Can X Pay-Per-Use Model Repair Its Relationship with Developers?

X is expanding a closed beta program for a pay-per-use pricing model for its API, marking a significant shift from the tiered subscription system that has driven many developers away from the platform since 2023.

The social network announced it is accepting applications from both new and power users who want to build applications on the platform, with selected participants receiving a $500 voucher to experiment with the new pricing structure.

The move represents X’s latest attempt to rebuild relationships with the developer community, which was severely fractured after the platform implemented drastic pricing changes following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition in October 2022.

New Pricing 

Unlike X’s current tier-based system where all requests cost the same, the new API page displays granular costs for different types of requests, including reading posts, creating content, direct messages, trends, and pulling bookmarks. The platform has also introduced a calculator that allows developers to estimate costs based on their specific usage patterns.

A dedicated section on the new API page compares the pay-per-use model with the older plan-based system, though it remains unclear whether X intends to eventually phase out the subscription tiers entirely. The company has not responded to requests for clarification on this matter.

This flexible approach could prove particularly attractive to startups and independent developers who found the existing pricing structure prohibitively expensive or poorly suited to their needs.

A Turbulent History 

The closed beta launch comes two years after X overhauled its API pricing. In early 2023, the company blocked third-party clients, and in February 2023, it announced the end of free API access, resulting in numerous app shutdowns.

In March 2023, X introduced a $100-per-month Basic tier (which now costs $200 per month) and a $42,000-per-month Enterprise tier. Later that year, the platform launched a $5,000-per-month Pro plan offering access to fetch 1 million tweets and post 300,000 tweets monthly, plus full archive search capabilities.

However, these plans proved insufficient or simply unaffordable for many developers. The pricing escalation forced popular third-party applications like Tweetbot and Twitterrific to shut down, eliminated valuable analytics tools, and effectively killed an ecosystem that had once thrived on Twitter’s open platform approach.

The API access changes were primarily aimed at stopping generative AI projects from scraping X data, a move partly fueled by Musk’s disagreements with OpenAI, which had previously used Twitter data to build language models.

The Broader Revenue Context

The timing of this API restructuring reveals X’s ongoing struggle to stabilize its revenue streams. In 2025, X’s U.S. ad revenue is expected to grow 17.5% to $1.31 billion, while global ad sales are estimated to rise 16.5% to $2.26 billion, according to Emarketer, marking the platform’s first advertising revenue growth since Musk’s takeover.

However, according to Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg, some of this year’s growth is being driven by fear, with many advertisers viewing spending on X as a cost of doing business to mitigate potential legal or financial repercussions, given Musk’s influence in the Trump administration. This suggests the advertising recovery may not be entirely organic or sustainable.

Recent financial disclosures show X posted $91 million in revenue from data licensing and subscriptions in February, representing a 30% increase year-over-year, while advertising revenue grew more modestly at 4%. This shift indicates the platform is actively diversifying away from its traditional reliance on advertising.

The new pay-per-use API model fits into this broader strategy of creating alternative revenue streams that aren’t dependent on advertiser sentiment or brand safety concerns.

X has created an interactive dashboard allowing developers to estimate costs for their specific data access needs through the new program, though the company emphasizes that only the best use cases and developers will be selected for the beta.

For developers considering the program, the $500 voucher provides a meaningful opportunity to test whether the pay-per-use model offers better economics than the existing subscription tiers. This could be particularly valuable for applications with variable or unpredictable usage patterns that don’t align well with fixed monthly pricing.

X’s stated top priority is to enable builders by opening up the developer platform, with plans to roll out a brand new developer experience featuring a revamped developer console.

However, significant challenges remain. To mitigate developer concerns, the company last year launched top-up packs for applications that hit their API tier limits. Even with these changes, X’s API access costs remain substantially higher overall than they were under Twitter, making it unlikely that many of the old Twitter apps that shut down will make a comeback. The new model may, however, enable third-party platforms to update some of their X features and provide more insight into platform usage.

A Familiar Pattern

X’s API pricing turmoil sort of mirrors similar challenges other platforms have faced. Reddit implemented comparable changes in 2023, introducing API pricing that led to the shutdown of popular third-party clients like Apollo, which would have cost $20 million per year to continue operating. The move sparked massive protests across Reddit communities and highlighted the tension between platforms monetizing their data and maintaining healthy developer ecosystems.

Reddit positioned the move as a way to prevent companies from training AI systems on large swaths of the internet for free. X’s motivations appear more complex, involving both AI data protection and desperate attempts to create new revenue streams amid advertising decline.

What This Means for the Future

The success of X’s pay-per-use model will likely depend on factors such as pricing competitiveness, platform stability, and whether the developer community is willing to return after being burned by previous policy changes.

For developers, the key question is whether this represents a genuine long-term commitment to supporting third-party development or merely another revenue experiment that could be abandoned or repriced at any moment. X’s track record since the acquisition doesn’t inspire confidence, with multiple rounds of price increases and policy reversals.

The move comes as X attempts to transform into an “everything app” similar to WeChat, with features including digital wallets through a partnership with Visa, though the platform remains far from realizing that vision.

For now, the pay-per-use model represents X’s acknowledgment that its rigid tier-based pricing drove away valuable partners. Whether this flexibility arrives too late to rebuild the developer ecosystem that once made Twitter indispensable is not known yet.

The beta program will be serving as a crucial test of whether X can balance its need for API revenue with the reality that developers have alternatives and long memories.