If you’re working for a small company and want to build a client portal or an internal tool, it can be difficult to find the budget and resources to allocate a developer to that small project. That’s why more than 600,000 people, including project managers, HR employees and marketing people, have been trying Softr’s no-code app builder to build tools themselves.
While the company originally started as an interface on top of Airtable, the popular enterprise database product, Softr is announcing some major product changes for 2025.
Customers are no longer restricted to Airtable for data storage. They can now use any third-party database to store and manipulate data, from user-friendly solutions like Google Sheets and Notion to developer-centric databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB.
“As we grew, we noticed there are tons of companies that just don’t have data anywhere. It’s all manual paperwork, pen and paper, emails, spreadsheets, all of that. So that’s one problem,” co-founder and CEO Mariam Hakobyan told TechCrunch.
“The other one is just the data was scattered [across] many different tools, like some portion of the data was in HubSpot, something in Google Sheets, something in a SQL database. So our goal was to be this one source of truth where users can build apps on top of their scattered databases to do certain operational activities,” she added.
This new data-agnostic strategy comes alongside a new app-building experience. Softr gives you a set of predefined blocks that you can drag and drop to build pages with lists, charts, forms, tables, and the like. There are some new AI features to help you build your app, too.
Given its focus on internal tools and portals, Softr has also built a permission system. For instance, you can create two user groups so that clients can only submit forms and view some data, while employees can view and edit all data across all clients.
“In the no-code space, Softr is known as one of the easiest to learn. It usually comes up as the top five tools to start your no-code journey with because it’s just so simple and easy to use. That’s intentional because we actually want everyone that’s not a developer to be able to build a tool,” Hakobyan said.
Softr plans to add workflows and tables in the coming months, so you’ll be able to use it without a third-party data store. Even though some clients already have some data in a Google Sheets or Notion account when they try out Softr, these features could help new sign-ups.
“If you have data, then great, you can integrate with your app. If you want to build an app that’s not on top of a database, then we also have the solution for you,” Hakobyan said.
Softr has adopted a freemium strategy and is mostly depending on word of mouth for sales. Of the 600,000 signups on the platform, the company currently has around 5,000 paying customers.
As a reminder, Softr raised a $13.5 million Series A round back in 2022 with FirstMark Capital leading the investment. It has been capital efficient since then as it still doesn’t have a sales team. “We are almost profitable,” Hakobyan said.
The company’s founders are based in Berlin, and its 45-person team is spread across 15 countries.
