Twitter introduces paid plans for API access

Microblogging platform Twitter has rolled out three levels of access to its application programming interface (APIs). This announcement comes weeks after Twitter first announced that the platform would no longer support free access to its APIs.

As per the latest announcement made on the company’s official developer account, API access has three tiers – free, basic, and enterprise. The free tier will offer write-only access, allowing users to post 1,500 tweets a month at no cost. The second is the basic tier, which as per Twitter is more suitable for students and hobbyists, and allows 50,000 post requests and 10,000 read requests per app per month against a subscription fee of $100 per month. 

Today we are launching our new Twitter API access tiers! We’re excited to share more details about our self-serve access.

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) March 29, 2023

The enterprise tier is for businesses which will offer “managed services, complete streams, and access that meets your specific needs”; while Twitter hasn’t listed the pricing for this tier, Platformer’s earlier report says that it may cost up to $42,000 per month.

In the next 30 days, the social media platform will discontinue the old access levels – Standard (for v1.1), Essential and Elevated (for v2), and Premium.

Twitter’s decision to end free access to its APIs drew heavy criticism from several tech communities. In the past, Twitter APIs have been used to create information sharing and public research works in the field of public health, child safety, national security, etc. Amid the criticism, Musk announced that bots producing ‘good’ content will continue to have free API access; however, no further details were provided on what bots or content would be considered ‘good’.

The changes to the API rules come at a time Twitter is struggling to cope with the loss in the number of advertisers. As per November 2022 report by Media Matters, 100 top advertisers left the platform within a month of Musk’s takeover. In January, Twitter eased its advertisement policy to allow political ads.