Trello Custom Fields vs Amazing Fields: What’s the Difference?

On the surface, Trello Custom Fields and Amazing Fields both add structured data to Trello cards. This article explains the key differences, compares pricing and features, and helps you decide which to use, or how to use both together.

The Core Difference

Trello Custom Fields are native, built in to Trello’s paid plans, and tightly integrated with Trello features like automations, filters, and the mobile app. Amazing Fields is a Power-Up that provides a much wider range of field types and advanced capabilities.

The biggest difference is that Amazing Fields gives you a wide range of field types to work with and can be used for free for simple use cases. So, it’s a very common way to add structured data to Trello cards. Trello’s native Custom Fields are great too, but they are only available on Trello’s paid plans.

Pricing Comparison

Trello Custom Fields are only available on paid Trello plans, which are priced per user, so costs scale with every team member you add. Amazing Fields has a free tier and paid plans that are billed per administrator (the person who configures the fields), not per user. This means your Amazing Fields cost stays flat regardless of how many people use the board. For more information on pricing, see Amazing Fields Supporter Plans and Pricing.

Feature Comparison

This table compares Trello Custom Fields and Amazing Fields side-by-side:

Nuances and key differences

• When you just need simple, native fields: Trello Custom Fields are built-in, filterable, and can be used with Trello’s Automation feature. Great for straightforward text, numbers, dates, and single-select dropdowns.
• When you need “database-like” cards or math: Amazing Fields adds several more field types that Trello doesn’t provide natively. Including advanced capabilities like progress bars, using formulas for calculations, referencing cards between each other, and multi-select dropdowns.
• Mobile behavior: The Trello iOS and Android apps show and let you edit Custom Fields. Power-ups, including Amazing Fields, don’t run in the mobile apps. To get around this, you either use Trello in a mobile web browser or configure Amazing Fields to sync with Trello Custom Fields. See: Using Amazing Fields on the Trello Mobile App.
• Field Limits: Trello enforces hard limits for Custom Fields per board (50). Amazing Fields is only constrained by Trello’s storage quotas and will warn if you exceed them. We don’t know what this limit is exactly, but we have seen use cases using Amazing Fields with more than 50 fields.

Using both together: Wrapping Custom Fields

What “wrapping” means: Amazing Fields can create or link a Trello Custom Field to an Amazing Field so the values sync both ways. You change one, and the other will change too. That gives you the rich display and logic of Amazing Fields, while Trello sees the same data in a native Custom Field.

What cannot be wrapped: Trello only supports single-select dropdowns. So, Amazing Fields multi-select dropdowns cannot be wrapped to a Trello Custom Field.

Which should you use?

• Custom Fields only if you need light, native structured data with maximum Trello compatibility.
• Amazing Fields only if you want powerful formatting, formulas, progress bars, and relationships between cards and fields without upgrading your Trello plan.
• Both together if you want advanced logic and presentation from Amazing Fields plus Trello’s native filtering, exports, automation, and mobile editing via wrapping.