This Week in Developer Pricing

X/Twitter API eliminated free tier in February 2026, replacing it with a pay-per-use credit model. Active free-tier users receive a $0 voucher. 'For-good' utility apps remain free. Basic fixed tier remains at $200/month

Project pause policy tightened — inactive projects now pause after 1 week

Startup program revamped to 4 tiers with up to $250,000 in credits (previously lower). Tiers: Bootstrapped $5K, Up-and-Coming $25K, Seed-Funded $100K, High Growth $250K. Credits expire within 1 year

Free access ended after 10+ years. Annual fee of $1,400/year started January 31. Per-call fees begin April 30: $0.40 per 1,000 GET calls above tier allowance. Tiered model: Basic (2.5M free GET calls/month), Pro ($1K/mo, 25M calls), Plus ($10K/mo, 250M calls), Enterprise (custom). Private apps (sellers/vendors using SP-API for own business) are exempt.

Managed Payments (Merchant of Record) service entering general availability — Stripe handles tax, billing, fraud, and disputes

Premium request model introduced across all tiers. Free: 50/mo, Pro: 300, Pro+: 1,500, Business: 300/user, Enterprise: 1,000/user. Overage at $0.04/request. Advanced reasoning models consume 5x-20x per interaction

Google Developer Program Premium merged into Google One AI Pro ($19.99/mo, includes $10 Cloud credits) and AI Ultra ($100 Cloud credits). Developer benefits now bundled into consumer AI subscriptions

New Pro projects now default to Turbo build machines (30 vCPUs, 60GB memory) at $0.126/minute — 9x more expensive than Standard machines ($0.014/min). Pro plan still $20/seat/month with $20 usage credit, but real-world build costs for moderate teams can hit $400+/month. Standard machines still available but must be manually selected.