The X API in 2026: what it can and can't do
The X API, formerly the Twitter API, bills per request, and self-serve plans lost quote posts, likes and follows in April 2026. What you can still do, what needs Enterprise, and what we saw when we tested quotes on real posts.
TL;DR
- Pay-per-use began in February 2026: a post costs $0.015, a post with a link $0.20, and reads are capped at 3 million posts a month.
- Also in February, self-serve plans lost replies to other accounts, except when that author mentioned you or quoted your post. Replies to your own posts, and so threads, still work.
- In April 2026 self-serve plans lost follows and likes, and quoting through the API's quote field became Enterprise only.
- A quote sent as a plain link still shows a quote card, but the link stays visible and the post costs $0.20.
- Enterprise has no published price, and the $42,000 a month figure quoted around the web comes from a 2023 report on a read package.
On this page · 6 sections
As of February 2026, the X API (formerly Twitter’s) shifted to pay-per-use pricing. There are no subscriptions or contracts; you simply purchase credits and pay for every request. Since that transition, X has cut back self-serve plans twice: it restricted replies in February, then removed follows, likes, and quote posts in April.
We publish to X via this API, which is exactly how we encountered the quote limit. These are the constraints as they existed in November 2026. Since X updates its API frequently, always verify the changelog before building on any of this information.
What you can do on pay-per-use
| Action | Price |
|---|---|
| Create a post | $0.015 |
| Create a post with a URL | $0.200 |
| Create a post, summoned | $0.010 |
| Send a direct message | $0.015 |
| Read a post | $0.005 each |
| Read a user | $0.010 each |
| Read your own data | $0.001 each |
Pay-per-use plans are capped at 3 million post reads per month. What an X API post costs breaks down how these prices accumulate.
What self-serve plans lost
| Action | Changed | What’s left |
|---|---|---|
| Reply to another account | February 2026 | Only when that post’s author mentioned you or quoted one of your posts |
| Follow an account | April 2026 | Removed |
| Like a post | April 2026 | Removed |
Quote a post with quote_tweet_id |
April 2026 | Enterprise only |
X says the February limit was introduced to combat LLM-generated spam, affecting only self-serve tiers. That same note hints at further restrictions on mentioning and quoting users programmatically. The April changes appear in that changelog as well, confirmed by X’s announcement.
Your own threads remain functional because replying to your own content is permitted. We published a thread of twelve posts on October 30, 2026, well after the February restrictions took effect.
If quote_tweet_id fails
X’s create post docs state that quote-posting requires an Enterprise plan and is unavailable on self-serve tiers. We never attempted to send that field ourselves, as the documentation explicitly rules it out, yet one third-party tool instructs its users to expect a 403 error.
The POST /2/tweets schema offers no other method to quote, nor does it support hiding a URL within the text. The legacy attachment_url parameter from v1.1 is also absent.
What does work is placing a plain link at the end of your text, though that link remains visible.
| Post | Sent from | Quote card | Link visible |
|---|---|---|---|
| DR 38 post | X app | Yes | No |
| DR 40 post | X API, with an image | Yes | Yes |
| RAM post | X API, quoting another account | Yes | Yes |
If you inspect your own posts, check entities.urls in addition to quoted_tweet. All three examples above contain a quoted_tweet, which initially misled us. However, only the two API-generated posts list the link in entities.urls. That visible link classifies it as a “post with a URL,” costing $0.20. X does not document this specific behavior and could alter it at any time. How to quote a tweet on X provides the full comparison.
What Enterprise costs
X does not publish a standard price. Its Enterprise page lists custom pricing and directs you to a sales form.
You may see $42,000 per month quoted across the web. That figure originates from a 2023 report regarding a package for reading 50 million tweets, offering little insight into current Enterprise pricing or quoting capabilities. Ask X for a specific number before budgeting around that figure.
Which plan fits what you’re building
If your goal is to publish your own posts, pay-per-use covers it, provided you budget for the higher cost of posts containing URLs.
Reading more than 3 million posts monthly requires Enterprise. Automated likes, follows, and quote posts also require Enterprise unless you modify your product’s functionality. You can only reply to other accounts when they “summon” you, unless you are on an Enterprise plan.
If you only want your posts to go out
Publishing to X requires a developer account, an app, OAuth, credits, and a strategy for retrying failed posts. Postmoderno handles this for you: you instruct Claude or ChatGPT what to post and when, and how to schedule tweets from Claude or ChatGPT outlines the necessary steps.