# X API cost calculator

Enter what your app posts and reads on X in a month and see the pay-per-use bill line by line, including what links in posts add.

## How X API pricing works

X sells API access pay-per-use: you buy credits up front and every call that creates or reads something takes its price from them. There are no monthly tiers to pick from, so the bill depends only on what your app does. This calculator multiplies each count by X's unit price and adds the rows up.

## What a link costs

The biggest surprise for most apps is the link price. A plain post costs $0.015, but a post with a URL costs $0.200. If an app posts 1,000 times a month and 20% of those posts carry a link, the 800 plain posts cost $12 and the 200 link posts cost $40, so $37 of the $52 bill is the link premium. How many posts carry a link changes the bill more than anything else.

## Reads add up too

Reads are cheaper per item but come in larger numbers. Reading 100,000 posts costs $500. Owned reads, the resources of your own account, are priced lower at $0.001. X lists a cap of 3,000,000 post reads a month on pay-per-use, and the calculator tells you when your estimate goes above it.

## Prices change

X has changed its API prices several times. The table shows the date the prices were last checked against X's pricing page; check that page before you budget, and tell us if a number is out of date.

## How to use

1. Enter how many posts your app creates in a month and the share of them that contain a link.
2. Add summoned replies and the posts, users and owned resources your app reads.
3. Read the bill line by line: each row is the count times X's unit price.
4. Check the link premium: posts with a URL cost far more than plain posts.

## FAQ

### How much does the X API cost per post?

On X's pay-per-use pricing a post costs $0.015 and a post that contains a URL costs $0.200. The calculator uses the prices on X's pricing page, checked on the date shown under the table.

### Why do link posts cost 13x more?

X prices a post with a URL at $0.200 against $0.015 for a plain post, which is about 13 times as much. The calculator shows that extra as the link premium, so you can see what moving links out of posts would save.

### Is there a free tier?

No. X's pricing page lists pay-per-use from prepaid credits with no free tier. It mentions a one-time $20 credit when you save your first card, and a match on the first auto-recharge of up to $50.

### What do reads cost?

A post read costs $0.005, a user read $0.010 and an owned read (your own resources) $0.001. X lists a cap of 3,000,000 post reads a month on pay-per-use; the calculator warns when your estimate is above it.

### Can I limit what I spend?

Yes. X bills from prepaid credits and lets you set an optional spending limit, so a busy month cannot use up more than you planned.

### Does this calculator call the X API?

No. It runs in your browser with the prices from X's pricing page; nothing is sent to X. The same calculation is available on the free PostBoost API and MCP server.

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- [How to Turn a Blog Post into an X Thread People Finish](https://postboost.co/learn/blog-post-to-x-thread): Turn a blog post into an X thread: pick one idea, split by meaning, number it, put the link last, then schedule it. Free thread maker and in-app steps.
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Last verified: 2026-10-15

## Sources

- [X, X API pricing (pay-per-use; checked 2026-10-15 and 2026-10-16)](https://docs.x.com/x-api/getting-started/pricing)

Canonical: https://postboost.co/tools/x-api-cost-calculator