Twitter points out that as it stands, they offer free APIs and enterprise APIs, but apparently “this left a gap that made it painful for growing businesses to deliver scalable solutions to customers,” which is why the company has introduced these new premium APIs. According to Twitter, “They include a clear upgrade path that scales access and price to fit your needs. We’ve built these new products to enable innovation — whether you’re just getting started and building a proof of concept, or are an established company experimenting with new products and ideas.”
Some of these premium APIs include the ability to allow apps and websites to request more tweets and make more complex requests, but it will also allow them to comb through the last 30 days worth of Twitter data, with plans to eventually allow users to go through Twitter’s data history.
As for the cost, it will depend on how many requests they plan or need to make, but access to the higher tiers are expected to cost $149 a month, which admittedly is relatively affordable and not completely out of reach.