Commissions
Airtable Alternatives for Commission Artists
Airtable's free plan caps you at 1,000 records and Team costs $24/mo. Here are 6 alternatives for commission artists, with verified 2026 prices and limits.
Most makers don't leave Airtable because of the features. They leave because of the free plan.
Airtable's free plan gives you 1,000 records per base, 1 GB of attachments per base, 5 editors, and 2 weeks of revision and snapshot history. That reads like plenty right up until you count what one commission actually costs you in records.
My base used one record per commission, one per material, one per payment, and one per reference image. A fursuit head with 14 materials, three payments, and 20 reference shots came to 38 records. In my second year of taking commissions I hit 1,000 in the middle of an intake week, and Airtable stopped letting me add rows while three clients were waiting on quotes.
The way out is $24 per editor per month billed monthly, or $20 billed annually, for the Team plan. Business is $54 monthly, $45 annual. For a solo maker clearing maybe $900 a month in commissions, $288 a year for a database that still doesn't know what a deposit is starts to feel absurd.
The 2 week revision history is the other quiet trap. I renamed a linked field during a cleanup, broke two rollups, and only noticed six weeks later when a client's balance showed $0. There was nothing left to restore.
I've already written up what Airtable genuinely does well and exactly where it breaks for craft work in Airtable for Craft Commissions. This post is the other half: you've decided to go, so here's where to go.
Quick verdict
- You actually enjoy building databases and you just want off the price ladder? Baserow or NocoDB. Same relational model, self-hostable, no per-editor tax.
- You want to stop configuring and just see your queue? Trello or Art Commission Desk.
- You need client-facing intake, pricing tiers, and a portfolio in one place? Art Commission Desk again, especially for 2D and illustration work.
- You make physical goods with materials, deposits, and a real budget per build? Costumary Studio.
- You want notes and structured data together and you'll accept a rebuild? Notion.
- Budget is genuinely zero and your queue is under six? Google Sheets.
If you want the wider field including mobile-first apps, I compared those separately in Best Commission Tracker Apps for Artists.
1. Baserow
Platforms: Web, self-hosted (Docker) Price: Free cloud (3,000 rows per workspace, 2 GB storage) / Premium $12 per user monthly, $10 annual / Advanced $22 monthly, $18 annual / self-hosted free Best for: The maker who liked Airtable and only hated the bill
Baserow is the closest thing to a straight swap. Grid, kanban, gallery, form, and calendar views, linked tables, rollups, formulas. If you spent 14 hours building an Airtable base, most of that thinking transfers directly.
What it does well:
Self-hosting is the real feature. Run it in Docker on a $6 VPS and your row count and editor count stop being someone else's pricing lever. I moved a friend's fursuit base over on a Sunday and her ongoing cost went from $20 a month to a shared server she already paid for.
The cloud free tier gives 3,000 rows per workspace, three times Airtable's 1,000 per base, which alone buys most solo makers another two years.
Where it falls short:
You are still building the whole thing yourself. Baserow has no idea what a deposit, a WIP approval, or a material order is. Every field, view, and rollup is your job, same as Airtable.
Self-hosting means you own backups. If you don't already know what a nightly Postgres dump is, the cloud tier is the honest answer, and then you're back to paying per user.
2. NocoDB
Platforms: Web, self-hosted (Docker) Price: Community Edition free and self-hosted, unlimited records and seats / Cloud free up to 3 users / Plus $15 per user monthly, $12 annual / Business $30 monthly, $24 annual Best for: Makers who want unlimited records and are comfortable with a terminal
NocoDB puts a spreadsheet interface on top of a real database, and the self-hosted Community Edition is unlimited records, unlimited storage, unlimited seats, with the six standard views. For a data hoarder that is a genuinely different offer from everything else here.
What it does well:
No ceiling. My reference image habit is the reason I outgrew Airtable in the first place, and on a self-hosted NocoDB instance the only limit is your disk. It also sits on top of an existing Postgres or MySQL database if you already have one, so your data stays somewhere you control.
Where it falls short:
Setup is a developer task. Docker, a reverse proxy, TLS, backups. I got mine running in about 40 minutes and I've done it before. A maker who has never used a terminal should not start here.
The cloud tier caps the free plan at 3 users and the paid tiers land close to Airtable's, so if you're not self-hosting, the cost argument mostly evaporates.
3. Notion
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows Price: Free (unlimited blocks for individuals, 5 MB file uploads, 10 guests, 7 day version history) / Plus $10 per seat monthly, $8 annual / Business $20 monthly, $16 annual Best for: Makers who want long-form notes and structured data in the same page
Notion databases are the natural landing spot for people leaving Airtable, and the free plan is far more generous for a solo maker: unlimited blocks, no record cap, real mobile apps.
What it does well:
A commission page can be a client brief, a reference gallery, a materials table, and a running conversation log all in one scrollable document. Airtable makes you click into a record expansion for that. For makers who write a lot of client notes, Notion is genuinely better.
Where it falls short:
The 5 MB file upload limit on the free plan is the one that bites craft makers. Reference photos from a client's phone are routinely 4 to 8 MB, and I hit that wall inside my first week. Plus at $10 a seat fixes it.
Rollups and formulas are weaker than Airtable's, and image-heavy pages get sluggish on mobile. You are also rebuilding your whole system from scratch, which is exactly the setup tax you left Airtable to escape. I covered the same trade-off from the spreadsheet side in Google Sheets for Commissions.
