Airtable Editor Seat Trap

Airtable charges per editor, not per client account. Team runs $24/mo monthly or $20/mo annually per seat, and Business sits at $45/mo per seat. An agency that builds a client portal and hands over 12 seats is carrying $240 to $540/mo in pass-through cost before its own delivery hours. The trap is quoting a flat retainer at kickoff, then watching the client add editors until the engagement is underwater. The fix is to price the retainer on a seat band, not a fixed number: for example, 1 to 5 editors at one rate, 6 to 15 at a higher rate, with overage billed monthly. Free caps at 5 editors and 1,000 records per base, so any real client deployment starts on a paid tier. Audit seat counts at every renewal and re-quote before the next build sprint.