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Weir vs the Official X API (2026): Cost, Access, MCP

Weir vs the official X API compared on pay-per-use cost, the 3 million read cap, developer access, MCP and writes, with worked examples. As of October 2026.

By Tarun Khatri · · 8 min read

Choose the official X API if you need to post, send DMs, receive account activity webhooks, use compliance streams, or have X's own terms behind your product. Choose Weir if you only need to read public X data, want it at a fraction of the per-post price, or also need Reddit, without setting up a developer app and OAuth.

Disclosure: Weir is our product. The X API facts below come from X's own documentation at docs.x.com, checked on October 19, 2026 and linked inline. X says its prices are subject to change.

Weir vs the official X API at a glance

Official X API Weir
Pricing model Pay per resource, prepaid credits Prepaid credit packs, $5 to $1,000
Post reads $0.005 each 1 credit each, plus 1 credit per call ($0.10 to $0.20 per 1,000 credits)
100,000 posts $500 105,000 credits = $10.50 to $21.00
Monthly read cap 3 million post reads, then Enterprise None set by credits; limited by rate limit
User and follower records $0.010 each 1 credit per account in a page, 2 per profile lookup
Data covered X, including your own account's data Public X data and public Reddit data
Writes Yes: posts, DMs, likes, follows, Lists No, read-only
MCP Hosted XMCP at api.x.com/mcp, needs your own developer app Remote MCP at api.weirapp.io/mcp, OAuth sign-in
Free to start Up to $70 in one-time starter credits, after a first purchase 5,000 credits every month, no card
Rate limits Per endpoint, e.g. recent search 450 requests per 15 min per app 30 requests/min free, up to 600/min by total purchases
Field names snake_case, public_metrics.like_count, authors under includes.users camelCase, likeCount, author inline
Reddit No Yes, same key

Sources: X API pricing, free credits, rate limits, X MCP; Weir pricing.

What the official X API costs

X has billed per resource since pay-per-use launched in February 2026. As of October 2026 its pricing page lists:

  • Reads: $0.005 per post; $0.010 per user, per follower or following record, and per DM event; $0.005 per List, Space or Community.
  • Your own data: $0.001 per resource when the data belongs to the app's own account.
  • Writes: $0.015 to create a post, $0.200 for a post containing a URL, $0.015 per DM or user interaction.
  • Cap: "3 million Post reads per monthly billing cycle", after which you need Enterprise.
  • Deduplication: requesting the same resource again within the same UTC day isn't charged twice. X calls this a "soft guarantee".

Starter credits are $20 after your first credit purchase, plus a match of your first auto-recharge up to $50, so up to $70 in total. They expire three months after they're granted. For every line item, see X API pricing in 2026.

Getting access

To use the X API you sign in at console.x.com, accept the Developer Agreement and Policy, describe your use case, create an app, and save its keys and tokens, which are shown only once (getting access). Read-only calls can use the app's bearer token. Acting on behalf of a user takes OAuth 2.0 user context.

Weir needs an account and one API key. MCP clients sign in through a browser instead of using a key.

Where the official X API wins

  • Writing. Posting, replying, DMs, likes, follows and List management. Weir can't do any of these.
  • Your own account. Owned reads cost $0.001 per resource, five times less than reading public posts. Weir can't read private account data such as bookmarks at all.
  • X Activity API webhooks. Events such as post.create and dm.received are pushed to you, priced per event.
  • Compliance. Post and user compliance streams (deletes, edits, suspensions) exist for keeping stored X data in line with X's policies. They're Enterprise-only.
  • Full-archive search with large pages. Full-archive search goes back to March 2006 and returns up to 500 posts per request (search docs).
  • A direct relationship with X. You're on X's terms, under X's agreement, with an Enterprise path. A third-party service can't offer that, and for some companies it decides the question.

Where Weir wins

  • Price for reads. A public post costs $0.005 on X. On Weir it's 1 credit plus a share of the per-call credit, which is $0.000105 to $0.00021. That is about 24 to 48 times cheaper.
  • No developer app. No console, no app review, no OAuth flow for read-only work.
  • No read cap. X stops pay-per-use at 3 million post reads a month. Weir has no monthly cap. Your rate limit sets the pace.
  • Reddit in the same API. Search, communities, comment trees and user history, with the same key and balance.
  • Free credits every month. 5,000 credits each month without a card, instead of one-time credits that need a purchase first.
  • MCP that works as a chat connector. See the next section.
  • Monitors. A saved search or account watch runs hourly, daily or weekly and reports only new items, with signed webhooks (docs).

