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Reddit may force Apollo and third-party clients to shut down, asking for $20M per year API fee

Following Twitter’s move to shut down third-party apps earlier this year, it looks like Reddit may be the next platform to kill off (or drastically reduce) popular third-party clients. In a new Reddit thread, Apollo developer Christian Selig has shared details about what Reddit is saying it will cost to use the updated API.

Apollo has become one of the most feature-rich and popular Reddit clients over the past years. But now its future may be in trouble. Indie dev Christian Selig shared the details of what he’s up against on Reddit after multiple phone calls with the platform regarding the cost of its updated API.

After reassuring Christian that the new API pricing would be “reasonable and based in reality” and that Reddit “would not operate like Twitter,” it sounds like the company is doing a 180 or has very different ideas about what “reasonable” and “based in reality” mean.

Reddit told Christian the new cost would be $12,000 per 50 million requests. Since Apollo does about 7 billion requests per month, that comes out to ~$1.7 million per month or $20 million per year for Apollo’s API access.

Christian notes that “Even if I only keep subscription users” those numbers would necessitate double the subscription cost of Apollo just to break even, let alone earn any income.

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. Even if I only kept subscription users, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which would cost $2.50 per month, which is over double what the subscription currently costs, so I’d be in the red every month.

For some context, he shared 50 million API calls with Imgur is $166 – compared to $12,000 for Reddit and $42,000 for Twitter.

I’m deeply disappointed in this price. Reddit iterated that the price would be A) reasonable and based in reality, and B) they would not operate like Twitter. Twitter’s pricing was publicly ridiculed for its obscene price of $42,000 for 50 million tweets. Reddit’s is still $12,000. For reference, I pay Imgur, a site similar to Reddit in userbase and media, $166 for the same 50 million API calls.

Digging into more details, Christian estimates that with this change, Reddit is set to charge third-party devs about 20x higher cost for API calls than what native users like cost Reddit.

Christian closes his open letter by saying:

While Reddit has been communicative and civil throughout this process with half a dozen phone calls back and forth that I thought went really well, I don’t see how this pricing is anything based in reality or remotely reasonable. I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have that kind of money or would even know how to charge it to a credit card.

Christian highlights he isn’t giving up on Apollo at this point, but that the situation will “require some thinking.” Hopefully, there’s a path to a solution, but for the moment, Reddit has said it is not flexible on the API pricing.

9to5Mac’s Take

Top comment by Chris

Liked by 12 people

Yeah if Apollo goes, I go with it. And I'm not interested in paying more. I spend too much time on Reddit these days anyway.

View all comments

This is a bummer to hear about. I understand platforms need to make decisions around profitability but moves like this feel shortsighted – hurting both avid users and the developers of wonderful and innovative third-party apps.

Just this week, a former Twitter executive shared that third-party apps for the platform accounted for 17% of all engagement.

Fascinatingly, and sadly, my buddy and colleague Zac Hall reminded me that the official Reddit app itself came from an acquisition of the popular third-party Reddit client Alien Blue.

Time will tell if Reddit has a change of heart and decides to work with third-party developers instead of squeezing them out. Or if Christian and others can figure out a way to make the new API costs work without raising prices too high for users.

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Avatar for Michael Potuck Michael Potuck

Michael is an editor for 9to5Mac. Since joining in 2016 he has written more than 3,000 articles including breaking news, reviews, and detailed comparisons and tutorials.