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Hello everyone,

I want to share a frustrating experience I had with Airtable’s billing practices to warn others who might find themselves in a similar situation.

The Issue

I recently downgraded our workspace from the Business plan to the Team plan. However, we were still charged for both plans simultaneously without clear communication that the Business plan needed to be canceled separately. The invoices for the Team and Business plans appear in different interfaces, leading to us being charged double without realizing it.

Communication with Airtable Support

I reached out to Airtable support multiple times over several weeks to resolve this issue. Here are some key points from the email exchange:

  1. Initial Confusion: I contacted Airtable support to understand why we were receiving two invoices per month for the same workspace. They clarified that we were being billed for the Business plan, which had not been canceled, in addition to the Team plan we had downgraded to.

  2. Refund Process: Initially, Airtable only offered to refund the last invoice, citing their terms of service which allow refunds only for charges within the last 30 days. After further discussion and insistence, they agreed to refund the last months as a "courtesy", which amounted to $432. However, they still charged me for !all remaining months since I downgraded in November amounting to >500$ for something with no workspaces in it and ghost users. Again I wasn't aware of the issue until I had to submit our VAT reports for this year and Airtable showed up twice per month. 

  3. Billing Interface Issues: One of the major issues was that the invoices for the different plans were in separate interfaces, making it easy to miss the fact that we were being charged twice. This lack of clarity and separation between interfaces led to the double billing going unnoticed for several months.

My Advice

  • Check Invoices Carefully: Always double-check your invoices, especially when downgrading or changing plans. Ensure that any previous plans are properly canceled to avoid being double-billed.
  • Communicate Clearly: If you encounter similar issues, be persistent in your communication with support. Document all your interactions and make it clear what resolution you are seeking.
  • Awareness of Terms: Be aware of the company’s terms of service, particularly regarding billing and refunds. This can help you navigate support interactions more effectively.

Final Thoughts

This experience has been quite draining, and I hope Airtable will improve their billing practices and provide clearer communication to avoid such issues in the future. If an Airtable employee reads this and thinks it is ridiculous as well, please contact me. 

Best regards,
Rutger

 

Im learning more and more that they practice a preparatory billing system which is very concerning. They develop software that needs to be intuitive and it’s obvious they take the opposite approach to billing. It’s short sighted and not a winning strategy in the long run. 

I am beyond disappointed in their billing system.  I upgraded my plan to a monthly business plan with 5 users, which was supposed to be around $300 a month.  I got my first bill and it came to about $1000.  Turns out there was a plan programming error on their end and they took all of my viewers and commenters and automatically made them into editors!  It took forever for them to fix it.  They asked for 2 of their reps to be added to my account as editors while they tried to resolve the issue, then they left them there for me to cover them as editors in my plan!!

This month, I got a notification that my plan was going to be cancelled because they kept trying to charge me the same amount for my $300/month plan and my CC flagged it as questionable.  Then they cancelled it before I could address with them.  When I asked them to contact me, they ignored me.

This is killing my company’s workflow and I have spent 4 hours of my day trying to get this addressed.  They keep opening up tickets and ignoring my request to fix the billing.  I don’t know what to do other than cancel my plan and report them to the better business bureau.

 

Anyone know of a better variable workflow database service?

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