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Best Twitter API Alternatives in 2026: An Honest Comparison

Looking for a Twitter API alternative? We compare X's own API, TwitterAPI.io, SocialData, Apify, ScrapeCreators, Xpoz, Data365 and Weir on price and fit.

By Tarun Khatri · · 9 min read

The best Twitter API alternative depends on what you're building. For the cheapest per-tweet reads with write actions, look at TwitterAPI.io. SocialData has a flat price per result. Apify suits no-code batch jobs, ScrapeCreators and Data365 cover many social networks, and Xpoz is subscription-based and built around MCP. If you need X and Reddit through one key with free monthly credits, there's Weir. If you need to post, or want X's own terms, stay on the official X API.

Disclosure: Weir is our product. We've tried to describe every option, including ours, the way its own pricing page and docs do, and to say plainly where a competitor is the better choice.

How we compared

  • Prices are as of October 2026, taken from each vendor's own pricing page, linked in each section. Prices change, so check before you commit.
  • We compared published pricing, features and limits. We did not benchmark speed, uptime or data completeness, so nothing here ranks providers on reliability.
  • To compare like with like, each section prices 100,000 posts read wherever the pricing model allows it.

Twitter API alternatives at a glance

Option Pricing model 100,000 posts Free to start Writes Also covers
Official X API Pay per resource $500 Up to $70 starter credits Yes X only
TwitterAPI.io Pay per result, credits About $15 About $1 trial credit Yes X
SocialData Pay per result $20 No free plan (demo on request) No X
Apify Tweet Scraper V2 Pay per event (tweets) $40 Demo mode only on Free plan No Thousands of other actors
ScrapeCreators Pay per request Not comparable (see below) 100 credits No 20+ platforms
Xpoz Subscription, per query Not comparable (see below) 500 one-time credits No Reddit, Instagram, TikTok
Data365 Monthly subscription Within the €300/month plan 14-day trial via sales No Up to 7 networks
Weir (ours) Prepaid credits per result About $10.50 to $21 5,000 credits every month No Reddit

Official X API (pay-per-use)

What it is. X's own API, billed per resource since pay-per-use launched in February 2026.

Pricing. $0.005 per post read, $0.010 per user or follower record, and $0.015 to create a post ($0.20 with a URL). Post reads are capped at 3 million per month before Enterprise. New accounts can earn up to $70 in starter credits (pricing, free credits). 100,000 posts cost 100,000 x $0.005 = $500. We break it all down in X API pricing in 2026.

Strengths. It's the only option with X's own terms. It does writes, DMs and the Activity API's webhooks. Full-archive search returns up to 500 posts per request, and reading your own account's data costs $0.001 per resource.

Weaknesses. It's the most expensive way to read other people's public data, by a wide margin. You need a developer account, an app and OAuth, and the 3 million read cap is a hard ceiling.

Who it's for. Anyone who posts, replies or DMs; analytics on your own account; and companies that need a direct relationship with X.

TwitterAPI.io

What it is. A third-party X API with about 76 endpoints, including write actions, webhook and WebSocket streams, and an MCP server (homepage).

Pricing. $0.15 per 1,000 tweets, billed per result with a minimum of 15 credits ($0.00015) per call. Followers cost 1 to 3 credits each depending on page size, which is $0.01 per 1,000 at 200 per page. A single profile lookup is 18 credits, falling to 1 credit each in batches of 100 or more. $1 equals 100,000 credits, and topped-up credits never expire (pricing). 100,000 tweets cost about $15. New accounts get up to $1 in free credits, which expire after 31 days.

Strengths. The lowest per-tweet price we found on pay-as-you-go. Bulk follower collection is extremely cheap: 2 million follower records cost about $20. It also does writes and real-time streams.

Weaknesses. The volume tiers mean the per-item price changes with page size, so estimating a bill takes more care. The free trial is small.

Who it's for. High-volume X collection, follower-graph work, and apps that need to read and write through one third-party provider.

SocialData

What it is. A read-only REST API for public X data with more than 30 endpoints, plus an MCP server (homepage).

Pricing. $0.20 per 1,000 results for most endpoints. Some specialised endpoints are priced differently. Deposits never expire, failed requests aren't charged, and unused deposits can be refunded within 14 days. 100,000 posts cost $20. There's no free plan, but its FAQ says support may set up a demo account.

Strengths. One flat price that's easy to reason about. No developer account, and live data.

Weaknesses. No free tier. Its own FAQ notes that the claude.ai and ChatGPT connector interfaces aren't supported, because they require OAuth rather than an API key.

Who it's for. Developers who want a simple, predictable per-result price for X reads.

Apify Twitter actors

What it is. Apify is a scraping platform with a store of "actors" built by different developers. The most widely used for tweets is Tweet Scraper V2 by apidojo.

Pricing. From $0.40 per 1,000 tweets, pay per event, with no separate platform-usage charge. Each query must return at least 50 tweets, and runs are limited to one at a time with up to five batched queries. On Apify's Free plan the actor runs in demo mode only: 5 runs a month, 10 items each, and no API access. Apify's plans are Free (with $5 of monthly usage), $19, $199 and $999 a month. 100,000 tweets cost $40.

