Your team runs on a shared spreadsheet, or clients keep emailing for updates that already sit in one, and there is no developer to build a proper app. If you are comparing these two, you are probably an operations lead or a small agency owner who wants an internal tool or a client portal without code. Both turn your data into an app. They charge you for different kinds of growth.
Both tools are affiliate partners of ours: we may earn a commission if you sign up through a button on this page, at no extra cost to you. That is why we also say when to pick neither.
| Glide | Softr | |
|---|---|---|
| Price we read | Classic: free tier, paid from $19/mo billed yearly ($25 monthly). GlideOS is a separate subscription from $25/mo (read 17 Oct 2026) | Free (5 app users); Basic $19/mo billed annually (page opens on the Yearly tab, two months off) (read 1 Oct 2026) |
| Entry price | Classic Explorer $19/mo billed yearly, $25 monthly (read 3 Sep 2026) | Basic $19/mo billed yearly (read 1 Oct 2026); $25 monthly in the app (21 Oct 2026) |
| How you pay | Plan plus meters: on Classic Business extra users $5 each, extra updates 2 cents each | Plan plus seats: extra builders $5 to $20/mo, extra app users from $1/mo on Pro |
| Free plan or trial | Classic free tier: unlimited drafts, 1 editor, 25k rows; 14-day Business trial | Free plan: unlimited apps, 3 builders, 5 app users; 7-day Business trial |
| Best for | Teams running operations out of spreadsheets who want an internal or field app | Client portals and internal tools with a known, counted audience |
| Main catch | Signup leads to GlideOS, not Classic; Classic Business starts at $199/mo billed yearly | App users past the allowance cost extra; Business charges $2 each, double Pro's $1 |
You are building a public consumer app with open signup, heavy writes or custom logic. Softr's per-user pricing works against unpredictable user counts, and Glide's update metering punishes write-heavy apps.
Look at Lovable instead. Our Glide dossier points builders who need custom logic and an exact brand look to Lovable, because buyers report that Glide's own components box them in. Read our Lovable review.
An internal app for 30 people. Glide Classic Business: 30 users are included. If each person causes ten writes a day that count as updates, over 21 working days that is 30 × 10 × 21 = 6,300 updates. The bill: $199 + (6,300 - 5,000) × $0.02 = $199 + $26 = $225 a month on yearly billing (read 17 Oct 2026). Softr: if all 30 share your company email domain they are Team users. Business includes 30 Team users for $329 a month billed yearly. Pro includes 10, so 20 more at from $1 each comes to $99 + $20 = from $119 a month (read 1 Oct 2026).
Classic Explorer: $19 a month billed yearly or $25 monthly (read 3 Sep 2026). Build first on the Classic free tier at glideapps.com/classic.
Start with Glide →Basic: $19 a month billed yearly (read 1 Oct 2026), $25 a month on monthly billing (21 Oct 2026). Start on the free plan.
Start with Softr →GlideOS, the newer AI builder, not the classic spreadsheet builder. In our test on 7 Sep 2026 both 'Sign up' and 'Get started' led there. The classic free tier sits behind glideapps.com/classic, with its own pricing page.
On Glide Classic, people who use an app in that billing period, counted once per team. On Softr, builders and app users are counted apart, and app users split into Team users (your email domain) and Client users (everyone else). Basic includes 5 + 5, Pro 10 + 50 and Business 30 + 100.
Not for a spreadsheet-backed app. Glide's partner team said on 18 Aug 2026 that the 25k limit applies to synced spreadsheet sources whatever you pay. The 100k-plus figures belong to Glide's Big Table data source.
Glide's 14-day Business trial needs billing details and renews into a month of Business unless you cancel. Softr's 7-day Business trial drops back to Free on its own.
Glide: glideapps.com/classic/pricing and glideapps.com/pricing, read 3 Sep and 17 Oct 2026, Glide's Classic docs (17 Oct 2026) and our own signup test on 7 Sep 2026. Softr: softr.io/pricing, read 7 Sep and 1 Oct 2026, plus our own test on 21 Oct 2026. Prices change: each one carries the date we read it, and our reviews are re-checked against the vendor pages. How we review.