--- title: "Twitter keyword alerts in 2026: what still works on X | Mentio" description: "X has no keyword alerts of its own, the API now bills per post read, and the free tools died with the old API. Every way left to monitor a Twitter account or a keyword, what each costs, and a five-minute setup." canonical: https://mentio.dev/blog/twitter-keyword-alerts/ markdown: https://mentio.dev/blog/twitter-keyword-alerts/index.md last-updated: 2026-09-23T16:19:37.703Z --- # Twitter keyword alerts in 2026: what still works on X | Mentio > X has no keyword alerts of its own, the API now bills per post read, and the free tools died with the old API. Every way left to monitor a Twitter account or a keyword, what each costs, and a five-minute setup. Source: https://mentio.dev/blog/twitter-keyword-alerts/ Type your product’s name into X search and you will find people asking for exactly what you sell, complaining about the tool they use instead, and comparing you with a competitor. None of those posts tag you, so X never tells you about them. Twitter keyword alerts fix that: something runs the search for you and sends the new matches to a place you already look. The problem in 2026 is that most of the old ways to get them are gone. TweetDeck is a paid product, the free email alert services died with the old API, and the API itself now bills by the post. This is what is left, what each route costs, and how to have one running in five minutes. Key takeaways - X has no keyword alerts built in. Notifications cover your handle and the accounts you follow; X Pro, the old TweetDeck, shows a saved search as a column you have to watch, behind X Premium. - The free routes died with the old API: Warble is offline, and IFTTT’s “new tweet from search” trigger now sits on its paid plan, polling every five minutes. - Building it yourself costs about $0.005 per post read on the pay-per-use X API: roughly $18 a month for a quiet keyword and $72 for a busy one, before any code. - Paid tools run from $5 a keyword a month (Mentio) to $249 a month for three keywords (Brand24); most check X hourly. - To monitor a Twitter account’s own posts, X’s bell icon is free and instant. To see what people say about it, you need a keyword alert on its name. ## Does X have keyword alerts built in? No. X’s notifications cover three things: replies to you, posts that mention your handle, and new posts from any account you switched the bell on for. That last one is the native way to monitor a Twitter account, and it works well for the account’s own posts. What X does not offer is a notification when anyone posts a word or a phrase. X Pro, which is TweetDeck renamed and moved behind an X Premium subscription, still lets you pin a search as a column and watch it update. It is a good screen. It is not an alert: nothing reaches you when you are not looking at it. The closest free trick is to bookmark an advanced search URL and open it every morning. None of that covers the post that says “anyone know a good alternative to acme?” without tagging acme, which is the post worth finding. ## Which ways to get Twitter keyword alerts still work? Every route that is alive in 2026, from a bell to a monitoring tool. Prices are from each vendor’s page on the day of writing. Route Watches Delay Cost You get X notifications your handle and bell accounts instant free push and the bell X Pro search column anything, while you watch live X Premium a column IFTTT “new tweet from search” one query per applet 5-minute polls IFTTT paid plan email, push, webhook Build on the X API anything you query as often as you poll about $0.005 per post read, plus your code whatever you build Fedica Post Alerts saved terms hourly to daily Research plan or higher an email brief Syften saved queries up to 15 minutes from $49.95 a month plus the X add-on Slack, email, webhooks Brand24 keywords near real time $249 a month for 3 keywords ($199 annual) dashboard, alerts, reports Octolens keywords hourly $159 a month on annual billing, 10 keywords Slack, email, webhooks, MCP Mentio keywords, posts and replies hourly $5 a keyword a month, $0.008 a matched post Slack, Telegram, email, webhooks, MCP The table hides one difference that matters more than the delay column: whether the tool judges the post. A raw search alert for a common name is a firehose of noise. The tools that score each match for relevance and intent are the ones you keep switched on. ## What happened to the free Twitter alert tools? They ran on the free X API, and that ended in 2023. Warble, which sent a free once-a-day email for any Twitter search, now says so on its homepage: X ended free API access to apps like it, so it can no longer function. IFTTT still has X triggers, including “new tweet from search”, but every X trigger needs a paid IFTTT plan and polls every five minutes on it. Two free routes remain, both partial. Talkwalker Alerts includes some public X posts in its free email alerts, with no promise of coverage. X’s own advanced search is genuinely good, with exact phrases, exclusions and minimum engagement, and it is entirely manual. The [free social listening tools roundup](/blog/best-free-social-listening-tools/) covers both. ## What does it cost to build Twitter keyword alerts on the X API? More than it used to, and in a different shape. Since February 2026 the X API is pay per use for new developers: