Guide
X (Twitter) limits in 2026
How many posts, replies, follows and DMs can an X account send in a day, how long can a post be, and what does “rate limit exceeded” mean? Every limit from X's own Help Center and developer docs, and a counter that counts a post the way X does.
By Lempile · Updated
0 characters as X counts them.
- Post280 of 280 left
- Premium post25,000 of 25,000 left
Links count 23, emoji and Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters count 2. It runs in your browser: nothing is sent.
Every limit at a glance
| Limit | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Posts, unverified accounts | 50 original posts and 200 replies a day | X Help Center |
| Posts, older figure | 2,400 a day, still in parts of the Help Center | X Help Center |
| Direct Messages | 500 a day | X Help Center |
| Follows | 400 a day; more limits past 5,000 follows | X Help Center |
| Post length | 280 characters | X developer docs |
| Post length, X Premium | 25,000 characters | X Help Center |
| API requests | Per endpoint, per 15 minutes or 24 hours; 429 when used up | X developer docs |
Posts and replies a day
Since May 2026, X's Help Center limits an unverified account to 50 original posts and 200 replies a day, and splits the daily limit into smaller half-hour limits. For years the same page gave 2,400 posts a day; that figure still appears lower on the page and in other languages, and X doesn't say whether it still applies to verified accounts.
X counts everything an account does, from every device: the website, the app and the API. A post sent by a tool counts like one typed by hand.
Follows and Direct Messages
An account can follow 400 others a day. Once it follows 5,000, X adds limits based on how many people follow it back, and X's rules separately forbid aggressive following, whatever the numbers. Direct Messages are capped at 500 a day.
Characters: 280, or 25,000 with Premium
A post holds 280 characters, but X weighs them. Latin letters, punctuation and common symbols count 1. Emoji count 2, however they're built, and so do Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters. Every link is shortened by X's t.co and counts 23, whether it's 15 or 200 characters long. The counter above applies the same rules. X Premium subscribers can write posts of up to 25,000 characters, which everyone can read.
What “rate limit exceeded” means
It means too many requests in a short time. In X's API, each endpoint allows a number of requests per window, usually 15 minutes or 24 hours. Past it, X answers 429 with error code 88, “Rate limit exceeded”, until the window resets. Three headers tell you where you stand: x-rate-limit-limit, x-rate-limit-remaining and x-rate-limit-reset, the time the window starts again.
Creating posts, for example, allows 100 requests per 15 minutes per user and 10,000 per 24 hours per app, in X's developer docs. The account's own daily limits above apply on top. In the X app, the same message means the account or the connection sent too many requests: it clears after a wait.
How Lempile's X API stays under them
Lempile's X API (in early access) posts from each connected account at a human pace: posts, replies and Articles go out at least 45 seconds apart, 70 in 24 hours at most, and replies to people who answered the account have their own 200 a day. A request over those limits is refused before anything reaches X. On an unverified account, X's own 50 original posts a day can come first. What X's API itself costs is in X API pricing in 2026.