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 their 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 as the data store solution. 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 in many different tools, like some portion of the data in HubSpot, something in Google Sheets, something in a SQL database. So our goal was really to be able to be this one source of truth where users, customers can build apps on top of their scattered databases to do certain operational activities,” she added.
This new data agnostic strategy comes with a new app-building experience. Softr gives you a set of pre-defined blocks that you can drag and drop to build pages with lists, charts, forms, tables, etc. There are some new AI features to help you build your app.
Given its focus on internal tools and portals, the Softr team 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.
A university has used the platform to build a curriculum hub. A building materials company replaced their ordering system with Softr. A veterinary giant working with 250 clinics has turned to Softr for their customer portal on top of HubSpot.
“In the no-code space, Softr is known as one of the easiest to learn. It usually comes up within the top five tools to start your no-code journey with because it’s just so simple and easy to use. And that’s intentional because we actually want everyone that’s non developer to be able to build a tool,” Hakobyan said.
Softr plans to add workflows and tables in the coming months, meaning that 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, that could help when it comes to new signups.
“If you have data then great, you can integrate with your app. If you also want to build an app on top of no database, then we also have the solution for you,” Hakobyan said.
Softr has adopted a freemium strategy and is mostly using word of mouth as its sales strategy. Out 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. And it has been capital efficient since then as it still doesn’t have a sales team.
“We are almost profitable,” Hakobyan said. While the founders are based in Berlin, the 45-person team is spread across 15 countries with a remote-first approach.
