X API Pricing Tiers
What X’s current API access tiers cost, and what each one actually includes.
By André LugSince February 2026, new X API developers pay per use — no free tier, no subscriptions: $0.015 per standard post, $0.200 for a post containing a URL, $0.005 per post read ($0.001 for owned reads), capped at 3 million post reads per month. Legacy Basic ($200/month) and Pro ($5,000/month) remain only for grandfathered accounts.
X's API pricing changed shape in February 2026: the old Free/Basic/Pro/Enterprise subscription ladder was retired for new developers in favor of a pay-per-use model billed per action. What follows is what's currently published at docs.x.com/x-api/getting-started/pricing, checked on August 25, 2026. X's pricing has changed more than once in recent years — verify against that page directly before you build a cost model around these numbers.
The current model: pay-per-use, no subscription
What are the current per-action prices?
Monthly caps and the legacy tiers still standing
What does it mean if you publish through PostGate?
curl -X POST https://postgate.studio/api/profiles/connect \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $POSTGATE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"platform": "x",
"profile_group_id": "grp_acme123",
"return_url": "https://app.example.com/settings/social"
}'Frequently asked questions
Is there a free tier for the X API in 2026?
No — for new developers there is no free tier and no flat monthly plan. X’s own documentation states it plainly: pay-per-usage pricing, no subscriptions, pay only for what you use. Access is opened with a prepaid credit balance that each API call draws down.
What do API reads cost on X?
Per resource: posts $0.005, users $0.010, direct messages $0.010, following/followers $0.010, likes/mutes/blocks $0.001. Reading your own data (“owned reads”) is discounted to $0.001 per resource — about $1 per 1,000 — and duplicate reads of the same resource within a 24-hour UTC window aren’t charged twice.
What happened to the old Basic and Pro plans?
They were retired for new developers in the February 2026 change, but developers already on them keep them: legacy Basic remains $200/month for 50,000 post writes and 15,000 reads; legacy Pro remains $5,000/month for 300,000 writes and 1,000,000 reads plus full-archive search and streaming; Enterprise pricing is custom, historically starting near $42,000/month.
Who pays the X charge when I publish through PostGate?
Bring your own X developer app and every post and analytics read bills straight to that app’s X credit balance, at no cost to your PostGate workspace. Skip app registration and use PostGate’s shared app instead, and the equivalent charge draws down your workspace credit balance.
