The X API introduction page serves as the central gateway to X's programmatic platform for developers, providing programmatic access to X's public conversation. The documentation was completely redesigned and relaunched in January 2025 to docs.x.com, marking a major overhaul of the developer experience. The API enables developers to read posts, publish content, manage users, and analyze trends through modern REST endpoints with a flexible pricing model.
The platform is built around two API versions: v1.1 (legacy, limited support) and v2 (current standard for all new projects). V2 provides comprehensive endpoints organized by resource type including Posts, Users, Trends, Engagement metrics, Spaces, and Lists. Core capabilities include near real-time filtered streaming (supporting up to 1,000 filtering rules), full-archive historical search dating back to 2006, and rich data objects that provide detailed metadata including full post text, engagement metrics, user profiles with verification status, media with subtitles, poll data, and conversation threading.
A major shift occurred in November 2025 with the introduction of a new pay-per-use credit-based pricing model that replaced the previous fixed monthly subscription tiers. Under the new system, developers pay per API request (approximately $0.005 per post read, $0.01 per user lookup) with no fixed monthly costs, no tier-dependent rate limits, and no monthly caps—a significant change from the previous $200/month Basic, $5,000/month Pro, and $42,000+/month Enterprise tiers. The platform now includes an all-new Developer Console for managing apps, viewing real-time consumption, and purchasing credits. Additionally, X introduced a revenue-sharing opportunity where developers can earn free xAI API credits (up to 20% back) when purchasing X API credits, creating a synergy between the X API and X's AI platform.
The platform is actively evolving with regular updates: the new documentation site launched January 2025, the xurl testing tool launched December 2024, v2 media upload endpoints were enhanced (April 2025) with subtitle and metadata support, DM blocking endpoints were added (September 2024), and longform post support extended to 25,000 characters (August 2024). The developer experience now includes an extensive ecosystem of official and community-maintained SDKs across languages including JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Java, Go, Rust, C#, PHP, Ruby, and others, plus a comprehensive Postman collection for visual API exploration and testing.
Author: X Developer Platform
Publication: X (formerly Twitter)
Published: 2025-01-13
Professional, approachable, and developer-first in tone. The documentation is organized to reduce friction for new developers while maintaining comprehensive depth for advanced use cases. The author (X Developer Platform) positions the API as a democratized, accessible tool through the new pay-per-use model, explicitly contrasting it with the previous high-barrier subscription tiers. The messaging emphasizes flexibility, transparency, and real-time data power. There's an undertone of attempting to rebuild developer trust after controversial pricing decisions in 2023-2024 that alienated indie hackers. The writing balances celebration of new features (xurl, media endpoints, new console) with pragmatic acknowledgment of migration needs from v1.1.