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X makes it 1,900 percent more expensive to post links
Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech News Close News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All News Social Media Close Social Media Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Social Media X makes it 1,900 percent more expensive to post links It now costs $0.20 when a link is posted, up from $0.01, and the change has impacted a very notable account about tech. It now costs $0.20 when a link is posted, up from $0.01, and the change has impacted a very notable account about tech. by Jay Peters Close Jay Peters Senior Reporter Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Jay Peters Apr 21, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: The Verge Jay Peters Close Jay Peters Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Jay Peters is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Posting links to X through custom social media software just got a lot more expensive. On Monday, X significantly increased how much it costs to post a URL via the X API, which is what third-party tools use to hook into the platform. It now costs $0.20 when a link is posted, up from $0.01. Any change to make posting links more expensive will likely make X even less attractive to publishers than it already is, especially given the widely held suspicion that linking news articles can lower a post’s reach. The issue came up in a recent spat between Nate Silver and X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, who claimed that links are “not deboosted.” But a recent study from Nieman Lab analyzing posts from 18 large media outlets found that links “do seem to hurt news publishers” on X. The price hike is already affecting a notable X account in the tech world: the news aggregator Techmeme. Until Sunday, Techmeme’s posts on X would have short headlines summarizing news and linking to the source. But now, the link has been replaced with a message: “Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!” Naturally, this makes Techmeme’s X posts a lot less useful. Techmeme now isn’t including links in its tweets because, “The cost for posting links using X’s API increased today by 1900%,” the Techmeme X account wrote on Monday . Techmeme also pointed to the Nieman Lab study. Bier pushed back to Techmeme, saying that the issue with the cited study is that X posts need to have something that people can react to for the algorithm to “get signal” and that the accounts referenced in the study were “habitual headline+link posters with no additional content.” Bier also said, in a reply to Techmeme founder and CEO Gabe Rivera, that “I am telling you directly: there is no code that is deboosting links.” Bier offered to “pay personally for the API price bump,” for which the aim was “to reduce search spam attacks.” “I really doubt this API price hike will fix X’s spam problem long term, but hey, not my call!” Rivera tells The Verge . Rivera also pointed to other places users can find Techmeme, including its website , RSS feed, and newsletter. “And we post links to Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon,” he says. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. Jay Peters Close Jay Peters Senior Reporter Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Jay Peters News Close News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All News Social Media Close Social Media Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Social Media Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Twitter - X Close Twitter - X Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Twitter - X Most Popular Most Popular Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gets a price cut but loses new Call of Duty games Alexa is nagging you more because Amazon knows you don’t care about its new features Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa might cost up to $10 per month Framework is building a better couch keyboard because everyone hates the Logitech one The Verge Daily A free daily digest of the news that matters most. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Advertiser Content From This is the title for the native ad
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- Follow Follow See All Social Media X makes it 1,900 percent more expensive to post links It now costs $0.20 when a link is posted, up from $0.01, and the change has impacted a very notable account about tech.
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