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ReviewsIs X (Twitter) API actually free?
How free4/100
Value2/10
How these scores work
Free Score (0–100) follows a fixed rubric: cards up front, auto-billing, hard time cutoffs, withheld core features, and paying with your data or attention all deduct points. 90–100 truly free · 70–89 free forever · 45–69 squeezed · 15–44 trial mechanics · under 15 fake or gone. Value (0–10) is editorial: real-world worth of the free offering measured against its paid equivalent. Full rubric on the methodology page.
No. The free tier is closed to new developers — X moved to pay-per-use in February 2026, so access is metered from your first call.
What it’s worth
Nothing at zero. Price it as a paid data source or use something else.
What you get free
- Nothing for new developers
In practice: a paid data product. Budget for it or design around it.
Drawbacks
- No free tier for new developers
- Pricing has changed repeatedly and abruptly
- Existing subscribers have been migrated to metered billing
Also paywalled
- Reading posts
- Posting
- Search
- Everything
Free facts
| Verdict | Not Free |
| Card required | Yes |
| Auto-bills | Yes — billed per call |
| Account | Developer account required |
| Limits | No free tier for new developers |
| The real cost | Metered from the first call. The old free tier is closed to new signups. |
The catch
There's no deception, just a closed door. What makes it worth a listing is the trajectory: a famously open free API became $100/month, then $200, then tiers, then metered — inside three years. People still arrive expecting the old one.
The smart play
- If a tutorial shows a free tier, check its date — anything before 2026 describes a product that no longer exists
- Academic access has been repeatedly restricted; don't assume a research exemption
- For social data generally, Reddit's free tier and Mastodon's open API are what remain
More info — tap to expand
The clearest free-tier death in tech
Until 2023 the API was free enough that an entire ecosystem of clients, research projects and bots ran on it. Then free access ended, paid tiers appeared and were repriced more than once, and in February 2026 the tiers themselves gave way to pay-per-use with no free option for new developers. If you want one example of why this site puts a date on every verdict, it is this one.
Last checked: July 2026 · Verdict: Not Free — people search for a free version. there isn't one.
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