One of the web’s biggest social media management apps has just removed Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, from its platform.
Later, which boasts millions of users, including hundreds of big brands ranging from GoPro to the Dallas Mavericks, officially dropped support for X on its Later Social platform on Thursday.
The social media company stopped its customers from connecting new X accounts late last month as it prepared for the change. Yesterday, August 28, Later sunset its X support entirely. Later Social customers were previously able to schedule X posts, monitor conversations on X, and view their X analytics.
“Yes, we’ve deprecated support for X on Later Social,” the company said in a statement provided to Mashable. “We are focused on driving results for our customers through influencer marketing, and doubling down on the social platforms that best support that mission.”
X is the only platform that Later has removed. Later Social customers can continue to manage their accounts on supported social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat.
Mashable Light Speed
X’s API changes continue to drive companies away
The timing of Later’s removal of X comes shortly after Musk’s company began reaching out to third-party developers and other companies using its API (application programming interface) to announce yet another change to its pricing scheme.
Before Musk’s acquisition, then-Twitter offered a robust API offering free of charge to its healthy third-party developer ecosystem. Shortly after Musk’s takeover, the company changed gears and knee-capped its free offering. Many developers utilizing X’s API were forced to drop their integration with the platform or sign up for an Enterprise API subscription, with prices ranging from a whopping $42,000 to $210,000 per month. X later introduced additional fees, such as charging developers $1 for every account connected to the API through their third-party app.
Now, X is switching up its subscription model and informed existing API customers that Musk and company intend to take a cut of their revenue instead.
Mashable originally reported on the changes back in June, shortly after the popular no-code automation platform Make announced that it was dropping X integration due to “X’s revised API policies and pricing.”
The X API costs developers $42K per month. Now X wants a cut of their revenue instead.
Later now joins a growing list of companies that have removed X after Musk’s API pricing changes, which include Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.