credits are bought up front and deducted per request, with post reads at about $0.005 each and a cap of two million reads a month. The $200 Basic and $5,000 Pro subscriptions closed to new sign-ups, and their remaining subscribers were moved to the same model during 2026. Full-archive search is an enterprise product. Recent search, the endpoint a keyword alert uses, covers the last seven days. The request itself is small. This is a keyword search that excludes retweets and asks only for posts newer than the last one seen: ``` curl -G "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/recent" \ --data-urlencode 'query="acme" -is:retweet' \ --data-urlencode "max_results=10" \ --data-urlencode "since_id=$LAST_SEEN_ID" \ --data-urlencode "tweet.fields=created_at,author_id,in_reply_to_user_id" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $X_BEARER_TOKEN" ``` Because X bills the posts it returns rather than the calls you make, an empty poll costs nothing and polling more often is a latency choice, not a cost one. What decides the bill is how many posts match. A quiet keyword that returns five posts an hour is 3,600 reads a month, about $18. A busy one at twenty posts an hour is 14,400 reads, about $72. That is per keyword, and it is only the reads. ![Bar chart: one X keyword watched hourly for a month costs about $18 in API reads when quiet and $72 when busy, $15.90 per keyword on Octolens's annual plan, and $5 on Mentio plus $0.008 per matched post](/blog/twitter-keyword-alerts/keyword-cost.png) One keyword, one month, four ways. The API reads are the smallest part of a build once the code that dedupes, scores and delivers is counted. Then comes the part the request does not do: remembering which posts you have seen, deduplicating the same post across keywords, deciding which matches are worth a human, posting them to Slack with retries, and keeping all of it running when X changes a rule again, which it did more than once during 2026. The [Reddit API pricing post](/blog/reddit-api-pricing/) makes the same point from the other side: the API is rarely where the cost of monitoring sits. ## How do you set up a Twitter keyword alert in five minutes? This is the Mentio route, which is what I run. The same shape applies to any of the tools above. 1. **Create an account** at [app.mentio.dev](https://app.mentio.dev). Every account starts with $5.80 of credit and no card: one keyword for a month plus 100 mentions. 2. **Add the keyword and restrict it to X.** Use the name people actually type, not the handle: “acme cloud” rather than @acmecloud, because the posts you want never tag you. The platform picker limits a keyword to X so you pay for nothing else; a competitor’s name as a second keyword is the usual next step. 3. **Wait for the first search.** Each keyword on X is searched once an hour through the official API where it is enabled and a licensed provider otherwise, as a quoted phrase with retweets excluded. Matches arrive scored for relevance, sentiment and intent: buying intent, question, complaint, praise or comparison, with the author, their follower count and the post a reply answers. ![The Mentio mentions feed filtered to X: each post shows the author, follower count, relevance score, sentiment and intent](/press/screenshot-mentions.png) The feed filtered to X. Relevance and intent are what make a keyword alert readable. 4. **Create the alert rule.** Under Alerts, add an instant rule: platform X, relevant only, intents buying intent and complaint, delivered to Slack. Telegram, email and a webhook are the other channels, and a low-volume keyword can go out as a daily digest instead. ![The Mentio alerts page with an instant Slack rule filtered to relevant X posts with buying intent](/press/screenshot-alerts.png) One rule: relevant X posts with buying intent or a complaint, straight to a Slack channel. 5. **Or ask an agent instead.** The MCP server gives Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, claude.ai and ChatGPT the same mentions as tools. “Show me this week’s X posts about acme with buying intent and draft a reply for each” is a working prompt once it is connected. Try it on your own name Add one keyword restricted to X. The welcome credit covers a month of it plus 100 mentions, no card. The first matches arrive within the hour, scored, and the Slack rule takes a minute more. claude mcp add --transport http mentio https://mcp.mentio.dev/mcp [Start free](https://app.mentio.dev/login?mode=signup&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=twitter-keyword-alerts)[Read the docs](https://docs.mentio.dev/mcp) ## How do you monitor a specific Twitter account? Two different questions hide in that phrase, and they have different answers. If you want the account’s own posts, X does it natively: open the profile, switch on the bell, and every new post is a notification. Free, instant, and no tool improves on it. IFTTT’s “new tweet by a specific user” trigger does the same into email or a webhook on its paid plan. If you want what people say about the account, which is what competitor monitoring means, you need keyword alerts on its name and its product names. Replies, quote posts and comparisons rarely tag the account they discuss. On Mentio each reply arrives with the post it answers and the author’s follower count, so a thread about a competitor’s pricing reads in context and the account with 40,000 followers stands out from the one with 12. Pick distinctive keywords A one-word brand name that is also an English word (“mention”, “notion”) will flood any keyword alert. Use the two-word form people type, the product name, or the domain. Quoted phrases keep the result set honest on every route in this post. ## What can a Twitter keyword alert not see? - **History.