Twitter announced today that it will be cutting free access to its Twitter API v2 and v1.1. on February 9. The company plans to introduce a “paid basic tier” instead, and more details will be announced next week.

“Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion tweets, with billions more every week. Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us,” the company announced in a series of tweets today.

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead 🧵

— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) February 2, 2023

Twitter recently made headlines after it changed the terms of its Twitter API to ban third-party clients. As the company is trying to increase Twitter engagement and ad revenue, the company is trying to redirect users to its own apps, and monetizing access to its API is pretty much the continuation of that.

As of today, the Twitter API allows developers to access data from tweets, direct messages, users, and more. The highest access level for the Twitter API v2, Academic Research, allows researchers to retrieve 10 million tweets per month to measure and analyze what’s happening on the platform.

It’s too early to tell how these Twitter API changes are going to affect organizations who rely on it, but we’ll know more once Twitter details how much it’s going to charge for API access. In any case, Twitter has been trying to cut costs and increase its revenue under Elon Musk’s leadership, and the company is likely going to make other changes to reach that goal. Earlier this month, Musk also said that Twitter is working on a higher-priced Twitter subscription with no ads.