X is testing a pay-per-use model for its API
Two years after updating its developer apps and pricing, Company X is expanding its closed beta of a pay-per-use plan for its API to more developers.
Two years after updating its developer apps and pricing, Company X is expanding its closed beta of a pay-per-use plan for its API to more developers.
X is accepting applications from developers who wish to join this program.
“We are expanding the closed beta to both new and experienced users who are eager to build great X-based applications,” the company said in a statement.
The new X API page shows the cost of different types of requests, such as reading, creating posts, private messages, trends, and getting bookmarks. The page also includes a calculator that allows developers to estimate the approximate cost of a package of API usage. This is different from the previous X system, where all requests cost the same, TechCrunch reports .
A section on the new API page compares the new pricing to the old tiered system. It's unclear at this time whether X plans to eventually move away from the old plan-based system.
The closed beta came two years after X revised its API pricing. In early 2023, the company began blocking third-party clients of the app, and in February 2023, the company announced that it was ending free access to its API, which led to the closure of various apps.
Then, in March 2023, the social network introduced a $100/month basic plan (which now costs $200/month), as well as an enterprise plan for $42,000/month. A few months later, it launched a $5,000/month Pro plan, which gave developers the ability to receive 1 million tweets per month and publish 300,000 tweets per month, as well as giving them access to a full archive search endpoint.
However, these plans proved insufficient or simply unaffordable for many developers. To mitigate this problem, last year the company launched top-up packs for apps that had reached their API limits.
With this new plan, based on actual usage, X could bring back developers who wanted to integrate their apps with the social network or intend to create apps that work with it.
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