The Twitter API Pricing Table X Never Published, Verified and Dated

What is Twitter API pricing in 2026?

Since 6 February 2026, Twitter API pricing works as prepaid credits billed per resource, and X's own documentation lists $0.005 per post read, $0.015 per post created, and $0.20 per post that contains a URL. Gigazine, reporting the @XDevelopers announcement of 6 February 2026, described the change as a move away from the fixed monthly fees of $200 or $5,000 that came before it. Anyone budgeting against a flat monthly tier is using a retired price list.

Last verified: 8 September 2026.

Every figure above has a source. The pay-per-use rates and the 3 million read cap come from X's pricing and billing documentation at docs.x.com, read on 8 September 2026. The $200 Basic and $42,000 Enterprise figures come from Social Media Today's 27 October 2024 report by Andrew Hutchinson. The $5,000 Pro price and its 1 million post allowance come from TechCrunch's 25 May 2023 report by Ivan Mehta.

X has moved these prices at least four times since 2023, so treat any undated table as wrong until checked. RedReplier re-verifies this page against X's published documentation every quarter and stamps the date above.

What does each access route actually let you do?

Pay-per-use credits open every v2 endpoint, including recent search, full-archive search, filtered stream, timelines and posting, and the bill scales with how many resources come back. X meters reads per resource returned, not per request, so a search call that returns 100 posts costs 100 times a single lookup, and identical resources are deduplicated inside one 24-hour UTC window. Budget by expected result volume, not by call count, and set a spending limit in the Developer Console before the first production run.

Legacy Basic and Pro still work for existing subscribers, who can opt into pay-per-use instead, per the @XDevelopers post quoted by Gigazine. Enterprise is the only route above 3 million post reads a month, and the only route to firehose-scale volumes.

How do you calculate a monthly X API bill?

The bill is a sum of multiplications, one per operation type, with no base fee underneath. X charges reads per unique resource and writes per request:

Monthly cost = (unique posts read x $0.005) + (plain posts created x $0.015) + (posts with a URL x $0.20)

Take a team tracking five product keywords. Their queries return 40,000 unique posts in a month, they reply 150 times in plain text, and they post 50 replies containing a link:

• 40,000 x $0.005 = $200.00
• 150 x $0.015 = $2.25
• 50 x $0.20 = $10.00
• Monthly total: $212.25

That team also crosses X's $200 cumulative spend threshold, which its pricing page says earns 10 percent back in free xAI API credits, rising to 20 percent at $1,000. The rebate arrives as xAI credit, so the cash bill above stands.

Is there still a free X API tier?

The free tier is closed to new developers. X's announcement on 6 February 2026, as reported by Gigazine, said only for-good public utility apps keep free scaled access, and that developers on the old free tier moved to pay-per-use with a one-time $10 voucher. At $0.005 per post read, that voucher covers 2,000 post reads and then stops.

For a hobby project, the first API call now costs money. Load a small credit balance, turn on a spending limit, and use the Owned Reads rate of $0.001 per resource for anything that touches only your own account's posts, mentions, bookmarks or followers.

Where do the published numbers disagree?

Sources split on the monthly read cap, and the gap is 1 million posts wide. X's documentation states the cap twice, on its pricing page and its usage and billing page, as 3 million post reads per monthly billing cycle; third-party pricing guides published in 2026, including postproxy.dev and api.sorsa.io, state 2 million. X's documentation is the primary source and is what the table above reports, but any plan built near the ceiling should be tested against real usage instead of either number.

Two figures in that table stay unverified instead of guessed. The Basic tier's monthly read allowance is not published anywhere I could confirm on 8 September 2026. The $42,000 Enterprise floor is reported by TechCrunch and Social Media Today but appears on no public X price list, because Enterprise is quoted per contract.

What did the 2023 price change do to third-party tools?

The 2023 change ended fifteen years of open access and killed most of the apps built on it. The Verge reported on 19 January 2023 that Twitter had quietly rewritten its developer agreement to ban third-party clients, a week after cutting off their access, and Twitterrific and Tweetbot shut down that month. TechCrunch reported on 1 February 2023 that free API access would end, then on 30 March 2023 that the replacement tiers were Free, Basic at $100 per month and Enterprise at $42,000 per month, with nothing in between until Pro arrived at $5,000 on 25 May 2023.

