Migrating from Airtable to TimeTonic: challenges, pitfalls and a proven method

Why migrate from Airtable to TimeTonic?

Data sovereignty

Airtable is an American vendor: your data is subject to US law, including the Cloud Act, which allows US authorities to request access to data held by American companies, even when it is stored outside the United States. TimeTonic is a French vendor, with hosting in France and native GDPR compliance. For HR, financial, customer or sensitive data, this is often the first argument in the decision.

Price increases have already happened

Airtable has already made major changes to its pricing: the “Plus” plan at $10 per editor per month was replaced by the “Team” plan at $20, doubling the entry price. Today, the Team plan costs $20 per user per month and the Business plan $45, billed annually. Going over 50,000 records per base or 25,000 automation runs per month forces a move from Team to Business, a 125% increase per user.

Uncertainty following the Bending Spoons acquisition

On September 4, 2026, Bending Spoons completed its acquisition of Airtable, at an enterprise value of $1.285 billion. Bending Spoons, which also owns Evernote, WeTransfer and Vimeo, openly describes deep transformations of the companies it acquires, affecting teams, technology, user interfaces and monetization. Its track record worries some users: the group has made layoffs at several acquired companies, added limits to Evernote's free plan and raised prices on other apps. So far, Airtable has not announced any price change, but many companies prefer to plan ahead rather than be caught off guard.

A migration is more complex than it looks

Most companies underestimate the effort. Airtable and TimeTonic are both no-code databases, but their logic, vocabulary and features differ. A successful migration requires mastering both tools: you need to understand exactly what the existing Airtable setup does in order to rebuild it correctly in TimeTonic.

Rebuilding the data model

Every Airtable base, table and column must be recreated in TimeTonic, with the right field type and the right relationships between tables. Linked record fields, lookups and rollups must be rewired one by one.

Rewriting calculated fields

Airtable formulas cannot be carried over as they are: the syntax and available functions differ. Each calculated column must be analyzed, understood and then rewritten in TimeTonic. This is often where the most critical business logic lies.

Replacing scripts

Airtable scripts have no equivalent in TimeTonic. Each script must be analyzed to understand what it does, then replaced with a Make scenario, a call to the TimeTonic API or a Pathta job.

Recreating AI fields

Airtable AI fields (summaries, classification, text generation) do not exist natively in TimeTonic. They can be rebuilt with a Make scenario that calls an AI model and writes the result back to TimeTonic.

Rethinking interfaces

Airtable Interfaces have no direct equivalent. The best approach is to start from each team's actual usage and translate it into TimeTonic views, forms and dashboards, rather than trying to reproduce the screens identically.

Recreating automations

Airtable automations must be recreated one by one, with TimeTonic automations or with Make, then tested trigger by trigger.

What TimeTonic adds

A migration is also an opportunity to use features that Airtable does not offer natively, for example:

• SmartText fields, text templates filled with each row's data (standard replies, personalized letters);
• edit forms, which let users update an existing record, whereas Airtable forms are designed to create records;
• document generation from your data (quotes, certificates, reports).

We cover these differences in more detail in our article 10 ways in which TimeTonic outperforms Airtable.

How to migrate data from Airtable to TimeTonic?

CSV export: simple but incomplete

Airtable lets you export each view as a CSV file, and TimeTonic can import a CSV and automatically create the table. It is a good starting point, but you then have to go back and retype many columns: dates, select lists, checkboxes, links between tables, users.

Files: the real sticking point

There is no simple solution for attachments. The CSV export only contains links to the files, and these Airtable links are temporary. Manually downloading and re-importing thousands of documents is not an option.

A migration is rarely a one-shot operation

In practice, you do not switch everything over on a Friday night. Teams keep working in Airtable while TimeTonic is being built, some processes move before others, and the existing system must remain fully operational until the end. Both systems therefore have to coexist, with consistent data on both sides.

Pathta: keeping both systems in sync during the transition

For this phase, we use Pathta, the data integration platform we develop at Now-Code. It covers the two needs that native tools do not address:

• File transfer: Pathta retrieves Airtable attachments and attaches them to the matching records in TimeTonic.
• Airtable to TimeTonic synchronization: data entered in Airtable is replicated to TimeTonic during the transition. Teams can switch over department by department, without double data entry.

Once all use cases have been migrated, the synchronization is turned off and Airtable can be decommissioned.

Pathta also connects TimeTonic to other tools (Excel, Google Sheets, Power BI, Pennylane). See the TimeTonic connector.

What we see in the field

Before each migration, we audit the existing Airtable setup with an in-house tool that inventories bases, tables, fields and volumes, and estimates the rebuild effort. Several findings come up from one project to the next.

An automated audit does not see everything. The Airtable API does not describe automations, scripts, interfaces or attachment sizes. These often critical elements have to be reviewed with users, base by base.

Field types do not map one to one. Airtable currency, duration, percent and rating fields become number fields in TimeTonic, and date and date-time fields become a single date type. The format and meaning of each value must be reintroduced.

Formulas concentrate the business logic. The longer a formula is, or the more advanced functions it uses, the longer it takes to rewrite: it is often the largest effort item in a migration.

Our 6-step method

1. Audit of the existing Airtable setup: inventory of bases, tables, fields, formulas, scripts, automations and volumes, to estimate the effort accurately.
2. Design of the target model in TimeTonic, using the migration to simplify what needs simplifying.
3. Rebuilding the structure: tables, fields, relationships, calculated fields.
4. Replacing missing features: scripts, AI fields, interfaces, automations.
5. Data and file migration with Pathta, with consistency checks.
6. Coexistence, then switchover: synchronization for as long as needed, then Airtable decommissioning.

FAQ: migrating from Airtable to TimeTonic

Are Airtable formulas converted automatically in TimeTonic?

No. The syntax is different: each formula must be understood and then rewritten.

Can we keep using Airtable during the migration?

Yes. With Pathta, Airtable data is synchronized to TimeTonic throughout the transition.

How do you migrate Airtable attachments?

A CSV export is not enough, because it only contains temporary links. Pathta automates the transfer of files to TimeTonic.

Do Airtable scripts and AI fields exist in TimeTonic?

No. They are replaced with Make scenarios, API calls or Pathta jobs.

How long does an Airtable to TimeTonic migration take?

It depends on the number of bases and the complexity of formulas and automations. A preliminary audit makes it possible to estimate the project accurately.

Thinking about leaving Airtable? Contact Now-Code for an audit of your current setup.

About the author: Marc-Olivier Sercki is the founder of Now-Code, a Bordeaux-based company specializing in data integration and a TimeTonic Platinum partner. He is the author of the “TimeTonic de A à Z” training course and the publisher of the Pathta platform.