Smartsheet prices per member and keeps a spreadsheet at the centre of the product. Pro is $12 per member a month billed monthly, or $9 per member a month billed yearly, and includes Gantt, table, board and calendar views, unlimited free contributors, rich formulas and 250 automations a month. Business is $24 per member a month billed monthly, or $19 billed yearly, and lifts the automation ceiling while adding the project and portfolio layer: cross-team resource planning, portfolio-level dashboards, milestone and dependency tracking, workload balancing and centralized intake and approval workflows. Enterprise and Advanced Work Management are custom-quoted and start at 10 members, with Enterprise adding SAML SSO, Scenario Planning, Portfolios and directory integrations.
TL;DR
Smartsheet is the cheaper seat and the more conventional project tool: Pro is $12 per member a month billed monthly or $9 billed yearly, Business is $24 monthly or $19 yearly, and Enterprise plus Advanced Work Management are custom-quoted from 10 members. Airtable trades the lower price for a database: Free covers small teams, Team is $20 per user a month billed annually and Business is $45, with read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links free. Smartsheet is built for Gantt charts, dependencies, resource planning and portfolio reporting across teams that already think in sheets. Airtable is built for records you reshape into apps, interfaces and automations. Buy Smartsheet when the deliverable is a plan; buy Airtable when the deliverable is a system.
Airtable prices per editing seat and puts a database at the centre. Free covers individuals and very small teams. Team is $20 per user a month billed annually. Business is $45 per user a month billed annually and adds the administration, permissions and data scale departments need, with Enterprise Scale quoted. On paid plans you are charged for users who can edit at least one base; read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links cost nothing. On top of the records, Airtable provides no-code interfaces, automations and AI agents, and it supports models from OpenAI, Gemini, Llama and Anthropic inside its own AWS environment.
The overlap is real, because both products can run a project plan and both cap seats rather than storage. The split is in what the record is for. Smartsheet assumes the unit of work is a row in a schedule that rolls into a portfolio, so its features cluster around dates, dependencies, capacity and reporting. Airtable assumes the unit of work is a row in a dataset that different teams view and act on differently, so its features cluster around field types, linked records, views, interfaces and automations. If your team already manages work in spreadsheets and wants governance around that habit, Smartsheet costs less per person. If you are building an internal system rather than a plan, the extra $8 a seat on Airtable buys a different category of tool.
| Feature | Airtable | Smartsheet |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid seat | Team at $20 per user a month billed annually | Pro at $12 per member a month billed monthly, or $9 billed yearly |
| Mid tier | Business at $45 per user a month billed annually | Business at $24 per member a month billed monthly, or $19 billed yearly |
| Top tier | Enterprise Scale, custom pricing | Enterprise and Advanced Work Management, custom, 10 members minimum |
| Free option | Free plan for individuals and very small teams | Free trial; paid plans are per member |
| Core model | Records and linked fields with no-code apps on top | Sheets with Gantt, board and calendar views |
| Scheduling depth | Not the centre of the product | Milestone and dependency tracking, workload balancing, capacity planning |
| Automation limits | Automations are part of the platform tiers | 250 automations a month on Pro, unlimited from Business up |
| Collaborator cost | Read-only collaborators, form submissions and share links are free | Unlimited free contributors, with paid members editing |
| Governance | Admin roles, RBAC and IDP-synced groups on Business and Enterprise Scale | SAML SSO, Enterprise Plan Manager and directory integrations on Enterprise |
| Best fit | Teams building internal systems rather than plans | Teams running projects and portfolios they already think of as sheets |
Pick Airtable if
Airtable justifies $20 per user a month when the thing you are making is not a schedule. Records with linked fields, different views per team, interfaces non-technical colleagues can use and automations that respond to changes add up to a lightweight internal application that would otherwise need a developer. Free is a real starting point, Team at $20 per user a month billed annually is the working tier and Business at $45 per user a month billed annually adds the permissions and data scale that larger organisations require. Read-only collaborators and form submissions being free keeps the seat count honest. If all you need is a Gantt chart, this is more tool and more money than the job requires.
Pick Smartsheet if
Smartsheet wins on price and on project mechanics. Pro at $12 per member a month billed monthly, or $9 billed yearly, undercuts Airtable's Team plan, and it ships the features project teams actually ask for: Gantt, dependencies, milestone tracking, workload balancing and capacity planning, with 250 automations a month and unlimited free contributors. Business at $24 monthly or $19 yearly adds portfolio dashboards, cross-team resource planning and centralized intake and approval workflows, which is where most PMOs live. Enterprise adds SAML SSO, Scenario Planning and directory integrations, though from 10 members and at custom pricing. What you give up is the ability to shape the data into an application of your own.
Neither vendor publishes third-party review data we are willing to restate as fact, and we did not run either product. Every figure here comes from the two vendors' own pricing and product pages as published when this comparison was written. The lists headed 'vendor-published claims' are the vendors' own statements, not user reviews.
Smartsheet. Pro is $12 per member a month billed monthly or $9 billed yearly, and Business is $24 monthly or $19 yearly. Airtable's Team plan is $20 per user a month billed annually and Business is $45. Smartsheet also includes unlimited free contributors, and Airtable does not charge for read-only collaborators, form submissions or share links.
Yes, but from different starting points. Smartsheet ships Gantt, table, board and calendar views with milestone and dependency tracking, workload balancing and capacity planning as core features. Airtable can model dates, dependencies and rollups in its records, but scheduling is not the centre of the product; it is a database that teams shape into the tool they need.
Smartsheet, generally. Business adds portfolio-level dashboards, cross-team resource planning and centralized intake and approval workflows, and Enterprise adds Scenario Planning and Portfolios. Airtable suits teams whose PMO work is really a data system, with records feeding interfaces and automations, and who need admin roles, RBAC and IDP-synced groups more than Gantt mechanics.
Smartsheet's Pro plan includes 250 automations a month and Advanced Work Management and Enterprise lift that to unlimited, while Business is where the portfolio features begin. Airtable treats automations as part of the platform tier rather than publishing a monthly run cap on its pricing page, and the same records can drive automations, interfaces and agents.
On Smartsheet Business at $24 per member a month billed monthly, 20 members run $480 a month, or $380 a month at the $19 yearly rate. On Airtable's Team plan at $20 per user a month billed annually, 20 editing seats run $400 a month, though only editors need seats while Smartsheet's unlimited free contributors cover the readers.
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