Small Developers will Face a New Challenge: New API Pricing

There are new rules and prices coming for the Twitter API, while free access will change in the future.

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Twitter and its CEO Elon Musk are looking for more ways to make money from the platform. While Twitter Blue verification is now needed for some features, you’ll need to pay for the new API system coming into play. There is a free tier, but many small developers are saying they may need to quit or find a way to afford the tier they need. 

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1641222782594990080 

As promised by the most followed account and CEO of Twitter, there are now new tiers for the API system. The first one is free and is limited to 1,500 Tweets per month. While that may seem alright for someone like me that doesn’t post much, there are small developers who say they need much more than that.

The second tier ups the amount to posting 3,000 and reading 10,000 Tweets a month with the Twitter API, but you’ll need to cough up $100 per month for the subscription. For writing and reading as much as you want at an enterprise level, it could be as high as $42,000, but no specific amount has been indicated. 

It could be that this is Musk’s mission to make sure Bot accounts fall away or at least pay for the trouble they cause. Or, it’s just as simple as being a business matter and Elon getting a return on his investment. Whichever it is, developers are indicating that they may need to kill their systems as they can’t afford the new rates.

Others that have been using the API for more than a year are showing no problem with paying for the tiers. They probably have enough money coming in to support it. I’m interested to hear from any of you if you’ve ever used the Twitter API and what your thoughts are on paying for the new tiers.

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