Strengths. A no-code console, scheduling, dataset exports and integrations. If you also need Instagram, Google Maps or anything else, it's probably in the same store.

Weaknesses. Built for batch jobs. This actor asks users not to rerun the same query at short intervals and doesn't allow single-tweet or conversation scraping. Quality and limits vary from actor to actor, because each one is maintained separately.

Who it's for. Analysts and growth teams who want spreadsheets of tweets without writing an integration.

ScrapeCreators

What it is. A scraping API across 20+ platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and X (homepage).

Pricing. Per request, not per result. $47 buys 25,000 credits ($1.88 per 1,000 requests) and $497 buys 500,000 ($0.99 per 1,000). Most endpoints cost 1 credit, cached results are free, credits never expire, and you start with 100 free credits.

Why "not comparable". Its Twitter API page lists seven X endpoints. Search runs over Google-indexed results, and the user-tweets endpoint returns 100 of an account's most popular tweets rather than a full timeline. A per-1,000-posts figure would mislead either way.

Strengths. One key for many platforms, and per-request pricing is cheap when a call returns a lot.

Weaknesses. Shallow X coverage compared with X-focused APIs. No live X search, chronological timelines, followers or Lists.

Who it's for. Creator, influencer and ad-intelligence products where X is one platform among many.

Xpoz

What it is. A social data service built around a remote MCP server, with TypeScript and Python SDKs, covering X, Reddit, Instagram and TikTok (homepage).

Pricing. Subscription plans (pricing): Free gives 500 one-time credits and 1 tracked keyword. Pro is $20 a month ($16 billed annually) for 7,500 credits a month, with overage at $3 per 1,000 credits. Max is $200 a month ($160 billed annually) for 120,000 credits, with overage at $2 per 1,000. An X or Reddit query costs 2 credits "regardless of how many results each query returns."

Why "not comparable". Pricing is per query, not per post, so the cost of 100,000 posts depends on how many rows each query returns.

Strengths. Wide queries are cheap, and it includes tracked keywords and users, analytics tools like sentiment, and an agent-first setup.

Weaknesses. A monthly subscription. The homepage describes an indexed store with caching, so check that data freshness fits your use case.

Who it's for. Teams working mainly inside AI agents who want analysis on top of the data.

Data365

What it is. A multi-network social data API aimed at businesses (Twitter page).

Pricing. €300 a month for one network and 500,000 credits, €850 for three networks and 1,000,000 credits, or custom up to 7 networks (pricing). One post is 1 credit, a search request 7 and a profile 9. 100,000 posts fit inside the €300 plan, which is €0.60 per 1,000 posts if you use every credit.

Strengths. Several networks under one contract, with a hands-on team and custom work.

Weaknesses. A monthly commitment, and you start through a sales contact. Its Twitter page describes asynchronous collection with "1-5 minutes latency".

Who it's for. Companies buying multi-network data at steady volume with a support relationship.

Weir (ours)

What it is. A read-only REST API and remote MCP server for public X and Reddit data. On X it covers search, posts, threads, replies, quotes, edit history, X Articles, profiles, followers, Lists and Spaces, plus monitors that report only new items, with optional signed webhooks.

Pricing. 1 credit per X post, 1 per account in a follower page, 2 per profile, plus a 1-credit minimum per successful call. Failed calls are free. Packs run from $5 for 25,000 credits ($0.20 per 1,000) to $1,000 for 10,000,000 ($0.10 per 1,000), and purchased credits never expire. Everyone gets 5,000 free credits every month (pricing). Search returns about 20 posts per page, so 100,000 posts is about 105,000 credits: about $10.50 to $21, depending on pack size.

Strengths. One key for X and Reddit, and free credits every month rather than once. The MCP server signs in with OAuth, so it works as a connector in Claude and ChatGPT (setup). Every response reports its charge in the x-credits-charged header.

Weaknesses. Read-only, and only X and Reddit. For bulk followers it costs about ten times what TwitterAPI.io does (roughly $203 against $20 for 2 million records). The free tier is limited to 30 requests a minute, and hourly monitors need a purchase. It's also a young service.

Who it's for. Developers and agent builders who need public X and Reddit data together, and teams watching keywords or accounts.

When to choose something other than Weir

  • You need to post, reply, like or DM: use the official X API, or TwitterAPI.io.
  • You're collecting large follower graphs: TwitterAPI.io is far cheaper.
  • You need TikTok, Instagram or YouTube too: ScrapeCreators, Data365 or Xpoz.
  • You want no code: Apify.
  • You want one flat, simple price for X only: SocialData.
  • You need X's own terms or Enterprise volume: the official X API.

A note on terms

Every third-party option here reads public X data without being X. Each has its own terms, and how you use the data is still subject to the law and to the platforms' rules. None of this is legal advice, so if your use case is sensitive, ask a lawyer before you pick a provider.

Trying Weir

curl https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "api", "fromUsers": ["XDevelopers"], "minLikes": 50, "limit": 5}'

Each post comes back with X's own field names, such as likeCount, retweetCount, viewCount and conversationId. Pass meta.nextCursor back as cursor for the next page. Sign up to use the free monthly credits, or read the quickstart. If Reddit is part of your project, see Reddit API pricing in 2026.

Sources

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