Glossary
Plain-language definitions of 20 X/Twitter Data API terms used across XCROP.
Core Concepts
- X/Twitter Data API
- A programmatic interface for reading and writing X (formerly Twitter) data (user profiles, tweets, followers, search, and trending topics) without using the X website or app. XCROP is one such API, offering 39 endpoints over REST.
- KOL (Key Opinion Leader)
- An influential account in a niche (often crypto/DeFi on X) whose posts and engagement are tracked for market or sentiment signals. XCROP surfaces KOL activity through its user and tweet endpoints.
- Endpoint
- A single API URL plus HTTP method (e.g. GET /v2/users/:username) that performs one specific action, such as fetching a profile or posting a tweet. XCROP exposes 39 endpoints across read, write, and interaction-check categories.
- Engagement metrics
- Counts attached to a tweet or profile (likes, retweets, replies, quotes, views, and follower counts) that measure audience reaction. XCROP returns these fields on every tweet and user object.
Pricing & Usage
- Credit
- XCROP's usage unit: every API call is billed in credits based on data type, e.g. 15 credits per tweet result, 18 per profile, 1 per follower, 50 per interaction check, and 100 per write action. Minimum charge is 10 credits per call.
- Rate limit
- The number of requests per minute your plan allows: 60 for Starter, 300 for Basic, 600 for Pro, and 300 for Pay as You Go. Exceeding it returns a 429 response with a retry-after header.
- Top-up credits
- Extra credits purchased on demand (Pay as You Go packs, from $2.9) that never expire and are consumed after a plan's monthly credit allowance runs out.
- API key
- A secret token (prefixed xc_live_...) issued from the XCROP dashboard that identifies your account and plan on every API call. It's sent as a Bearer token and should never be exposed in client-side code.
- Bearer token
- The standard HTTP Authorization header format (Authorization: Bearer <API key>) used to authenticate every XCROP API request.
Reading Data
- Read API
- The set of XCROP endpoints that fetch data from X (user profiles, tweets, followers, search results, trending topics, and more) without modifying anything on the connected account. XCROP's 23 read endpoints make up most of the catalog.
- Cursor pagination
- XCROP's pagination method for large result sets: each response includes a next_cursor value in its meta object, which you pass as a query parameter to fetch the next page. Continue until next_cursor is null.
- Follower ID
- The numeric X user ID of an account that follows a given profile, returned by XCROP's follower-listing endpoints. IDs are cheaper to fetch than full profiles (1 credit per result) and can be resolved to full profiles later via batch lookup.
- Blue-verified follower
- A follower whose account holds an X Premium (blue checkmark) subscription. XCROP's blue-verified-followers endpoint filters a follower list down to just this subset, useful for gauging an audience's paid-subscriber share.
- Trending topics
- The list of currently popular hashtags, phrases, and subjects on X for a given country, returned by the trending endpoint. Results are cached briefly (5-30 seconds) for performance.
- Quote tweet
- A tweet that embeds and comments on another tweet, as distinct from a plain retweet (no added commentary) or a reply. XCROP returns quote tweets as a distinct engagement type and can verify whether a user has quoted a specific tweet.
- Conversation thread
- A tweet and its chain of replies, grouped by a shared conversation ID. XCROP tweet-detail endpoints can return the surrounding thread context alongside the target tweet.
Writing & Verification
- Write API
- The set of 10 XCROP endpoints that perform actions on a connected X account: post a tweet, reply, quote, like/unlike, retweet/unretweet, and follow/unfollow. Requires connecting an X account first via the Account Connect flow.
- Interaction Check
- XCROP endpoints that verify whether a specific user has retweeted, replied to, or quoted a given tweet, commonly used to gate airdrop and giveaway rewards behind a social-engagement requirement. Each check costs 50 credits.
- Airdrop verification
- The practice of confirming a user completed a required social action (follow, retweet, reply) before releasing a token or reward. XCROP's Interaction Check and follow-relationship endpoints are built for this use case.
- Batch endpoint
- An XCROP endpoint that accepts multiple usernames, tweet IDs, or other identifiers in a single request (up to 100) instead of one call per item, reducing round trips and rate-limit consumption for bulk lookups.