Reddit follows in Twitter’s footsteps and restricts third-party apps

Roughly four months after Twitter announced plans to begin charging app developers a staggering amount to access its data, Reddit seems to be following along the same path.

The site has announced plans to begin enforcing data-rate limits on the free access tier of its application programming interface (API), a tool that powers popular third-party services like NARWHL, Apollo, and Infinity, which give users an alternate way to browse Reddit’s forums.

While the site first announced changes to its API policy in April, the ramifications of the stricter enforcement are starting to become more clear. And, just as many Twitter-centric third-party apps were forced to either shut down or enact monthly charges, many Reddit-focused ones could find themselves in the same position.

Apollo’s founder posted on Reddit that in order to keep that app running as is, it would have to pay Reddit $20 million per year. The calculation was an estimate based on pricing he says Reddit shared with him.

“Apollo made 7 billion requests last month, which would put it at about 1.7 million dollars per month, or 20 million U.S. dollars per year,” wrote Christian Selig, creator of Apollo. “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. This is going to require some thinking.”

Even if Apollo limited usage to subscription users, the cost to the app would be double the current rate, putting it “in the red each month,” Selig wrote. Reddit has told him, he added, that there is no flexibility of the pricing. 

A developer for RIF, another third-party reader, said the changes to the API policy “will likely kill” his app and others.

“Honestly, if I were a user of RIF and not the dev, I’d have a hard time justifying paying the high prices being forced by Reddit Inc, despite how much RIF obviously means to me,” he wrote.

While there’s no fee to use the Reddit website or the Reddit app directly on the horizon, many users prefer to use third-party apps to bypass advertising and have better control over their personal information. (Reddit’s mobile app, also, has been heavily criticized for everything from its user interface to heavy ads.)

Reddit has said it is charging the fee for its API to cover the costs of an ad-free experience.

In a statement to Fast Company, Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt said that the company had been in contact with third-party apps and developers, including Apollo, over the course of six weeks following the initial announcement about API changes.

“Our stance on third-party apps has not changed,” he said, noting that the policy was intended to foster “a safe and responsible developer ecosystem” around Reddit. “Expansive access to data has impact and costs involved,” said Rathschmidt, “and in terms of safety and privacy we have an obligation to our communities to be responsible stewards of data.”

In Reddit’s post in the r/redditdev forum, it noted the charges would not impact every third-party app, but pointed out that the 10 largest apps are anywhere from 11,000% to nearly 439,000% over the daily free-query limit.

“We’ve had a long-standing policy in our past terms that outlined commercial and noncommercial use,” Rathschmidt told Fast Company, “but unfortunately some of those agreements were not adhered to, so we clarified our terms and reached out to select organizations to work with them on compliance and a paid premium access tier.”

It’s worth noting that, unlike Twitter, Reddit is not doing away with its free API feed at present—and has announced no plans to do so. But instituting a charge after letting developers do just about anything with the API feed since 2008 is a big shift.

It comes as Reddit is reportedly planning for an IPO in the second half of this year.

Reddit is the latest company to charge for access to its API, but it likely won’t be the last. Andres Guadamuz, an intellectual property law researcher at the University of Sussex, told Fast Company last month that a big shift could be on the horizon.  

“The time of the free API may be over,” he said. “The move makes sense for companies such as Reddit. In the absence of licensing agreements for training, API access is the next best thing to try to recover some money.”