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 now accepting applications from developers who want to participate in the program.
The company announced it is expanding the closed beta to include both new and power users who want to build applications on X. All developers selected for the program will receive a $500 voucher to build with the X API.
X’s new API page details the costs for different types of requests, such as reading posts, creating content, managing direct messages, accessing trends, and pulling bookmarks. The page also includes a calculator that allows developers to estimate the cost of a bundle of API usage. This new model differs from the older system where all requests cost the same amount.
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 plans to discontinue the older plan-based system. The new pay-per-use model will not have monthly tier caps.
This closed beta arrives two years after X overhauled its API pricing. In early 2023, the company began blocking third-party clients. That February, it announced it would end free access to its API, which led to the shutdown of various apps. In March 2023, the social network introduced a basic tier, which originally cost $100 per month and now costs $200 per month, alongside a $42,000 per month enterprise tier.
A few months later, it launched a $5,000 per month Pro plan. This plan gave developers the ability to fetch one million tweets per month, post 300,000 tweets per month, and provided access to the full archive search endpoint.
However, these plans proved insufficient or unaffordable for many developers. To address this, the company last year launched top-up packs for applications that reached their API tier limits. With this new usage-based plan, X could potentially win back developers who wanted to integrate their apps with the social network or build new applications that work with it.