Reddit's new API charging policy could kill off third-party clients like Apollo

Third-party developers are facing a major challenge as Reddit introduces a new API charging policy that could ultimately kill off third-party clients. This move comes months after Twitter made a similar move, which resulted in the shutdown of third-party apps. In a Reddit thread, Apollo developer, Christian, claimed that keeping his third-party Reddit client could cost him up to $20 million per year.

According to Christian, Reddit is charging $12,000 for 50 million requests to its API, which is “a figure far more than I ever could have imagined.” As a reminder, Twitter's pricing was publicly ridiculed for its obscene price of $42,000 for 50 million tweets, but Reddit's not that far with its $12,000 for the same amount of requests.

Christian compared the pricing to Imgur, a site similar to Reddit in user base and media, which charges $166 for the same 50 million API calls. As of now, Christian has no plans to shut down Apollo, but it remains to be seen how this will affect other third-party Reddit clients like Infinity for Reddit+, Slide for Reddit, or Boost for reddit.

This move by Reddit has sparked concern among third-party developers who rely on the platform's API to develop their apps. With the high prices, many developers may be forced to shut down their apps, which could ultimately harm the user experience on the platform.