All questionsX (Twitter)

Is the X (Twitter) API free to read posts?

No. The free tier of the X API is write-only. Reading posts, profiles, or search needs a paid tier, billed monthly, with a cap on how many posts you may pull. Go over the cap and you wait for next month or buy the next tier.

For public data you can skip the plan. Openhandle reads public X posts, profiles, followers, and search for $0.0025 per request, billed after use, with 100 free requests to start.

Checked September 2026 · request and response run against the API · no affiliate links

Get started for $0 Quickstart

GET /v1/twitter/profiles/@username/posts

curl "https://api.openhandle.dev/v1/twitter/profiles/@copperfield_lab_x_test/posts" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENHANDLE_API_KEY"

TypeScript SDK

import { OpenHandle } from '@openhandle/sdk';

const openhandle = new OpenHandle({ apiKey: process.env.OPENHANDLE_API_KEY! });
const page = await openhandle.twitter.profile('copperfield_lab_x_test').posts.list();

for (const post of page.data) console.log(post.createdAt, post.text);

200 OK

{
  "platform": "twitter",
  "resource": "post",
  "capturedAt": "2026-09-18T10:52:48Z",
  "source": "live",
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "940100000000000001",
      "text": "A deterministic text post from a fictional lab. #synthetic",
      "createdAt": "2026-08-09T15:30:00Z",
      "metrics": { "likes": 42, "reposts": 3, "comments": 3, "quotes": 0, "views": null }
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "cursors": { "next": "b3BhcXVlLWN1cnNvcg" } }
}

Trimmed to one post and the fields this question needs. The example is a Test account, so you can run it on a free Test key.

How the X API bills

—Free. Post only. No read endpoints. Meant for bots that write.
—Paid tiers. A monthly fee with a fixed monthly post cap. The tiers jump by an order of magnitude in price. Unused cap is lost at month end.
—Approval. A developer account, an app, and terms that restrict what you may store and show.

Check the X developer pricing page for current tiers. They change often. We do not quote their numbers here so this page never goes stale.

How Openhandle bills

—Per request. $0.0025 per live request, lower at volume. A 24-hour cache hit costs less. A 30-day cache hit is free.
—After use. No plan to pick. No cap to plan around. Set a spend limit per key and per month if you want a hard stop.
—Failed requests are free. You pay only when the API returns an answer. Provider errors and our errors are never billed.

What you get for it

Public profiles, posts, replies, media, followers, following, lists, and search. Every X answer uses the same envelope as Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit. Views are the number X shows, or null when X hides it. Protected accounts return PROFILE_PRIVATE.

When this does not work

These answers are definitive. Store them, do not retry them.

Situation	Status	Code
The account is protected	403	PROFILE_PRIVATE
The account is suspended, deleted, or never existed	404	PROFILE_NOT_FOUND
The identifier is malformed	400	INVALID_IDENTIFIER

403 Forbidden

{
  "error": {
    "code": "PROFILE_PRIVATE",
    "message": "This profile is private.",
    "requestId": "req_01j8…",
    "retryable": false
  }
}

Openhandle is read-only. It never posts, likes, reposts, or follows. If you need to write to X, the official API is the only path.

More X (Twitter) questions

X (Twitter)How do I search X (Twitter) posts by keyword?Call the search endpoint with a query. Latest or top posts come back one page at a time with author, text, and metrics. No monthly X API plan.Read the answer X (Twitter)How do I get replies or a full thread on X (Twitter)?Call the post comments endpoint with the post ID. Replies come back one page at a time with author, text, and metrics. Nested replies have their own endpoint. Cursors keep working.Read the answer X (Twitter)How do I get all posts from an X user past 3,200?The 3,200 cap belongs to the official X timeline endpoint. Openhandle pages a public profile as far as X shows it to a visitor, and search reaches older posts by query. Neither is a full archive.Read the answer

Send your agent ahead.

Paste the prompt into your agent and it sets everything up. Or come yourself, it takes five minutes.

For agents

Get started for $0 Read the quickstart