How this calculator works
The official X API side multiplies each monthly volume by the public pay-per-use rate card in effect after the April 20, 2026 update. Read operations bill per resource returned, so every post, profile, or follower in a response is a separate charge. The full rate history is covered in the Twitter API pricing breakdown.
The Sorsa side converts the same volumes into API requests using documented page sizes: up to 20 tweets, 100 profiles in a batch, or 200 followers per request. One request costs one unit from a monthly plan quota, regardless of endpoint. The calculator then picks the smallest plan that covers the total.
Owned reads, DM events, media reads, analytics reads, and all write actions are excluded. Sorsa is a read only API for public X data, so those categories have no Sorsa equivalent. Actual official API bills can also differ slightly due to X's 24 hour deduplication rule.
Per resource vs per request: why the bills differ
The two providers meter fundamentally different units. One search call on the official X API returns about 20 posts and bills 20 post reads at $0.005 each, or $0.10. Request the author profiles and the same call adds 20 user reads at $0.010 each, another $0.20. The identical call on Sorsa API is one request from a monthly quota, with every author profile included.
Per resource billing also compounds through batching. Fetching 100 tweets with authors through official endpoints costs $1.50. The same 100 tweets through a single batch request cost a fraction of a cent on any Sorsa plan. Depending on the workload mix, flat per request billing works out up to 50x cheaper than official per resource rates. The structural reasons behind the gap are covered in why the Twitter API is so expensive.
Sorsa rates per 1,000 items
Sorsa pricing starts from $0.02 per 1,000 tweets and from $0.01 per 1,000 profiles when batch and list endpoints are used. Effective per item rates by plan:
| Data type | Items per request | Starter | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tweets (batch endpoint) | up to 100 | $0.05 per 1,000 | $0.02 per 1,000 | $0.018 per 1,000 |
| Profiles (follower lists) | up to 200 | $0.025 per 1,000 | $0.01 per 1,000 | $0.009 per 1,000 |
Plans: Starter is $49 for 10,000 requests, Pro is $199 for 100,000, Enterprise is $899 for 500,000. Every plan runs at 20 requests per second and includes all 40 endpoints. Picking batch endpoints over single lookups is the main cost lever; the patterns are documented in optimizing API usage.
Example workloads at official rates
| Workload | Official X API | Sorsa plan |
|---|---|---|
| Competitor tracking: 10 rivals, 20,000 posts plus authors and 50,000 follower reads per month | $800 / mo | Starter, $49 per month — 16x less |
| Research dataset: 500,000 posts plus authors | $7,500 | Pro, $199 per month — 38x less |
| Real-time brand monitoring: 24/7 polling, about 1.73M posts plus authors per month | $25,950, near the 2M read cap | Pro, $199 per month — 130x less |
At full plan volume the gap widens: Starter saves about $950 per month against equivalent official API reads, Pro about $9,800, and Enterprise about $49,000. Teams moving an existing integration can follow the migration guide.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the Twitter API cost in 2026?
The official X API uses pay-per-use billing. Reading a post costs $0.005 per post, reading a user profile or follower costs $0.010 per profile, and prices apply to every resource returned in a response. There are no subscriptions and no free credits, and post reads are capped at 2 million per month. A workload of 100,000 post reads costs $500 per month at official rates before author profiles are counted.
How does X API pay-per-use billing work?
Credits are purchased upfront in the X Developer Console and deducted in real time. Read endpoints bill per resource fetched, so a single search call that returns 20 posts is billed as 20 separate post reads. Author profiles embedded in responses are billed separately as user reads. Write actions such as posting bill per request.
How accurate is this calculator?
The official X API side uses the per resource rates in effect after the April 20, 2026 pricing update. The Sorsa side converts each volume into API requests using documented page sizes: up to 20 tweets, 100 profiles, or 200 followers per request. Actual bills can differ slightly due to X's 24 hour deduplication rule and how a specific workload paginates.
What is the 2 million post read cap?
X's pay-per-use plan blocks post read endpoints once an account fetches 2 million posts in a month. Going beyond the cap requires an Enterprise contract negotiated with X sales, historically starting around $42,000 per month. Sorsa plans cover up to 500,000 requests per month, which equals millions of tweets, and custom plans go higher.
Why do author profiles make the official X API more expensive?
Every tweet returned by the official API belongs to an author, and requesting author data adds a $0.010 user read per post on top of the $0.005 post read. That triples the cost of a typical monitoring workload. Sorsa includes the full author profile in every tweet response at no extra charge.
Does the calculator include posting or DM costs?
No. Sorsa is a read only API for public X data, so write actions such as posting, liking, following, and direct messages are out of scope. The official X API bills those separately, at $0.015 per standard post and $0.20 per post containing a URL.
Is there a free way to test a Twitter API before paying?
The official X API has no free allowance, and credits must be purchased before the first call. Sorsa includes 100 free requests for every new account. No card is required, the requests never expire, and they work on all 40 endpoints.
Run the same workload on 100 free requests
Every new Sorsa account includes 100 free requests. No card, no expiry, valid on all 40 endpoints. Test the exact calls behind this estimate, then pick a plan when the numbers make sense.