Microblogging platform Twitter has finally discontinued the offering of free access to its Application Programming Interface (API), as several apps and websites have reported cases of functionality breaks.
The world’s most popular website builder WordPress, reported on Tuesday that it was no longer able to access the API, rendering its websites unable to automatically share posts to Twitter. However, the company revealed that the issue has been fixed.
Also, an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters Substack disclosed that Twitter unexpectedly restricted the ability to embed tweets in newsletters. News app Tweet shelf said its API access had also been suspended despite applying for Enterprise API access.
Several app and bot makers also expressed concern that Twitter’s API was no longer functioning. Reports disclose that the shutdown has affected developers who are willing to pay for Twitter’s API, even though pricing for higher-level enterprises is still unclear.
The rollout of Twitter’s paid API will see Twitter bots and apps that have relied on the platform’s free tier, and pay exorbitant prices to access the social media platform.
On the pricing, Twitter pegged the basic plan at a $100 per month subscription with the option of posting 3,000 tweets per month at the user level or 50,000 tweets per month at the app level. The read limit is 10,000 tweets. Twitter disclosed that its new basic plan is meant to provide a pathway to allow bots to continue, but many developers have expressed concerns that the monthly limit of tweets is too constrained.
On the Enterprise plan, Twitter promises to offer commercial-level access that meets apps and their customer’s specific needs, as well as managed services from a dedicated account team. No specific price was listed, but reports suggest that a low-cost enterprise plan could cost as much as $42,000 per month.
Responding to these plans, some developers lamented how exorbitant they are, while noting that they will have to kill their projects or pass the fees onto their users. Account analysis developer Luca Hammer stated that he would have to shut down his tool designed to help journalists and academics analyze Twitter accounts.
Investors King understands that the shutdown of Twitter’s free API is coming after the platform abruptly changed its rules to ban third-party clients as part of a larger shakeup of its developer strategy and also to increase its revenue.
Recall that the company’s CEO Elon Musk justified the API changes by stating that free services were being abused badly by bot scammers and opinion manipulators. Ever since acquiring the company for $44 billion in October last year, he has continuously been making efforts to increase revenue and boost Twitter monetization.
