Apollo It has emerged as one of the most in-demand and feature-packed clients for Reddit in recent years. But, your future may be at risk now. Christian Selig, the developer behind this app, openly shared the challenges he faced on Reddit after having several conversations with platform representatives about the cost of the updated API.

As announced two months ago, Reddit will require payment to promote APIs to third-party developers. Reddit told Seling this the new cost will be $12,000 for every 50 million requests. Since Apollo made about 7 billion requests on the moon, which equates to $1.7 million a month or $20 million a year For access to the Apollo API. Seling’s response was clear: “I don’t have that much money.”

Reddit sets a high price for its API

Although Reddit initially assured that the pricing of the new API would be “reasonable and factual” and “not work like Twitter” limiting Reddit’s API to third parties, the company changed its mind. According to the Apollo developer, users who maintain subscriptions will need twice the cost of Apollo’s subscription to break even, let alone generate revenue.

Currently, the average Apollo user uses 344 requests per day, which costs $2.50 per month, more than double the current subscription cost, or something Selig can’t afford. The Apollo Pro has a one-time fee of $4.99 that unlocks additional features, while the Apollo Ultra is an even more premium tier at $12.99 per year.

I just had a conversation with Reddit about the API and the new pricing. Bad news (no joke) if I don’t get $20 million. Appreciate the supports.https://t.co/FliuNCinpZ

—Christian Selig (@ChristianSelig) 31 May 2023

This price disappointed me deeply. Reddit reiterated that the price will A) be reasonable and fact-based, and B) not work like Twitter. Twitter’s pricing has been publicly ridiculed for its obscene price of $42,000 for 50 million tweets. Reddit is still $12,000. For reference, I pay $166 for the same 50 million API calls to Imgur, a site similar to Reddit in user and media base.

According to his post, Christian estimates that with this change, Reddit will charge third-party developers 20 times more for API calls than it costs local Reddit users.

After several phone calls about it, Seling claims Reddit hasn’t changed its decisionso all that remains is to find a way so that the costs of the new API do not affect users, or say goodbye to the popular forum site where Apollo always delivers interesting news.