X API pricing 2026 (pay-per-use): how an AI agent reads and posts on X without it

Overview

You want an agent that posts for you on X, or that follows a few accounts and tells you what they said. The first answer you find is the X API, and the first thing you learn is that it is no longer free.

What the X API costs in 2026

The X API is pay-per-usage: you buy credits in the Developer Console before your first call, and every request is billed against them. These are the rates X's documentation gives on September 29, 2026:

What that means for a small agent, in a 30-day month:

• It follows 10 accounts and reads 10 new posts from each every day: 3,000 post reads, $15.
• It posts 3 times a day, each with a link to your site: 90 posts, $18.
• It answers 20 mentions a day: 600 mentions read and 600 replies, $12.

The prices are not high for a company. They are one more account, one more key, one more balance to keep above zero, and a bill for an agent you only wanted to try.

Why the free workarounds break

Most of what you find instead reads X without your account: scraper APIs, scraper actors, libraries that run on accounts you add to them. They can read public posts, but they cannot read your mentions or DMs, and they cannot post as you. Tools that post for you mostly go back through the API.

How Reduck does it

Reduck's X scripts run in your own Chrome, where you are already signed in to X. Your agent reads any account's posts, searches with every X search operator, reads your mentions, and posts, replies, threads and schedules, as you. There is no developer app, no API key and no credit balance. Each script answers structured data: ids, links, dates, text and counts.

What your agent does

1. Reads what matters: get_user_posts for the accounts you follow, search_tweets for a topic, get_mentions for what people said to you.
2. Drafts the post, the thread or the replies, and shows you the exact text.
3. Posts with post_tweet, post_thread or reply_to_tweet, or schedules with schedule_tweet, and gives you the link of each post.

X API or Reduck

Who it's for

• Founders and creators who want an agent to post and reply on X for them
• Marketers who follow competitors and industry accounts on X
• Developers who want to try an X agent before they pay for the API