Chirpie

X API pricing calculator

X bills the API per use rather than per subscription. Posts, link posts, and reads are each priced differently, so the bill is hard to eyeball. Put your numbers in and see what a month actually costs.

Your usage

X bills a post containing a URL at $0.20 — over 13× the rate of a plain post. This is usually the single largest line on the bill.

Billed per resource returned, not per request.

Reads of your own authenticated account, billed at $0.00 per resource. Eligibility is narrow — the account read must be the one that owns the developer app.

Estimated X API cost

X API pay-per-use rates, as of September 2026.

Estimated monthly X API cost broken down by billed operation
LineCost
Posts without a link
700 × $0.02 per request
$10.50
Posts containing a link
300 × $0.20 per request
$60.00
Post reads
10,000 × $0.01 per resource
$50.00
Owned reads
0 × $0.00 per resource
$0.00
Total per month$120.50

The same volume on Chirpie

1,000 posts a month fits Chirpie's Starter plan at $19/month — flat, with no per-link surcharge, and covering up to 3 connected accounts across every platform Chirpie supports, not just X.

Not a like-for-like swap: Chirpie is a posting, scheduling, and analytics layer. If you need X's search, streaming, or firehose read endpoints, you still need X API access directly.

The rates this uses

X API pay-per-use rate card, as of September 2026.

Official X API pay-per-use rates
OperationRateUnit
Post: Create$0.015per request
Post: Create (with URL)$0.200per request
Posts: Read$0.005per resource
Owned Reads$0.001per resource

Verified against docs.x.com/x-api/getting-started/pricing on 5 September 2026. X notes that prices are subject to change and that current rates always live in the Developer Console — check the source before budgeting. This calculator is an unofficial estimate and is not affiliated with or endorsed by X.

Two behaviours this estimate does not model: X deduplicates the same resource within a 24-hour UTC window, so repeated reads of one post in a day are billed once — real read cost is often lower than shown. And pay-per-use is capped at 3 million post reads per billing cycle.

Common questions

How much does the X API cost per post?

As of September 2026, X charges $0.015 per post created through the API. A post that contains a URL is billed at $0.200 instead — over 13 times the plain rate. Both are billed per request.

Why are posts with links so much more expensive on the X API?

X prices link-bearing posts separately at $0.200 per request under its pay-per-use rate card. X has not published a detailed rationale. Practically, if your posts routinely include a URL, that single line will dominate your bill — so it is worth modelling before you commit.

Does the X API still have Free, Basic, and Pro tiers?

No. X moved to pay-per-use as the only self-serve model, and the legacy Basic subscription was deprecated with subscribers migrated to pay-per-use. Above the pay-per-use ceiling, access is by custom Enterprise agreement. See X's official pricing documentation for current terms.

How are X API reads billed?

Post reads are billed at $0.005 per resource returned, not per request — so one request returning 100 posts bills 100 resources. Reads of your own account, where the account read is the one that owns the developer app, are billed at $0.001 per resource. X also deduplicates the same resource within a 24-hour UTC window, so real-world read cost is usually lower than naive per-call maths suggests.

Is there a cap on X API pay-per-use?

Yes. X caps pay-per-use at 3 million post reads per monthly billing cycle. Beyond that you need an Enterprise agreement, which is custom-priced and not published.

Can Chirpie replace the X API?

For posting, scheduling, and post analytics, yes — Chirpie handles OAuth, token refresh, threading, and scheduling behind one flat-priced API, and the same call reaches seven other platforms. For search, streaming, or firehose-scale reads, no. Those are X API capabilities that a posting layer does not replace, and you would still go to X directly.

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