X API pricing in 2026, and a cheaper way to get posts

What the official API costs

X retired its free academic access in 2023. On pay-per-use, reading posts costs about $5 per 1,000 posts, and larger monthly plans run into enterprise contracts. A study or dashboard that reads 100,000 posts a month pays around $500 for the reads alone.

Vanefeed lists cost 2 credits per 20 results returned. Packs cost $0.99–$1.45 per 1,000 credits, so 1,000 posts cost about $0.10–$0.15. Prices as published in October 2026; check each vendor's page before deciding.

What you can get from X with Vanefeed

• Full profiles: followers, verification type and since when, account type, affiliates, website, join date, country.
• An account's own posts (replies and reposts optional), up to 1,000 per call, newest first.
• Search with AND / OR / NOT, exact phrases, date ranges, language, minimum likes and account filters.
• Followers and following, single posts and replies.

Try it

# an account's latest 100 posts (10 credits)
curl "https://api.vanefeed.com/v1/x/posts?handle=NASA&limit=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $VANEFEED_KEY"

# boolean search (3 credits per 20 results)
curl -G "https://api.vanefeed.com/v1/x/search" \
  --data-urlencode "q=(artemis OR moon) launch -spacex" \
  -d limit=100 -H "Authorization: Bearer $VANEFEED_KEY"

import os, requests

r = requests.get("https://api.vanefeed.com/v1/x/search",
                 params={"q": "(artemis OR moon) launch -spacex", "limit": 100},
                 headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['VANEFEED_KEY']}"})
print(r.headers["X-Credits-Cost"], "credits")
for post in r.json()["data"]:
    print(post["published_at"], post["author"]["handle"], post["text"][:80])

Good to know

• Failed calls, cached repeats and price checks (dry_run=true) cost nothing.
• When X changes its site, calls fail fast and free while we fix the parser.
• Vanefeed only returns public content, and its acceptable-use rules forbid tracking private individuals.