MCP: XMCP vs Weir

X runs an official MCP server, XMCP, hosted at https://api.x.com/mcp (X MCP docs). It exposes reads such as post lookup, full-archive search, user lookup, timelines, mentions, trends and news, plus some writes like bookmarks and Articles. By default it uses OAuth 2.0 user context through the open-source xurl bridge. The docs say this "requires your own developer app" and that there's no dynamic client registration. An app-only bearer token also works, read-only. X's MCP page doesn't spell out MCP pricing, but its troubleshooting has you put the app on pay-per-use, so plan on normal API rates. X also runs a separate Docs MCP for searching its documentation.

Weir's MCP server is at https://api.weirapp.io/mcp. Claude, ChatGPT and most coding agents sign in through the browser, with no developer app, and it carries Reddit tools alongside X (setup). There are no write tools.

If your agent needs to post or bookmark, XMCP is the one that can. If it needs to read and research, Weir is cheaper per post and quicker to connect.

Worked cost examples

A research pipeline reading 100,000 public posts a month.

  • X API: 100,000 x $0.005 = $500, less anything deduplicated within a UTC day.
  • Weir: about 20 posts per search page means 5,000 calls. 100,000 + 5,000 = 105,000 credits. That's $10.50 at the $1,000 pack's rate or $21.00 at the $5 pack's. After the 5,000 free monthly credits, 100,000 credits are paid: $10 to $20.

Ten keyword watches, about 50 new posts a day each.

That's 10 x 50 x 30 = 15,000 posts a month.

  • X API, polling with since_id so each post is read once: 15,000 x $0.005 = $75 a month, plus your own scheduler and deduplication.
  • Weir monitors, run hourly: each run costs 1 credit plus 1 per new post. 10 monitors x 24 runs x 30 days = 7,200 runs, so 7,200 + 15,000 = 22,200 credits. After the 5,000 free credits, 17,200 are paid: $3.44 a month at the $5 pack's rate, or $2.87 at the $20 pack's. The free tier allows one daily monitor. Ten hourly monitors need tier 1, which starts with a $5 lifetime purchase.

At the cap. 3 million posts on X is $15,000, the most pay-per-use allows. On Weir it's about 3.15 million credits, roughly $315 at the $1,000 pack's rate.

Migrating from the X API to Weir

On X, recent search is a GET with a bearer token. Authors come back in includes.users and you join them on author_id (search reference, fields):

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/recent?query=from%3AXDevelopers%20api&max_results=100&tweet.fields=created_at,public_metrics,conversation_id&expansions=author_id" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $X_BEARER_TOKEN"

On Weir it's a POST with a JSON body. The author is inline on every post, and there's no field selection to manage:

curl https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "api", "fromUsers": ["XDevelopers"], "sort": "latest", "limit": 20}'
X API v2 Weir
public_metrics.like_count likeCount
public_metrics.retweet_count retweetCount
public_metrics.reply_count replyCount
author_id + includes.users[] author { id, username, name, followersCount }
created_at, conversation_id createdAt, conversationId
meta.next_token -> next_token meta.nextCursor -> cursor
max_results (10 to 100) limit (X serves about 20 per page)

X search operators pass through inside Weir's query, and there are structured fields like minLikes, since and sinceId (search operators). If you also write to X, keep the official API for writes and move only the reads.

FAQ

Is Weir cheaper than the official X API?

For reading public posts, yes: $0.105 to $0.21 per 1,000 posts from search, against $5.00 per 1,000 on X's pay-per-use, as of October 2026. For your own account's data X charges $0.001 per resource, and only X can read some of it.

Can I post or send DMs through Weir?

No. Weir is read-only. Use the official X API for posts, DMs and other writes.

Does the X API have a free tier in 2026?

X's pricing page lists one-time starter credits rather than a monthly allowance: $20 after your first purchase plus up to $50 matched on auto-recharge, expiring after three months.

Is there an official X MCP server?

Yes. XMCP is hosted at https://api.x.com/mcp, and it needs your own developer app for OAuth or a bearer token for read-only use. Weir's MCP server signs in with OAuth and also covers Reddit.

Is a third-party API allowed?

Weir reads public data and isn't affiliated with X. Each service has its own terms, and how you use X data is still subject to the law and X's rules. If it matters for your use case, ask a lawyer. This isn't legal advice.

Trying Weir

Sign up for 5,000 free credits a month, and start from the quickstart. For other options, see Weir vs TwitterAPI.io and Best Twitter API alternatives.

Sources

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