Twitter has finally launched its new API for businesses, weeks after promising an iminent rollout. As previously indicated, Twitter’s new API is broken up as a tiered structure, available as ‘Free’, ‘Basic’, and ‘Enterprise’ levels.
The official Twitter Dev account made the announcement stating, “Today we are launching our new Twitter API access tiers!” In susiquent thread tweets, the account covered the basics of each tier as adress what happens to the current structure.
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
First of all, the Free, Basic, and Enterprise tiers will be replacing the Standard (v1.1), Essential (v2), Elevated (v2), and Premium tiers that previously existed. Twitter not enourages businesses “migrate to the new tiers as soon as possible for a smooth transition.”
The new Free (v2) tier enables access to write-only cases with 1,500 post requests per month “at the app level”. The Basic (v2) is said to be for “hobbyists” and provides 50,000 post requests per month with 10,000 read requests. Additionally, Twitter provides two app IDs, and login with Twitter for $100 USD (around $135 CAD) per month. Finally, Enterprise is available for what’s believed to be $42,000 USD (roughly $56,000 CAD) each month. This last tier hasn’t been rolled out in full quite yet.
Twitter also highlights its wishes to continue supporting its Academia community. “We are looking at new ways to continue serving this community,” the company says. However, they fail to cover how exactly researchers may be assisted in the past. Instead, the company encourages reseatchers to use the three new tiers if they wish to do so.
While the new tiers have only been active a short bit, developers and businesses have already begun running into issues. As pointed out by user Matt Donders, the new Free tier’s 1,500 monthly post limit is actually broken down to 50 tweets per day. In the instance of running a legit bot account, such as @NJDevilsGameBot, which autotweets news and highlights of the team, the cap is “less than required for an entire game.”
I thought @NJDevilsGameBot would be fine because of the 1,500 tweet / month limit, but it turns out that's actually 50 tweets / day – which is less than required for an entire game.
Not going to pay $100 / month for the Twitter API so will figure out what's next. https://t.co/SKtGOgZQ3Y pic.twitter.com/sdQsCIQaJX
— matt donders (@mattdonders) March 30, 2023
Others have also expressed their disatisfaction of Twitter’s new API tiers.
I was willing to pay $100/month for the Twitter API
But, that's only 10,000 tweets which can't support Tweet HP
This might be the end of the road 😢 pic.twitter.com/P9rYLKbLIW
— Remote Joe (@remotejoeclark) March 29, 2023
It remains to be seen how impactful these new API tiers will be on smaller businesses and developers who already must maintain low cash flow.
Under the ownership of Elon Musk, Twitter has been prioritizing revenue-boosting efforts such as the new Twitter Blue subscription. So much so that Twitter will be removing legacy verified checkmarks on April 1st.
