Updated February 2026 — X just launched pay-as-you-go API pricing on February 6. Here's what every tier costs, what changed, and what it means for indie builders.
If you're building anything that touches X data (a social listening tool, a bot, a startup that depends on post volume) you've probably had a rough couple of years. The X API has been through more pricing changes since Elon Musk's acquisition than most platforms see in a decade.
The latest change landed on February 6, 2026: X announced a pay-as-you-go model, moving away from fixed monthly tiers for some developers. It's the most significant structural shift since the original price hike that doubled Basic from $100 to $200.
This guide covers everything: current pricing, what pay-as-you-go actually means in practice, who it helps, and whether alternatives are now worth a serious look.
Current X API Pricing Tiers (2026)
The fixed tier system remains available alongside the new pay-as-you-go option. Here's where things stand:
| Tier | Monthly Price | Annual Price | Read Requests | Write Requests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | Write-only (no reads) | 500 posts/month |
| Basic | $200 | $2,100 (save 12.5%) | 15,000/month | 50,000/month |
| Pro | $5,000 | $54,000 (save 10%) | 1,000,000/month | Higher limits |
| Enterprise | $42,000+/month | Custom | Custom | Custom + $1/month per connected account |
What Each Tier Actually Gets You
Free is write-only and essentially useless for anything that needs to read or analyse posts. 500 writes per month is enough for a simple bot that posts updates, and nothing more. If you were on the old generous free tier, those days are long gone.
Basic at $200/month is the entry point for any real use case. You get 15,000 read requests per month and 50,000 writes.
That sounds reasonable until you start building something with meaningful volume, 15,000 reads disappears fast if you're doing any kind of monitoring or search. For context, that's roughly 500 reads per day.
Pro at $5,000/month is where the cliff edge is. There's no middle ground between $200 and $5,000. One of the most complained-about aspects of the current pricing structure. One million reads per month unlocks at this tier, along with full-archive search and real-time filtering. For most indie builders, this price point is simply out of reach.
Enterprise at $42,000+/month is for large organisations that need complete data access, dedicated support, and custom terms. The additional $1/month per connected account fee is notable for platforms that authenticate many users.
The Big February 2026 Change: Pay-As-You-Go
On February 6, 2026, X announced a shift to consumption-based billing, similar to how AWS or Google Cloud charge for compute.
Here's how it works:
- Instead of a fixed monthly fee, developers buy credits and spend them per API operation
- Different operations have different costs. Reading a post, searching posts, and writing all carry separate prices
- Legacy free tier users who were still active will move to pay-as-you-go and receive a one-time $10 voucher
- Basic and Pro fixed plans remain available for those who prefer predictable billing
- Developers can opt into pay-as-you-go from their existing fixed plan
X also added auto top-up settings (credits purchase automatically when balance runs low) and spending caps (requests stop when a monthly limit is hit), which addresses one of the biggest complaints about the old system, the fear of runaway costs.
Who this helps: Developers with inconsistent or low usage who were previously forced into a $200/month commitment even for occasional API calls. If you use the API sporadically, pay-as-you-go could be significantly cheaper.
Who this doesn't help: Anyone with consistent high-volume usage who needs predictable costs. Fixed tiers remain the better option for production apps with steady read volumes.
The catch: Early analysis suggests pay-as-you-go isn't necessarily cheaper than fixed tiers at equivalent usage levels. The $200 Basic plan gives 15,000 reads per month. Plugging similar usage into the pay-as-you-go model suggests costs could run higher for developers who use the API consistently rather than sporadically.
How We Got Here: A Timeline
It's worth understanding how X arrived at this point, because the pricing trajectory matters for how much trust to place in the current structure.
Pre-2023 (Twitter era): The free tier offered 500,000 tweets per month. Premium plans ran from $149 to $2,499 per month. The API was a developer playground that enabled thousands of research projects, tools, and businesses.
February 2023: Elon Musk's X ended free API access entirely, introducing the tiered system. The move was framed as tackling the bot problem but was widely read as a revenue play, particularly given X's financial position at the time.
2024: Basic doubled from $100 to $200. The free tier's post limit was cut from 1,500 to 500 per month. Enterprise fees of $1/month per connected account were introduced.
