Elon Musk's social network X has made significant changes to its API pricing and limits, introducing annual plans with discounted rates to attract more developers. The company has raised the prices of its basic API tier from $100 to $200, while introducing higher limits and new endpoints for this subscription plan.

The basic tier will now offer 15,000 reads, up from 10,000, and include new endpoints such as reposts_of_me and communities search. However, the API comparison page and plan purchase page still show the old limits, which may be an error.

In a surprise move, X has also introduced an experimental read API for the free tier, but with reduced post limits from 1,500 to 500, and a read API limit of 100 requests. The company has also limited developers to only two top-ups per month for both basic and pro tiers.

The introduction of annual plans is a significant development, with the Basic annual plan costing $2,100 and the Pro annual plan costing $54,000. This move is likely to attract more developers to the platform, especially those who require higher limits and more features.

The changes are likely to have a significant impact on the developer community, and it remains to be seen how they will respond to these updates. As X continues to evolve, these changes may be a sign of things to come for the social network.