The squeeze continued. Social Media Today reported on 27 October 2024 that Basic doubled from $100 to $200 per month and that X added $1 per month for every account connecting through a third-party app. Analytics tools, schedulers and research projects running on the old free access folded, merged, or moved to scraping, which is the trade-off covered in scraping versus official API access.

How do teams monitoring X work within the cost?

Teams that monitor X profitably narrow the query before they widen the budget. X bills per unique resource returned and deduplicates within a 24-hour UTC window, so a tight keyword filter returning 300 relevant posts a day costs $1.50, while a broad one returning 10,000 costs $50 for the same signal. Write specific queries, cache every response, and read how rate limits interact with the billing meter before assuming a limit increase will raise the bill.

The second route is to skip the raw API. Buying a monitoring product moves the read cost, the credit balance and the query engineering onto the vendor, which is what a social listening API sells. RedReplier watches X alongside Reddit, Bluesky, Facebook and Hacker News in one place. You add a website and keywords, and it surfaces mentions ranked by buying intent, with an AI explanation for each flag. Its plans price by tracked keywords, websites and team members, not by post reads, so monitoring X for buyer-intent conversations needs no per-post budget. Reddit API pricing pushed teams the same way.

Frequently asked questions

Is the X API free tier gone?

Yes, for new developers. X ended free access on 6 February 2026 and kept free scaled access only for apps it classifies as for-good public utilities. Developers holding the old free tier were migrated to pay-per-use with a one-time $10 voucher.

How much does it cost to read one post from the X API?

One post read costs $0.005 under X's published pay-per-use rates, or $5 per 1,000 posts. Reads are metered per resource returned, not per request, so a search that returns 100 posts costs $0.50. Requesting the same post again inside the same 24-hour UTC window is not charged twice.

Can I still buy the $200 Basic plan?

No. Basic and Pro stay live for developers who already subscribe, and X gave those holders the option to move to pay-per-use, but neither plan accepts new signups. Social Media Today reported the $200 Basic price on 27 October 2024, when it doubled from $100.

What is the monthly post read cap on pay-per-use?

X's documentation states 3 million post reads per monthly billing cycle, on both its pricing page and its usage and billing page. Several third-party guides published in 2026 state 2 million instead. Anything above the cap needs an Enterprise contract, which TechCrunch and Social Media Today put at $42,000 per month and up.

Why does posting a link cost more than posting plain text?

X charges $0.20 for a post containing a URL against $0.015 for a plain post, a gap of more than thirteen times. X has published no rationale for it on its pricing page. For any automated posting workflow, link-carrying replies dominate the write side of the bill, so count them separately when forecasting.

How does Twitter API pricing compare with Reddit API pricing?

Both platforms closed open access in 2023 and both meter usage now, but the units differ. X bills $0.005 per post read with a 3 million monthly cap, while Reddit bills per 1,000 API calls and gates commercial access behind approval. Neither offers a workable free path for a commercial monitoring tool.

How do you set a spending limit on the X API?

Set a spending limit in the Developer Console before running any production queries. X bills per resource returned, not per call, so an unfiltered search can inflate a bill fast. The post recommends budgeting by expected result volume rather than by request count.

What is the X API's Owned Reads rate?

Owned Reads cost $0.001 per resource under X's pay-per-use pricing, a fifth of the standard $0.005 post read rate. The lower rate applies only to reads that touch your own account, such as your own posts, mentions, bookmarks or followers. It works well for a hobby project running on a small credit balance.

What happened to Twitterrific and Tweetbot?

Twitterrific and Tweetbot shut down in January 2023, the month X rewrote its developer agreement to ban third-party clients. The Verge reported the ban came a week after X cut off their API access entirely. Neither app had a way back once the rewritten agreement took effect.

Does spending on the X API earn any rebate?

Spending on the X API earns credit toward xAI's API instead of a lower cash bill. X's pricing page offers 10 percent back in xAI API credits after $200 in cumulative spend, rising to 20 percent at $1,000. The rebate arrives as xAI credit, so the X API invoice itself does not shrink.