Airtable is like this and it's frankly insane.

For various personal projects and nerd reasons, I would love to use the apps available for Airtable, but going from free to $20 is bonkers.

I don't need the 20GB or 50,000 records and a year of revision history. I only want the apps.

Why not have a $5/mo a-la-carte upgrade for the free plan where I could purchase app functionality or more records or more storage, depending on my needs and then going to $20 when/if it makes sense?