An Airtable alternative for small studios
Airtable is a database with the ease of a spreadsheet, and studios use it to build their own trackers. OIO is project management for small studios that is already built: projects, tasks, files, freelancers and the client in one place, with the quote and the invoice on the same project. If you run a studio of two to fifteen people and maintain an Airtable base to run jobs, this is the comparison.
What Airtable is good at
Airtable can be shaped into almost anything. A studio can build an asset library, a shot list or a content calendar with linked records, take requests through forms, run automations on its records, and build simple apps on top with Interface Designer. Timeline and Gantt views come with the Team plan, and people who only read, fill in a form or open a share link are not charged.
Where it gets heavy for a small studio
- You build the system, and then you keep it working. Every table, field, view and automation is something a person in the studio designs and maintains.
- It has no quotes or invoices of its own. An invoice tracker in Airtable is a table you built, not a numbered document you send to a client.
- It is charged per seat for anyone who edits, so a freelancer who updates a record is a paid seat. The free plan stops at 1,000 records and 1 GB of attachments per base and five editors, per its plans page.
What OIO does instead
OIO is project management for small studios. Each client job gets one project page with its tickets on a kanban or a timeline, the deadline, files, a whiteboard and team chat, and on paid plans recorded calls with transcripts. The budget, the hours and what has been paid sit on the same page.
A freelancer gets a link to a ticket. In a browser they read the brief and the feedback, upload the work and mark it done, with no account and no seat. The client gets a status link that shows where the project stands.
The quote and the invoice come from the same project, in any currency. Studio is $69 a month for five seats, and people who only view use no seat. The free plan covers 3 projects, no card.
More on how a studio runs on it: project management for studios with remote freelancers.
When Airtable is the better fit
- If you want a database shaped exactly to your studio's process, such as an asset library with linked records, Airtable is the better fit. OIO's projects and tickets have a fixed shape.
- If you need automations that update records and send notifications, Airtable is the better fit. OIO has no automations.
- If you want to build simple internal apps on your own data, Airtable is the better fit with its Interface Designer.
Feature by feature
| What you actually need | OIO | Airtable |
|---|---|---|
| A database you design yourself | ||
| Automations | ||
| Forms that bring in requests | ||
| Timeline and Gantt views | ||
| Quotes and invoices on the project | ||
| A freelancer works on a task without a paid seat | ||
| A free plan |
Has it Partly, or a paid add-on Does not
Airtable's column was checked against airtable.com and its support pages on 17 October 2026. The middle mark means it starts on the Team plan. Prices are left out on purpose because they change. Sources: Airtable pricing, Airtable plans.
Questions
Is OIO a good Airtable alternative?
For a small studio that wants project management it does not have to build, with tasks, files, freelancers, the client and the invoice on one project, yes. If you want a custom database, automations on your records or your own internal apps, Airtable does that and OIO does not.
Can I make invoices in Airtable?
You can build a table that tracks invoices, but Airtable does not issue numbered quote or invoice documents itself. OIO issues quotes and invoices in any currency from the project, and shows what is outstanding and what is paid.
Can freelancers work in OIO without a seat?
Yes. You send them a ticket link. They read the brief and the feedback, upload the work and mark it done in a browser, with no account. If they want to keep a history of their work, they can create a free account later.
Further reading
- Can AI replace project management software?
- How to number invoices
- Project management for game art studios
Try it against your own work
Free plan, no card. Set up in under a minute, and you can keep using Airtable alongside it while you decide.
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