X is testing a pay-per-use pricing model for its API

Two years after revamping its developer programs and pricing, X is expanding the closed beta of a pay-per-use plan for its API to more developers.

The social network is accepting applications from developers who want to be a part of the program, the company’s developer account wrote in a post on X.

“We are expanding a closed beta to both new & power users who want to ship amazing apps on X,” the post read.

X’s new API page shows the costs of different kinds of requests, such as reading, creating posts, DMs, trends and pulling bookmarks. The page also has a calculator that lets developers estimate how much a bundle of API usage might cost. This differs from X’s older system, where all requests cost the same.

A section on the new API page compares the new pricing with the old tier-based system. It is not yet clear if X eventually wants to get rid of the older plan-based system. We have asked X to clarify and will update this story if we hear back.

The closed beta comes two years after X overhauled its API pricing. In early 2023, the company started blocking third-party clients of the app, and in February 2023, the company said that it was ending free access to its API, which resulted in various apps shutting down.

Then in March 2023, the social network introduced a $100-per-month basic tier (which now costs $200 per month) as well as a $42,000-per-month enterprise tier. A few months later, it launched a $5,000-per-month Pro plan that gave developers the ability to fetch 1 million tweets per month and post 300,000 tweets per month, and gives them access to the full archive search endpoint.

However, the plans proved insufficient or were simply unaffordable for a lot of developers. To mitigate this, the company last year launched top-up packs for applications that hit their API tier limits.

With this new usage-based plan, X could win back developers who wanted to integrate their app with the social network, or intend to build applications that work with it.

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