Resolving declined Airtable payments

What happens when an Airtable payment is declined?

When Airtable tries to charge a payment method and the charge is declined, the workspace doesn't change plans right away. You'll receive an email letting you know the charge failed, along with details about the grace period offered to update your payment method before the workspace with the failed payment moves to the Free plan.

Airtable processes payments through Stripe. If your payment method is declined, review Stripe's decline codes for a list of reasons a payment may fail, then follow up with your bank or try a different payment method.

How are Team and self-serve Business plan workspaces impacted by declined payments?

For Team and self-serve Business plans, the workspace moves to the Free plan if the payment method is declined and remains unpaid for 14 days. Here's what happens during that window:

• First attempt: Airtable tries to charge the payment method on file. If it fails, we email the workspace Owner to let them know the charge was declined and ask them to update their payment method.

• Second attempt: Airtable automatically retries the charge several times over the following days. You can also retry the charge manually from your workspace billing settings.

• Downgrade to Free: if the charge still hasn't gone through after 14 days past due, the workspace is automatically downgraded to the Free plan. We send a downgrade confirmation email to the workspace Owner.

How are sales-led Business and Enterprise Scale plan workspaces impacted by declined payments?

Sales-led Business and Enterprise Scale plans are billed differently than self-serve plans, and aren't automatically downgraded after 14 days. If a payment for one of these plans fails, work with your Airtable Sales team contact or account executive to resolve it.

For Enterprise Scale plans, organization admins can also retry a failed payment and update the payment method from the admin panel:

1. Open the admin panel.

2. Click Billing.

3. Update the payment method, then retry the failed invoice.

How are Nonprofit, Education, and Team trial plan workspaces impacted by declined payments?

Nonprofit and Education plans are discounted versions of Team plans, while Team trial plans are a temporary Team plan experience. They're all billed the same way as a standard Team plan, so a payment failure follows the same experience:

• First attempt: Airtable tries to charge the payment method on file. If it fails, we email the workspace Owner to let them know the charge was declined and ask them to update their payment method.

• Second attempt: Airtable automatically retries the charge several times over the following days. You can also retry the charge manually from your workspace billing settings.

• Downgrade to Free: if the charge still hasn't gone through after 14 days past due, the workspace is automatically downgraded to the Free plan. We send a downgrade confirmation email to the workspace Owner.

Things to note about Nonprofit, Education, and Team trial payments:

• Payment method: discounted Team plans (Nonprofit and Education) must be paid with a credit card. The annual plan discount doesn't apply to nonprofit-discounted workspaces, and one-time payments aren't supported.

• Team trials: if a credit card is on file when a Team trial ends, Airtable tries to charge it to convert the workspace to a paid Team plan. If that charge is declined, the workspace follows the same 14-day dunning path as a paid Team plan. If no payment method is on file when the trial ends, the workspace simply downgrades to the Free plan at the end of the trial,

• Reactivating a discount after a payment-failure downgrade: When a discounted plan is automatically downgraded to a Free plan because of a failed payment, the discount doesn't automatically restore when you upgrade back to Team. You'll need to contact Airtable Support for help reactivating the discount.

What happens to data after a workspace is downgraded due to a failed invoice payment?

Moving to the Free plan doesn't delete your data. All of your existing bases, tables, records, and views remain accessible. What changes are the plan's limits and features:

• Plan limits: if a base is over the Free plan's limits (Record limits, attachment storage, etc), you can’t add new records or attachments until you're back under the limit. Your existing data stays in place, but some features may become read-only or unavailable until you upgrade again.

• Revision and snapshot history: the length of time Airtable keeps your revision history and snapshots depends on your plan. When you downgrade to the Free plan, that retention window is limited to 2 weeks.

Note

Snapshots that fall outside the downgraded plan's retention window are removed and can't be recovered, even if you upgrade later. Check out our Snapshot article to learn more.

What happens after updating your payment method and upgrading your workspace plan?

Once you add a valid payment method and re-upgrade your workspace, paid plan features become available immediately. Here's the recovery process:

1. Update your payment method:

   • Open your Airtable account:

   • Select the workspace under "Workspace settings," and update the payment method in the "Payment details" section.

2. Retry the failed charge: after you update your payment method, retry the failed invoice so the past-due status clears. You can use the "Retry now" option, or contact Airtable Support for help.

3. Upgrade your workspace: Re-upgrade to your intended plan from the "Workspace plan" section in your workspace settings.

   • When a failed payment is retried successfully, you may see two charges close together on your statement—one for the retried payment and one for your regular renewal. This doesn't mean you've been billed twice for the same period.

Note

Your data is fully accessible again once you're back on a paid plan. Plan limits and features return to normal, so you can add new records and attachments again. Revision history and snapshots going forward are kept for the longer retention window of your new paid plan, though any snapshots that were removed while you were on the Free plan can't be recovered.

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