X API Pricing: Pay-Per-Use Rates, Credits and Spending Limits

That replaces the old Twitter API plans many guides still describe. Below are X's own published rates, what they mean in practice and the controls that stop a test script from running up a bill.

How X API billing works

Feature	What X's docs say
Credit-based	Buy credits upfront in the Developer Console; they're deducted as you make requests
Per-endpoint pricing	Different endpoints cost different amounts; current rates are in the console
No commitments	No contracts, subscriptions or minimum spend
Real-time tracking	Usage and costs update live in the console

Reads are charged per resource returned, so a search is charged for each post it returns. Writes and actions are charged per request.

What reading costs

Resource	Cost per resource
Posts	$0.005
Users	$0.010
DM events	$0.010
Following or followers	$0.010
Lists, Spaces, Communities, Notes	$0.005
Likes, mutes, blocks	$0.001

X caps pay-per-use accounts at 3 million post reads per monthly billing cycle. Above that, X points you to its Enterprise plan.

What writing costs

Action	Cost per request
Create a post	$0.015
Create a post containing a URL	$0.200
Send a DM or follow, like or repost	$0.015
Delete an interaction	$0.010
Create a list	$0.010
Bookmark	$0.005
Trends request	$0.010

Look at the second row again. A post with a link costs over thirteen times a plain post. If you're automating link sharing from a blog or shop, that line will dominate your bill, so it's worth testing whether you need the link in every post.

Owned reads: the cheap way to use your own data

X prices requests for your own account's data at $0.001 per resource, which X puts as 1,000 resources for $1. That covers your own posts, mentions, likes, bookmarks, followers, following, blocks, mutes and lists, when the app belongs to the same account it's reading. It's the reason a personal analytics dashboard is far cheaper to run than a tool that monitors other accounts.

Deduplication

Every billable resource is deduplicated within a 24-hour UTC day. Fetch the same post ten times before midnight UTC and you're charged once. X calls this a soft guarantee: it happens in the vast majority of cases, but outages can cause exceptions. If your tool polls the same data often, schedule it so repeat calls fall in the same UTC day.

Controls that protect your budget

• Spending limit: set a maximum spend per billing cycle; requests are blocked once you hit it until the next cycle.
• Auto-recharge: tops up your balance when it drops below a threshold you choose, at most once every 5 minutes, and pauses if your balance is zero or negative.
• Usage endpoint: returns daily post consumption counts so you can build your own alerts.

X notes your balance can dip slightly below zero, and requests are blocked until you top it back up. If you're new to how these integrations call each other, see my guide to the difference between an API and a webhook.

Free credits for new accounts

As of October 2026, X offers two one-time incentives to accounts new to paying:

1. $20 in free credits after an account with its first eligible card completes its first credit purchase. Prepaid cards don't qualify, and each card can earn it once across all accounts.
2. A match of your first successful automatic recharge, up to $50.

X says these free credits expire three months after they're granted and are spent before purchased credits. Purchases also earn xAI API credits once your cumulative spend in a billing cycle passes $200: 10% from $200, 15% from $500 and 20% from $1,000, as X lists them.

Webhook events

If you use X's Activity API for real-time events, each delivered event is billed: a new post event is $0.005, a follow or unfollow $0.010, and many outgoing events such as sent messages aren't billed. Events are deduplicated in the same UTC-day window.

Which costs will matter for your project

If your app mainly...	The rate to watch
Reads your own posts and followers	Owned reads at $0.001 per resource
Monitors other accounts or keywords	Post reads at $0.005 and user reads at $0.010
Publishes posts with links	Post with URL at $0.200 per request
Replies, likes or follows on a user's behalf	Interactions at $0.015 per request

Most small-business projects fall into the first or third row. A dashboard that reports on your own account sits almost entirely in the cheapest bracket, while an auto-poster that shares every new blog post is paying the link rate on each one.

When the Enterprise plan comes in

Pay-per-use suits most developers, but X positions Enterprise for high-volume access, dedicated account management and custom rate limits. The practical trigger in X's docs is the read cap: once you need more than the monthly post read limit on pay-per-use, Enterprise is the route. X doesn't publish Enterprise prices on its pricing page, so that's a sales conversation.

My verdict

Pay-per-use is good news for small projects: a script that reads a few hundred of your own posts a month costs very little. The danger is anything that reads other people's posts at scale or posts links automatically. Set a spending limit before your first request, model your monthly reads against the rates above, and if your use case is common, compare it with a tool from my API management platforms roundup or an existing scheduler that already carries the API cost.

Frequently asked questions

Does the X API have monthly plans?

No. X describes the X API as pay-per-usage with no subscriptions, contracts or minimum spend. You buy credits and requests use them.

How much does it cost to read a post with the X API?

X lists $0.005 per post read as of October 2026, or $0.001 per resource when reading your own account's data with your own app.

How much does it cost to create a post with the X API?

X lists $0.015 per post created and $0.200 for a post that contains a URL, as of October 2026.

Can I cap my X API spending?

Yes. Set a spending limit per billing cycle in the Developer Console; requests are blocked once you reach it until the next cycle.