Developers of Reddit apps express concern over API pricing changes

Developers of third party Reddit apps are expressing their concerns due to the upcoming changes to the company’s API pricing.

While Reddit hasn’t disclosed how much it will charge developers for its API yet, popular Reddit client Apollo’s developer Christian Selig announced in a post on the platform this Wednesday that he had a call with Reddit to discuss the pricing, and that he is ‘’deeply disappointed’’ in it. 

‘’I’ll cut to the chase: 50 million requests costs $12,000, a figure far more than I ever could have imagined,’’ Selig said. “Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million US dollars per year,” he added. 

The same day, developer of Narwhal, an iOS app for Reddit, said that he had a call with the same pricing. ‘’Unfortunately, it looks like narwhal will be dead in 30 days because it would cost me 1-2 million a year which I obviously do not have,’’ he said.

In addition, the developer of the Reddit is Fun app also shared a post on the platform saying that the changes will ‘’will likely kill RIF and other apps, on July 1, 2023’’.

Other Reddit clients that have voiced their concerns regarding the pricing include Relay for Reddit and Infinity for Reddit. 

Following the backlash, a spokesperson for Reddit said in a statement that ‘’this is absolutely not aimed at ‘killing’ any third-party apps’’. 

‘’We have been in contact with third-party apps and developers, including Apollo, over the course of the last six weeks following our initial announcement about API changes, and our stance on third-party apps has not changed,’’ the spokesperson said. ‘’We’re committed to fostering a safe and responsible developer ecosystem around Reddit — developers and third-party apps can make Reddit better and do so in a sustainable and mutually-beneficial partnership, while also keeping our users and data safe.’’

Reddit’s move comes months after Elon Musk-owned Twitter also replaced its free API with a paid monthly plan this February, right after banning all third party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific. After garnering criticism, Musk said that they would offer a limited, free API to bots ‘providing good content’.

Twitter clients also expressed their disappointment with the social media company’s move, and some of them shifted their focus on Twitter alternatives. Tweetbot-maker Tapbots, for example, launched its Tweetbot-maker Tapbots Ivory app for Mastodon.