4. Trello
Platforms: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows Price: Free (10 boards per workspace, unlimited cards, 10 MB per file, 250 automation runs per month) / Standard $6 per user monthly, $5 annual / Premium $12.50 monthly, $10 annual Best for: Makers who only need to see the queue and already track money elsewhere
Trello is the honest downgrade, and for a lot of makers that is the correct move. Lists are your stages (waitlist, quoted, deposit paid, in progress, WIP approval, shipped), cards are commissions, and you are running in 20 minutes instead of 14 hours.
What it does well:
Queue visibility with zero configuration. The free plan's 10 boards per workspace and unlimited cards are more than a solo maker will ever use, and 250 automation runs a month covers a due-date reminder rule.
Checklists inside a card map cleanly to build stages. I ran my prop queue this way for a year and never once wanted a relational join for it.
Where it falls short:
Trello cannot do money. No material costs, no deposit tracking, no margin, no invoice. Every maker I know on Trello runs a spreadsheet next to it, which means two places to update and one of them always goes stale.
The 10 MB per file limit on free is fine for reference photos and useless for a client's 4K progress video.
5. Art Commission Desk
Platforms: Web Price: Free (3 concurrent projects, 6 commission sheets, 15 rounds per project, 1 GB storage) / Starter $9 monthly or $90 a year / Pro $15 monthly or $150 a year Best for: Digital and 2D commission artists who want intake, queue, and a public price sheet in one tool
Art Commission Desk is the only tool here that was built for commission artists specifically, and it shows in the details. Your commission sheet is structured data (tiers, add-ons, usage rights, refund terms) rather than a JPEG price list you re-export every time you raise rates.
What it does well:
The client board is the standout. Each client gets a read-only board for their project, so you stop pasting WIP images into DMs and hoping they scroll back. Requests arrive through your sheet with email alerts, and the queue is public so clients can see where they sit without asking.
It takes 0% of your commission payments, which matters if you've been comparing it against platforms that skim.
Where it falls short:
It is built around rounds of revisions on artwork. The free tier's 15 rounds per project with 4 images each is a sensible model for illustration and a poor fit for a five-month fursuit build with 200 progress photos.
There is no material cost tracking and no per-commission budget. If your commission has a $180 bill of materials before you touch it, you are still doing that math somewhere else.
6. Costumary Studio
Platforms: Web (responsive in mobile browsers, no native app) Price: Free (2 active projects) / Base $9 monthly / Studio $19 monthly Best for: Physical-goods makers tracking materials, deposits, and a build timeline per commission
Full disclosure, this is us. I'll be specific about the gaps too.
What it does well:
Studio at $19 a month is the commission layer: a public intake form, a request queue, a quote builder with approval gates, a client portal your client uses without making an account, payment tracking, and a pipeline view. That's the commission workflow in one place instead of Google Forms plus Trello plus a PayPal tab.
Underneath it is a real build workspace, which is the part Airtable never had. Materials list with per-item status (need, ordered, arrived, owned, tested, used), a budget that calculates itself from those materials, an annotated reference board, a craft-specific timeline, and a structured build log. When a client asks why the quote went up, the material rows are right there. Prop makers get the same workspace on the prop making side.
Where it falls short:
No native iOS or Android app. It's responsive in a mobile browser, but there is no App Store listing, and if you quote from your phone in line at a con that's a real difference.
No e-signed contracts and no invoicing engine. Quotes have approval gates, but they aren't legal contracts, and payment tracking records what came in rather than processing it. The free tier is 2 active projects, which is tight for anyone with a real queue.
How they compare
| Tool | Free plan ceiling | Paid entry | Materials and budget | Client-facing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtable | 1,000 records per base | $24/mo per editor | Build it yourself | Form view only |
| Baserow | 3,000 rows per workspace | $12/mo per user | Build it yourself | Form view only |
| NocoDB | 3 users cloud, unlimited self-hosted | $15/mo per user | Build it yourself | Form view only |
| Notion | Unlimited blocks, 5 MB files | $10/mo per seat | Build it yourself | Public page share |
| Trello | 10 boards per workspace | $6/mo per user | — | — |
| Art Commission Desk | 3 concurrent projects | $9/mo | — | Client boards, public queue |
| Costumary Studio | 2 active projects | $19/mo for commissions | Yes, built in | Intake form, client portal |
What about Google Sheets?
Free, instant, and still the most common commission tracker in the craft world. A sheet with columns for client, character, quote, deposit received, balance, deadline, and status covers the actual job for a queue of five or six. The hard ceiling is 10 million cells, which no maker will ever meet.
What you give up is everything relational. Linking materials to a specific commission means VLOOKUP chains that break the moment you insert a column, and there is no intake form, no client view, and no reminder that a deposit never landed. I ran spreadsheets for my first two years and the failure was always the same: I stopped updating it during crunch, which is exactly when I needed it.
If that's where you're starting, use the layout in 5 Free Ways to Track Commissions and the free commission tracker tool rather than a blank sheet.
What about Stackby and the other Airtable clones?
They exist, they're cheaper, and they solve nothing that matters here. Stackby starts free for 1,500 rows per stack and runs from $10 per user per month, and it is a competent no-code database.
The catch is that swapping one blank relational database for another blank relational database means rebuilding the same 10 tables, 8 views, and 6 rollups you already built once. That's only worth doing if you genuinely like building systems. If you do, stay on Airtable's free plan or move to Baserow and stop paying the seat tax. If you don't, a clone is a lateral move dressed up as a decision.
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