Twitter has revealed an upgraded API that only offers free, basic, and enterprise levels

On Wednesday, Twitter officially revealed its new API pricing structures after dithering for several weeks. These three tiers include a basic free level that is primarily intended for content posting bots, a basic level that costs $100 per month, and an expensive enterprise level. According to the company, all levels of subscribers have free access to the Advertising API.

Twitter said that it would be phasing out older access levels, such as Standard (for v1.1), Essential and Elevated (for v2), and Premium, over the next 30 days.

The Twitter API debacle began when the company declared in February that free API access will soon come to an end. Elon Musk announced that the business will provide “good content”-producing bots a free tier in response to harsh criticism. Subsequently, it stated that the entry-level tier would cost $100 per month, but it made no mention of the amount of access. The company said on February 13 that the launch had been postponed for “a few more days.” After more than 45 days, the business at last disclosed information regarding the new APIs.

The new API service seems to be a money-grabbing scheme. Only 1,500 post requests per month and access to Login with Twitter are available in the free tier. The base tier offers 50,000 post requests and 10,000 read requests per app each month and is deemed “for amateurs or students.” Developers that need access to more information must apply for enterprise access, which is said to cost an outrageous $42,000 per month.

Before the release of the v2 in 2020, Twitter provided developers with a variety of access tiers, including Essential and Elevated, that could grant them access to 500,000–2 million tweets each month. Now, app developers who fit that user group will need to sign up for the enterprise subscription.

Some developers who attempted to sign up for the new basic tier discovered that they had reached their subscription limit.