Third-Party App Apollo and Others Shut Down Due to Reddit’s Updated API Pricing

TechCrunch reports that Apollo, a popular third-party app for Reddit, will be shutting down on June 30, 2023 due to Reddit’s recent API pricing changes. The new pricing plans would require Apollo to pay $20 million annually, which is an impossible cost for an independent developer. Christian Selig, the creator of Apollo, was one of the first to raise concerns about the impact of Reddit’s new API pricing on third-party apps. Even if Apollo were to switch to a subscription-based model, it would still be unable to sustain itself under the new guidelines. The app’s user community has expressed their discontent with Reddit’s decision, prompting a site-wide protest with several major Reddit communities planning to go dark.

Reddit initially revealed its plan to review API pricing to The New York Times, framing it as a measure to prevent companies from freely using Reddit’s vast online forum as a resource to train their AI systems. Although Reddit has claimed that the changes are not meant to remove third-party apps.

After talking to Reddit, Selig decided that using the app would be financially unsustainable.

“Simply put, 50 million requests would cost $12,000, which is way more than I could have imagined,” Selig said on the Apollo app subreddit last week. “Apollo had 7 billion requests last month, which would be about $1.7 million per month or $20 million per year. I am deeply disappointed with this pricing, as Reddit had promised it would be fair and not the Remind Twitter model.”

Under Elon Musk’s new ownership, Twitter’s rising API prices led to the destruction of numerous smaller projects, startups, helpful bots, and third-party clients. Even scientists and researchers were affected, leading to harsh criticism of Twitter for prioritizing greed over its developer community.

The Reddit community is now witnessing a similar trend on their platform, which has sparked anger and frustration. In protest of these changes, several subreddits are organizing a blackout on June 12. Together, these communities have millions of subscribers and a total of 2,740 subreddits, covering over 1.31 billion users.

Today, Selig announced the permanent shutdown of Apollo as the app no longer has a viable future under Reddit’s new pricing structure.