Scraping Twitter/X in 2026: the full guide
Since 2023, access to X's (formerly Twitter) official API has been structured into paid tiers, which has revived interest in scraping as soon as meaningful volume is involved.
X's API tiers
X organises API access into four tiers: a heavily restricted free tier, essentially write-only with no real large-scale read access; a paid entry tier, billed at several hundred dollars a month, for a read volume that remains modest for brand-monitoring needs; a mid tier at several thousand dollars a month; and a custom-quoted enterprise tier for very large-scale usage.
| Tier | Read access | Approximate monthly price |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Near-zero | Free |
| Basic | Limited volume | A few hundred $ |
| Pro | Mid-range volume | Several thousand $ |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom quote |
The most frequent use cases
- ·Brand monitoring: tracking mentions of a company or product
- ·Sentiment analysis around a topic or launch
- ·Lead extraction from replies to a given topic
- ·Tracking competitor accounts and their posting frequency
What a scraper needs to handle to stay reliable over time
- ·Session renewal without manual intervention
- ·Request pacing to avoid temporary blocks
- ·Adapting to X's changing page structure
The most requested attributes
- ·Tweet text
- ·Engagement: likes, retweets, replies
- ·Publish date
- ·Full author profile
- ·Thread context
What X's developer agreement covers
Beyond API tiers, X's developer agreement also restricts automated collection carried out outside the official API. That's a platform-specific contractual clause, separate from the general rules around collecting public data.
BrandWitness's approach
Twitter Search Results applies these reliability principles. The tool joins the Store's open catalog once enough real requests come in: tell us you need it.
- X Developer Platform — API access tier documentation (Free / Basic / Pro / Enterprise)
- X Developer Agreement and Policy — restrictions on automated collection outside the API