November 2025: X launched a closed beta for pay-as-you-go pricing, giving developers in the beta a $500 voucher to experiment.
February 6, 2026: Pay-as-you-go pricing announced broadly, with the fixed tier system remaining alongside it.
The pattern is consistent: prices up, limits down, with periodic structural changes that keep developers guessing. As indie builder Daniel Nguyen, whose KTool app was directly affected by the original hike, put it: X carries "a huge risk" for makers because the platform doesn't offer the same stability or commitment to its developer community as other API providers.
The Indie Hacker Reality
The gap between $200 and $5,000 per month is where most of the damage has been done.
A developer building a social listening tool for small businesses at $20 per month per customer needs 250 customers just to cover a Pro plan subscription. That's a real business. And most side projects never get there.
The community reaction when Basic doubled was telling. As one indie hacker put it at the time: "This pricing update does not make sense in regards to getting rid of bots. They mostly want to keep their data because that's the most valuable asset they have in the age of AI."
That last point is key. X's data is genuinely valuable for training AI models. The pricing changes reflect that value being recognised and monetised, not just a response to the bot problem.
The real cost for the ecosystem has been the chilling effect. Tools get shut down before they launch. Researchers work around the API rather than through it. And the platform loses the developer goodwill that made Twitter's API one of the most-used in the world.
Should You Consider Alternatives?
The third-party X API market has grown significantly since the original price hikes. Options include:
- Scraping-based alternatives (various providers): Often 90-96% cheaper than the official API, but carry terms of service risk and can be unreliable as X updates its platform
- Social data aggregators: Platforms that resell X data alongside other social networks, typically starting around $49 to $200/month with more predictable pricing
- Purpose-built tools: For specific use cases like social listening or analytics, off-the-shelf SaaS tools may be cheaper than building on the raw API
Before switching, factor in integration complexity. Stripe's developer experience warning applies here too. X's official API is well documented and switching to unofficial alternatives introduces reliability and compliance risk that could be more expensive in the long run.
For production applications that depend on X data, the official API remains the only genuinely safe option. For experimentation, research, or projects that can tolerate some instability, alternatives are worth evaluating.
What to Do Right Now
If you're currently on a fixed Basic or Pro plan: Review whether pay-as-you-go would be cheaper for your actual usage pattern. If your API calls are inconsistent or low-volume, it might be. If you're consistently hitting your read limits, stay on the fixed plan.
If you're building something new: Factor the full API cost into your unit economics before committing. At $200/month minimum for any meaningful read access, X data needs to be central to your value proposition to justify the cost at early stage.
If you were on the legacy free tier: You'll be moved to pay-as-you-go with a $10 voucher. Set a spending cap immediately to avoid surprise bills while you evaluate your options.
If you're at $5,000/month or above: You already know this, but it's worth renegotiating directly with X's enterprise team, custom pricing exists and the $42,000+ floor for enterprise has room to move for the right use case.
The X API story isn't over. Pay-as-you-go is the latest chapter in an ongoing restructuring of how X monetises its data. Whether it signals a more developer-friendly direction or simply a new way to extract more revenue remains to be seen.
For now, the best approach is to treat X API costs as a genuine line item in your business model (not an afterthought) and build accordingly.
Original story from January 2025 below.
The X API, a crucial tool for many startups and small businesses, is about to get a lot more expensive.
In a recent forum post, the X team announced that developers on the platform's Basic usage tier will see their monthly bill double from $100 to $200. This price hike is a significant blow to indie hackers who have long relied on the X API. Before the introduction of tiered pricing, many makers paid nothing (or next to nothing) to use the service.
The move comes as X, under Elon Musk's ownership, continues to grapple with its bot problem and search for new revenue streams. The collateral damage to legitimate startups is concerning. Unlike other platform providers, X doesn't seem to offer the same stability or investment in its developer community. The abrupt price hikes, coupled with the platform's ongoing struggles, have left many small businesses and indie projects in a precarious position.
For indie hackers and small startups that have come to rely on the X API, this price hike remains a tough pill to swallow. As the platform continues to evolve under new ownership, the future looks uncertain for the many developers who have built their businesses on X's data and functionality.
