How to Scrape Twitter/X Without an API Key in Python (2026 Guide)

Twitter's official API now costs $200/month minimum just to read tweets (source). The free tier is write-only — you can post, but you can't search, pull timelines, or read anything except your own profile (source). Here's the alternative: use your browser cookies to call the same GraphQL API that twitter.com uses internally. No API key. No developer account. No approval process. If you're in a hurry, this is all it takes: pip install scweet from Scweet import Scweet s = Scweet(auth_token="your_auth_token", proxy="http://user:pass@host:port") tweets = s.search("python programming", since="2025-01-01", limit=100) print(f"Got {len(tweets)} tweets") print(tweets[0]) Why Not the Official API? X restructured its API pricing in February 2023, then raised prices again in October 2024. Here's what it looks like now: Tier Price What you get Free $0 Write-only. 500 posts/month. No search. No read access. Only endpoint: GET /2/users/me Basic $200/month 15,000 read requests/month. 7 days of search