Social Media Scraping Twitter (X)

Don't Want to Pay Outrageous Twitter (X) API Fees in 2025? Here Are Your Options for Scraping Twitter

@adrian_horning_
3 mins read
Image with Text Twitter API Fees in 2025?

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If you're building anything that relies on Twitter (X) data, you've probably come face to face with their API pricing. In 2025, it’s downright brutal. $100/month gets you just 15,000 tweets, and $5,000/month caps you at 1 million tweets. Enterprise pricing? Don’t even ask.

So what do you do if you’re not a Fortune 500 company but still need Twitter data?

Here are the best options in 2025:

Option 1: Scraping Behind the Login (Powerful but Risky)

This is where all the good stuff lives: full user timelines, Twitter Search, replies, and more.

But here's the deal: scraping behind the login is against X's terms of service. It's risky. Tools that do this could be shut down overnight, just like SocialData.tools was recently.

Still, there’s one standout:

Old Bird V2 on RapidAPI

Old Bird v2 is a third-party API that mimics the old Twitter API and scrapes behind the login.

Pros:

  • Read access to user timelines, tweet search, tweet metadata
  • Way cheaper than Twitter/X’s official API
  • Been around for years and still working as of 2025

Pricing (as of July 2025):

  • Pro: $24.99/month → 100k tweets
  • Ultra: $69.99/month → 300k tweets
  • Mega: $179.99/month → 1M tweets

Cons:

  • It scrapes behind the login — which means it could disappear anytime
  • No write/post access (read-only)

Verdict: If you want full-featured access at a reasonable price and can accept the risk, Old Bird is your best option today.

🌐 Option 2: Scraping Only Public Twitter Data (Compliant but Limited)

Want to stay fully compliant and not worry about takedowns? Then stick to scraping only public data, the kind you can see when not logged in.

BUT:

  • You can’t access search
  • You can’t see replies
  • A user’s profile only shows their top ~100 tweets, not their most recent

Test it yourself: open a profile in an incognito browser and you’ll see what we mean.

If you're okay with those limits, I’ve made it super easy with my own tool: Scrape Creators. We only scrape public data, so it’s stable and safe.

Here’s an example of how easy it is to get someone's public profile:

GET https://api.scrapecreators.com/v1/twitter/profile?handle=elonmusk

Bonus Trick: Get Recent Tweets via Google

Google’s search results often show a user’s most recent tweets.

Search for:

twitter austen allred

This will show a block of tweets in the results. Weirdly, if you search for:

austen allred twitter

…it won’t work. 🤷‍♂️

So the query is a little finicky.

If you want to automate this, I’ve got a Google Search scraper you can use. I’d just need to tweak it to extract tweets from the result block. Email me if you want help with that: adrian@thewebscrapingguy.com

Final Thoughts

There’s no perfect solution to scraping Twitter in 2025, but there are smart options.

  • Want full power? Use Old Bird.
  • Want safety? Use Scrape Creators.
  • Want the most recent tweets? Hack Google or use Old Bird

As long as you stay out of the login wall, you’re golden. But if you go behind it, don’t be surprised if your API provider disappears overnight.

To try Scrape Creators for free sign up here: https://app.scrapecreators.com/

Frequently Asked Questions

It depends. Scraping public data (the kind you can see without logging in) is safe and legal. Scraping behind the login violates Twitter's terms and can get the service that does it shut down.
The Old Bird V2 API on RapidAPI offers up to 1,000,000 tweets/month for just $179.99, far cheaper than the official X Pro plan at $5,000/month.
If an API scrapes behind the login (like user timelines or search results that require login), it risks being shut down. Public only APIs (like Scrape Creators) are more stable.
Twitter only shows a user’s top ~100 tweets to the public. For full access, you need a backend method, like Old Bird, or a creative hack using Google Search.
Only with APIs that access behind the login. Scrape Creators doesn’t offer search due to compliance, but Google search can sometimes reveal recent tweets with clever queries.
Scrape Creators is a tool that offers public data scraping for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, compliant, reliable, and API first.

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