PhantomBuster Twitter vs Weir (2026): Limits and Cost

PhantomBuster for Twitter suits teams that automate their own X (Twitter) account; Weir suits apps that only read public X data, with no login.

PhantomBuster runs cloud automations called Phantoms, and its X Phantoms work through your own session cookie. We run Weir, so every PhantomBuster fact here comes from its own site and help center, checked on 22 October 2026.

Weir reads an account's followers with an API key and no cookie:

curl https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/users/XDevelopers/followers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY"

PhantomBuster Twitter or Weir: which fits you?

It comes down to one question: do you need to act on X, or only read it?

PhantomBuster is an automation platform. Its Phantoms use your logged-in session to scrape, follow, like or message on a schedule. Weir is a read-only REST API and MCP server for public X and Reddit data, billed per result from prepaid credits.

Both can run on a schedule: PhantomBuster launches Phantoms, and Weir runs monitors that send new posts by signed webhook.

PhantomBuster pricing: you pay for run time, not results

PhantomBuster sells monthly plans sized by execution time. Its help center defines that as "the number of hours your Phantoms and Workflows can run each month."

Start, 20 hours$69

Grow, 80 hours$159

Scale, 300 hours$439

Read the fine print too:

• Yearly billing takes 20% off, so Start drops to $56 a month.
• Slots cap how many Phantoms you keep: 5, 15 or 50.
• Hours reset each billing cycle and are shared by the whole workspace.
• The free plan gives 30 minutes a month and exports only 10 rows.

Weir has no plan. Packs run from $5 to $1,000, and purchased credits never expire.

What 1,000 profiles and 100,000 posts cost

Weir costs less at both volumes. Both examples use PhantomBuster's own time estimates.

1,000 X profiles a month:

• PhantomBuster: its Profile Scraper guide estimates 3 minutes per 50 profiles. That is 60 minutes, more than the free plan's 30, so you need Start at $69.
• Weir: a profile costs 2 credits plus 1 for the call. 1,000 × 3 = 3,000 credits, inside the 5,000 free each month: $0.

PhantomBuster also suggests about 60 profiles a day per account, so 1,000 takes about 17 days.

100,000 X posts a month, from a list of accounts:

• PhantomBuster: the Tweet Extractor guide estimates 1 min 10 sec per 100 tweets. That is about 19.4 hours, nearly all of Start's 20.
• Daily caps apply too. The same guide lists X limits of up to 10,000 posts a day for a verified account, and fewer for others.
• Weir: an account's posts come 20 per call. 5,000 calls + 100,000 posts = 105,000 credits. Less 5,000 free, you pay for 100,000: $16.67 at the $20 pack's rate.

PhantomBuster Start, monthly$69.00

PhantomBuster Start, yearly$56.00

Weir, $5 pack rate$20.00

Weir, $20 pack rate$16.67

Weir's first page for each account also bills one profile lookup, 2 credits.

PhantomBuster's fee buys hours for any Phantom, not only X ones. If your X jobs are small, the same plan can also run your LinkedIn or Instagram work.

How does the PhantomBuster Twitter scraper connect to X?

The X Phantoms we checked all run as you. Their guides ask for "a connected X/Twitter account", through PhantomBuster's browser extension or by pasting your auth_token cookie.

That has three effects:

• Your session must stay alive. PhantomBuster's guide says logging out "will invalidate the session cookie and break the connection."
• Your language matters. The X Phantoms want an English account, or one of four others, or you may see an invalid session cookie error.
• Your account carries the activity. PhantomBuster says platforms count manual and automated actions toward the same limits.

Its rate-limit guide, updated on 19 October 2026, lists these limits for X:

Can PhantomBuster scrape all Twitter followers?

No. Its Follower Collector guide says it "can only extract up to 70 of the most recent followers per account."

PhantomBuster calls this a restriction from X itself, and says older followers can't be collected "even across multiple runs."

Weir's followers endpoint returns about 70 accounts a page, as X lists them. Each page carries meta.nextCursor, and you send it back until it is null.

You pay 1 credit per follower and 1 per page. The first page adds 2 for the profile lookup.

So 15 pages, about 1,050 followers, cost about 1,067 credits, inside the free monthly grant. Our guide to exporting Twitter followers to CSV has the full script.

When to choose PhantomBuster

Choose PhantomBuster if you want to act on X, or run one playbook across several networks.

When to choose Weir

Weir fits code and AI agents that read public X data, with nothing tied to your account.

Moving a Twitter Phantom to Weir

The Profile Scraper's job is one Weir call per account:

curl https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/users/XDevelopers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY"

We ran it through Weir's MCP server on 22 October 2026, and it cost 3 credits. Trimmed:

{
  "id": "2244994945",
  "username": "XDevelopers",
  "name": "Developers",
  "description": "The voice of the X Dev team and your official source for updates, ...",
  "followersCount": 697877,
  "followingCount": 770,
  "statusesCount": 4380,
  "verified": true,
  "createdAt": "2013-12-14T04:35:55.000Z"
}

The columns map like this:

name, location and verified keep their names, and protectedAccount becomes protected.

When not to use Weir

• You need to follow, like, post or DM. Weir only reads, so use PhantomBuster or the official X API.
• Your work spans LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. PhantomBuster covers them; Weir reads X and Reddit only.
• You want point-and-click automation. PhantomBuster sets up Phantoms in its dashboard; Weir expects code or an AI agent.

FAQ

Can PhantomBuster scrape Twitter followers?

Yes, but only the 70 most recent per account, as of October 2026. Older ones can't be collected, even across runs. Weir returns about 70 a page, with a cursor for the next.

How much does PhantomBuster cost?

As of October 2026, Start costs $69 a month, Grow $159 and Scale $439, or 20% less billed yearly. The plans differ by execution hours: 20, 80 or 300 a month. The 14-day trial needs no card.

Is PhantomBuster safe for my X account?

PhantomBuster's own guide says its daily limits lower the risk but are not guaranteed safe. Going over them "can trigger warnings, temporary restrictions, or account flags." X's rules apply either way, and this isn't legal advice.

What is a PhantomBuster alternative for X with no login?

Weir, which we run, reads public X profiles, posts and followers with an API key and no X session. It can't act on your account; the official X API can.

Sources

All checked 22 October 2026:

• PhantomBuster home and pricing: https://phantombuster.com/ and https://phantombuster.com/pricing
• PhantomBuster plans, help center (updated 19 October 2026): https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/4494623647250-What-Each-PhantomBuster-Plan-Includes-Features-Limits-and-Pricing
• PhantomBuster rate limits by platform (updated 19 October 2026): https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017014479-PhantomBuster-Rate-Limits-Daily-Limits-by-Platform-and-Phantom
• Twitter/X Follower Collector guide: https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/26971127478802-How-to-Use-the-Twitter-X-Follower-Collector
• Twitter/X Profile Scraper guide: https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/26971128411410-How-to-Use-the-Twitter-X-Profile-Scraper
• Twitter/X Tweet Extractor guide: https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/26971139501586-How-to-Use-the-Twitter-X-Tweet-Extractor
• Connecting X and other accounts: https://support.phantombuster.com/hc/en-us/articles/360007071779-How-to-Connect-Instagram-Facebook-X-and-Other-Accounts-to-PhantomBuster
• Weir pricing and docs: https://weirapp.io/pricing, https://docs.weirapp.io/billing, https://docs.weirapp.io/pagination and https://docs.weirapp.io/monitors
• Our Weir lookup of @XDevelopers, 22 October 2026