Airtable vs Smartsheet: Which Spreadsheet-Style Work Tool Fits Your Team in 2026?
Both look like spreadsheets and behave like databases. Smartsheet is the project-and-portfolio tool with Gantt and resource views; Airtable is the relational database with interfaces and automations. Here is what each costs and who is actually billed.
By Bill Belcamino · Last updated September 24, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team
Choose Smartsheet, at $9 a Member a month billed yearly (up to 10 Members on Pro), for dated project plans with Gantt, dependencies and workload tracking. Choose Airtable, free for up to 5 editors and $20 a seat a month on Team, when your work is structured data that most of the team only reads: Airtable bills editors only and imports Smartsheet exports natively.
Quick verdict: Smartsheet Pro is less than half Airtable Team’s price per person ($9 against $20 a month, both annual), but Pro caps at 10 Members and Business ($19) needs at least 3. Airtable has a real free plan (up to 5 editors) and bills only editors, so viewers and commenters cost nothing at any size. Smartsheet is the stronger project tool, with Gantt, workload tracking and a Microsoft Project importer; Airtable is the stronger database, with linked records, interfaces and a native Smartsheet importer for anyone moving across.
Smartsheet at the entry tier: Pro is $9/Member/mo billed yearly against Airtable Team at $20/seat/mo billed annually, so a 10-person team pays $90 a month on Smartsheet against $200 on Airtable. Two things narrow the gap: Smartsheet Pro stops at 10 Members (Business is $19), and Airtable only bills editors, so a team with many read-only users pays for fewer seats on Airtable.
Verified September 24, 2026Prices recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page. See sources
Prices in USD from airtable.com/pricing and smartsheet.com/pricing, checked September 24, 2026, using each page’s annual and monthly toggle. Airtable bills editors only: workspace, base or interface collaborators with Owner, Creator or Editor permissions are billable; read-only and commenter collaborators are not. Smartsheet bills Members; Contributors and Guests are free but cannot create sheets, reports or dashboards. Pro is limited to 10 Members and Business needs at least 3.
Both replace the spreadsheet a team has outgrown, but they replace it with different things: Smartsheet with a project plan, Airtable with a database.
Who you pay for
Airtable bills editors only: workspace, base or interface collaborators with Owner, Creator or Editor permissions are billable; read-only and commenter collaborators are not. Smartsheet bills Members; Contributors and Guests are free but cannot create sheets, reports or dashboards. Pro is limited to 10 Members and Business needs at least 3. For a team of 4 editors and 20 viewers, Airtable bills 4 seats; Smartsheet bills its Members and the viewers ride free as Contributors, so the two models converge for read-heavy teams.
Project plan or database
Smartsheet is built for schedules: Gantt, dependencies, workload tracking (Business), portfolios and a Microsoft Project importer. Airtable is built for structured data: linked records across tables, interfaces that turn a base into an app, and sync between bases. Teams that manage dated plans lean Smartsheet; teams that manage catalogs, pipelines and content lean Airtable.
Limits that bite
Airtable Team caps a base at 50,000 records and 25,000 automation runs a month; Business raises those to 125,000 and 100,000. Smartsheet Pro allows 250 automations a month and no more than 10 Members; Business removes the automation cap. Smartsheet imports up to 20,000 rows, 400 columns or 500,000 cells per file.
Moving between them
Airtable has a native Smartsheet importer: export the sheet or report from Smartsheet as .xlsx, then Import, Smartsheet, upload, and map field types in the wizard. Smartsheet has no Airtable importer; the reverse trip is a CSV export from Airtable and Smartsheet’s Excel/CSV import.
Cost calculator: what does your team actually pay?
Airtable
$0/mo
Smartsheet
$0/mo
List prices billed annually, checked September 24, 2026. Airtable bills editor seats only; Smartsheet bills Members only, and its Pro plan stops at 10 Members. Promotions and taxes are not included.
Choose Airtable if…
Your work is structured data (pipelines, catalogs, content calendars), most of your team only views it, or you want a free plan to start on.
Choose Smartsheet if…
Your work is dated project plans with dependencies and workload, your paid team is 10 people or fewer, or you want the lowest per-seat price.
Total cost over time
Uses your selections above. Estimate excludes add-ons, overages, and negotiated discounts.
Ready to pick your work management tool?
Airtable is free for up to 5 editors and Smartsheet offers a trial. Rebuild one real sheet in each and count how many people actually need to edit it; that number decides the price.
Smartsheet at the entry tier: Pro is $9/Member/mo billed yearly against Airtable Team at $20/seat/mo billed annually. Airtable bills editors only and has a free plan; Smartsheet Pro caps at 10 Members. Prices checked September 24, 2026.
Does Airtable import Smartsheet?
Yes. Export the sheet or report from Smartsheet as .xlsx, then in Airtable click Import, choose Smartsheet and upload the file; the wizard previews field types before importing.
Does Smartsheet import Airtable?
Not natively. Export from Airtable as CSV and use Smartsheet’s Excel/CSV import (up to 20,000 rows, 400 columns or 500,000 cells per file).
Does either have a free plan?
Airtable does: up to 5 editors, 1,000 records per base and 100 automation runs a month. Smartsheet’s pricing page lists no free plan, only a free trial.
Migration Guides
Already decided? Here’s how to actually switch.
Step-by-step migration guides covering what transfers automatically, what doesn’t, and how to handle the gap — in both directions.
Every “best work management tool” listicle tells you why to buy. Here’s the other half: the specific conditions under which Airtable or Smartsheet is the wrong purchase for your team.
Airtable
✓
Buy Airtable if:
Your data is relational, not a schedule
Most of your team only views or comments
You want a free plan to start on
✕
Do NOT buy Airtable if:
You need Gantt, dependencies and workload tracking
You want the lowest per-seat price
You need SAML SSO below the $45 Business tier
Smartsheet
✓
Buy Smartsheet if:
You run dated project plans with dependencies
Your paid team is 10 people or fewer
You import from Microsoft Project
✕
Do NOT buy Smartsheet if:
You want a free plan
You need more than 250 automations a month on the entry tier
You are moving data out of Airtable
Canonical data for the tools on this page
Every pricing fact, rating, AI billing model and switching guide we hold on each tool, on one page, with the date each figure was last verified.
Prices on this page were recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown at the top of the page. Vendors change pricing often — check the live source before you buy.
Every figure is also in our open dataset (JSON and CSV, CC BY 4.0), with its source page and verification date. See how we research pricing.
Need sign-off?
Turn this into a one-page decision brief
Verified prices costed for your team size, a check against your must-have requirements, the questions to settle before you sign, and a source for every figure. Print it, or paste it into an email to whoever approves the spend.
Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.
Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent nine years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.
“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”
Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 24, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.
Squarespace vs WordPressSep 23
Square vs StripeSep 23
Salesforce vs Zoho CRMSep 23
n8n to MakeWorkflow Automation
ZoomInfo to LushaSales Intelligence
Zoho CRM to PipedriveCRM Platforms
WooCommerce to BigCommerceE-commerce Platforms
Trello to ClickUpProject Management
Squarespace to WordPressWebsite Builders
Square to StripePayment Processing
Square to PayPalPayment Processing
