV, Caffeinated Capital, Freestyle Capital, and Data Collective.
Business Upside reported that Airtable received $3 million in early 2015, followed by $7.6 million from a series A round in May 2015. It then closed a $52 million series B round in May 2018, which gave the company a valuation of approximately $1.1 billion. Then they closed a $100 million series C round in November 2018, which increased their valuation to $2.8 billion.
Airtable raised almost $200 million in September 2020, bringing its total funding to $280 million. It then raised another $270 million in March 2021, raising its total funding to $530 million. That makes it one of the most valuable companies in the world.
LATKA rates Airdate as one of the most successful software-as-a-service (SaaS) firms. Revenues for 2020 are expected to be $65m from over 250,000 customers.
If the annual recurring revenue (ARR) is 65 million dollars, then the company’s value is $5.8 billion which is 89 times its annual recurring revenue.
Here’s how Airtable stacks up against its top 10 competitors:
Competitors of Airtable
Airtable competes against companies like Trello, ClickUp (formerly known as Asana), Monday.com, Wright, Teamwork, and many more. Airtable integrates with the output of most of its competitors and allows for seamless integration between them.
Becoming a Unicorn
A unicorn is a startup valued at $1 billion or more. Airtable has reached this level of success after having about 80,000 regular user accounts. It was aided by the fact that one of its investors was the famous actor Ashton Kutcher.
Besides being an actor and entrepreneur, Kutcher has been investing in tech startups since he was young. He invested in Skype, Spotify, and Uber among many other ventures.
Kutcher’s investment helped increase the use of Airtable, but it was the usefulness of Airtable that really made it popular.
How Does Airtable Work?
It’s a web-based service, which means everything is stored online and run from the Airtable server.
One drawback of using Airtable, aside from the fact that it cannot be accessed without an internet connection, is that it doesn’t allow you to access the service offline.
The idea behind Airtable is to create a simple interface where people can enter data into tables and then perform actions based on that data. These tools are referred to as “No-Coding” because they don’t require any coding knowledge at all.
The field can hold any kind of content. It can be text, images, files, videos, audio, documents, web pages, apps, and so on.
Views
A common use for a dashboard is to create a content calendar, a roadmap, and/or an event planner. Users decide how they want to view the data.
Examples of views include:
- A grid is similar to a traditional spreadsheet but with one major difference: Everything can be color-coded, prioritized by date, and arranged into columns and rows.
- The calendar view is arranged by months and dates. Each calendar entry can be linked to other media.
- A visual representation of project management showing colored tags for each department involved.
- A Kanban board has columns that represent different levels of importance.
Publishing Views
Views can be published via many different methods, including:
- GANT: This is a project workflow chart based on steps, timelines, and stages to complete a project.
- A web page designer uses a WYSIWYG GUI design tool called a web page editor. It’s very intuitive and easy to learn without requiring much instruction.
- Sendgrid: This feature allows users to easily create an e-mail campaign and send bulk messages through their service.
- Scheduler: This tool allows you to track multiple user schedules at once so you can see which times are free.
- Custom Solutions: You can easily create a custom app for any specific team’s needs.
Airtable has an active developer community forum where users are sharing their ideas for creating custom apps. They’re also encouraging others to use the tool to build their own apps.
Business Process Automation
Automated business processes allow humans to focus their time on high-value activities. For instance, if a new piece of written material is submitted, an automated email is sent out to everyone who needs to be informed.
You could also use triggers to automate tasks. For instance, if you set up a rule so that whenever someone approves an advertisement, then send them an email telling them that their approval has been received.
Triggers can trigger certain actions when they occur, such as calling an API (application program interface) to connect to one of many integrated apps.
Airtable Integrations
Airtable was built with the idea of supporting most of the common apps. It’s got an easy API. Airtable connects to hundreds of different sites and services through its own app and integrations.
There are lots of different apps that integrate with Airtable including Asana, Basecamp (which was acquired by Atlassian), DropBox, Google Docs, Slack, Trello, and Wunderlist.
Market Risks for Airtable
At first, Airtable was successful at attracting smaller enterprises but then focused its attention on large organizations. It has been able to attract several six-figure deals with brands such as Tesla and Netflix
The challenge is acquiring big enterprises at scale is expensive. All the revenue generated by Airtable is currently going towards paying off its operating expenses and the company has no way of generating enough additional income to cover the costs involved in acquiring new clients.
We cannot know for sure whether the business is currently experiencing an ongoing monthly cash burn, but we can guess at the most likely scenario.
The company has raised $356 million so far and may require additional funding if it continues losing large amounts of cash. This is the pattern for a startup that focuses on growing its users/customers rather than making immediate profits.
One important factor is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on companies that provide online collaborative tools. For example, Airtable saw an increase in its user numbers during the pandemic.
If the company keeps its customers happy and the turnover rate low enough, it has an excellent chance to increase its customer count.
Conclusion: How Does Airtable Make Money?
We’ve seen that Airtable uses a freemium strategy to monetize its service. It offers its basic version for free, but charges a fee for using its premium, professional, and corporate versions.
Airtable is a powerful and easy-to-use database program that lets you organize, view, and edit your data in an intuitive user experience.
We went into depth about the business model of Airdrop, explaining its origins, how it works, and why we think it’s going to be successful. You should have learned a lot about the company, its services, its online presence, its earnings, and its pros and cons.
We hope you’ve learned something new about Airtable’s business model. If there’s anything we didn’t cover here, feel free to reach out via email.
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