X API Follow, Like, and Quote-Post Endpoints Are Gone From Self-Serve Tiers
If an auto-follow-back tool, an engagement bot, or a client-facing X automation SaaS suddenly stopped following, liking, or quote-posting on X in April 2026, this is why. X pulled those three write endpoints out of every self-serve API tier and moved them behind an Enterprise sales contract. It was announced directly by the official @XDevelopers account: posting price moved to “$0.015 per post from $0.01,” URL posts moved to “$0.20,” and “Following, Likes, and Quote-Posts via API Writes will be removed from all self-serve tiers.”
For anyone running a scheduling tool, a growth bot, or a SaaS product on top of the X API, this is not a rate-limit inconvenience — it is a permanent capability removed from the tier most builders are on.
What Actually Changed
Removed from self-serve
- Follow (write)
- Like (write)
- Quote-Post (write)
Enterprise contract required for all three, no exceptions on Basic or the pay-per-use path.
Still available self-serve
- Posting (text and URL)
- Reading posts, profiles, mentions
- Replying to a summoned mention
- Sending DMs
Enterprise-only now
- Follow / Like / Quote-Post writes
- Full-archive search
- Real-time firehose streaming
Sales-negotiated contract, not published self-serve pricing.
Current Self-Serve Write Costs
| Action | Cost per request |
|---|---|
| Post (no link) | $0.015 |
| Post with a URL | $0.20 |
| Reply to a summoned mention | $0.010 |
| Follow / Like / Quote-Post | Not available — Enterprise only |
X does not publish Enterprise pricing publicly — contracts are negotiated directly with its sales team. Independent pricing trackers covering the 2026 pay-per-use switch commonly cite Enterprise starting in the $42,000–$50,000-per-month range, but that figure comes from third-party reporting, not an official X price sheet, so treat it as a ballpark, not a quote.
Where Automation Tools Get Stuck Now
The tool still calls a follow/like endpoint
Older integrations built before April 2026 often keep calling the follow or like write endpoint directly. On self-serve credentials those calls now fail outright — not throttle, fail.
Engagement automation was the core feature
Auto-follow-back tools, like-for-like pods, and quote-repost schedulers lose their entire mechanism, not just a feature. There is no self-serve substitute endpoint to swap in.
Browser automation looks like a fix, but it is not the API
UI-level automation inside a logged-in browser session can still follow, like, and quote-post, since that path never touched the API. Teams that quietly move engagement logic there are mixing two very different compliance and reliability models under one product.
Nobody rechecked scope planning before scaling
A SaaS tool that promised “auto-engagement” to clients before April 2026 now has to either renegotiate what the product does, absorb an Enterprise contract, or redesign the feature around what is still buildable — posting, replying to mentions, and DMs.
Common Misreads of This Change
- Assuming it is a temporary rate limit. It is a tier-level endpoint removal, not a throttle that resets.
- Assuming the Pro tier still has a workaround. Pro is closed to new signups and does not restore follow, like, or quote-post either — only Enterprise does.
- Assuming browser automation is a like-for-like replacement. It runs under X’s UI-level limits and terms, not the API contract a product may already be built around.
- Assuming the fix is “just add credits.” Pay-per-use credits cover posting, reading, replies, and DMs — they do not unlock follow, like, or quote-post at any spend level below an Enterprise contract.
Deciding whether a product needs to redesign around what is still buildable, or whether the volume genuinely justifies an Enterprise conversation, depends on the specific integration — not a generic rule. That is the kind of architecture and API-setup review that falls under X (Twitter) API setup and support work: auditing what an existing integration actually calls, mapping it against the current self-serve surface, and planning the next step before more engineering time goes into a workaround that will not hold up.
Related reading: X API Developer Account Approval & Pay-Per-Use Pricing, X API 429 Errors: Rate Limits vs Usage Caps, and X API Scopes vs App Permissions.