If you’ve read my blog posts about Tweet Marker over the years, including this one when introducing a paid plan, you might hear a little indecision on the right path forward. I’ve run it more like a community service and less like a business, and admittedly the window for turning it into a profitable endeavor has slipped away. But I still want to make the service work well and improve it.
After vacationing this week leading up to Thanksgiving, I finally realized I need to remove the support burden of giving out free access. Starting today, Tweet Marker will transition to a paid-only service. To make this easier, I’ve introduced a less expensive $25/month plan for smaller developers. (Previously the only choice was $75/month, which is now the top tier plan with unlimited active users.)
This solves the problem of automating access to the API. Instead of having to manually fulfill API keys so that developers could try out Tweet Marker, which usually meant weeks or months of delay until I could get to it, by signing up online, developers get immediate access to the API without having to wait on me.
In the short term, this change means that new apps must subscribe before using the API. In the long run, all existing apps should also transition to a paid plan. I haven’t set a hard deadline for existing apps yet, but will work with developers over the coming months to do so.
You can learn more at tweetmarker.net/developers/.
Update: To be clear, this post is only for developers. There’s a $1/month subscription for end users but it is optional.