** Recent search covers seven days. A new alert starts from now, and the enterprise full-archive product is the only way further back. - **Protected accounts, deleted posts, Spaces and DMs.** Public posts and replies are the whole surface. - **Rules that hold still.** X changed its API pricing and tiers repeatedly during 2026. A tool that watches X for you carries that; a script you wrote does not. - **Judgement, unless the tool adds it.** A search alert cannot tell a passing mention from a churn announcement. Scoring is the feature, not the delivery. Prices and limits here are from each vendor’s own page and X’s developer documentation on the day of writing. When they change, this page changes with them. ## Frequently asked questions Does Twitter have keyword alerts? No. X notifies you about replies, mentions of your handle and posts from accounts you switched the bell on for. There is no way to be told when anyone on X posts a word or phrase. X Pro, the old TweetDeck, can show a search as a live column behind an X Premium subscription, but you have to be looking at it. Keyword alerts always mean a tool that runs the search for you. How do I get notified when someone tweets a keyword? Use a watcher that searches X on a schedule and sends new matches to you. IFTTT's 'new tweet from search' trigger does it on its paid plan, polling every five minutes into email or push. Monitoring tools do it with scoring and Slack: Syften, Brand24, Octolens, Fedica and Mentio all check X for saved keywords, hourly in most cases, and deliver the new posts. On Mentio a keyword restricted to X costs $5 a month and each matched post $0.008. Is there a free Twitter keyword alert tool? Not a reliable one any more. Warble, the free once-a-day email alert, shut down when X ended free API access. IFTTT moved its X triggers to paid plans. Talkwalker Alerts includes some public X posts in its free email alerts with no promise of coverage. X's own advanced search is free and manual. Mentio's welcome credit of $5.80 runs one keyword on X for a month plus 100 mentions with no card. How much does the X API cost for keyword monitoring? Since February 2026 the X API is pay per use for new developers: about $0.005 per post read, capped at two million reads a month, with the old $200 Basic and $5,000 Pro subscriptions closed to new sign-ups. A keyword that returns five posts an hour costs about $18 a month in reads; twenty posts an hour is about $72. Recent search covers the last seven days; anything older needs the enterprise full-archive product. How do I monitor a Twitter account without being on X all day? For the account's own posts, open its profile and switch on the bell: free, instant, no tool. For what people say about it, track its name as a keyword, because replies and quote posts that discuss a brand rarely tag it. Mentio delivers those posts with the author, their follower count and the post a reply answers, so the thread reads in context. What replaced TweetDeck for keyword alerts? X Pro, which is TweetDeck behind an X Premium subscription, still shows saved searches as columns but only while you watch. For alerts that come to you, a monitoring tool took its place: it runs the search on a schedule, scores the matches and posts the ones that matter to Slack, Telegram, email or a webhook. Where this applies - [X (Twitter) monitoringPosts and replies, every hour, through the official API or a licensed provider.](/x/) - [AlertsInstant rules and daily digests to Slack, Telegram, email and webhooks.](https://docs.mentio.dev/alerts) - [Pricing$5 per keyword per month, $0.008 per mention, no plan.](/pricing/) - [Free social listening toolsWhat the free tools still cover, X included.](/blog/best-free-social-listening-tools/) Written by Pau Guirao, founder of Mentio. Prices and product facts were checked on September 14, 2026; if one has changed, [tell us](/contact/) and we will fix it. ## Related posts [![](/blog/reddit-api-pricing/cover.png)](/blog/reddit-api-pricing/) Sep 13, 2026 ## [Reddit API pricing in 2026: is it free, what it costs, who gets access](/blog/reddit-api-pricing/) The free tier and its 100 requests a minute, the $0.24 per 1,000 calls that ended third-party apps, the approval rule that now gates new access, and where the real cost of watching Reddit sits. - [Platforms](/blog/tag/platforms/) - [Reddit](/blog/tag/reddit/) - [APIs](/blog/tag/apis/) [![](/blog/find-customers-on-reddit/cover.png)](/blog/find-customers-on-reddit/) Sep 14, 2026 ## [How to find customers on Reddit with Claude Code (5 minutes a day, no spam)](/blog/find-customers-on-reddit/) Three prompts in Claude Code find the Reddit threads worth answering, draft honest replies and clean up for tomorrow. The routine, the rules that keep it out of spam, and what it costs. - [Playbooks](/blog/tag/playbooks/) - [Reddit](/blog/tag/reddit/) - [Claude Code](/blog/tag/claude-code/) [![](/blog/best-free-social-listening-tools/cover.png)](/blog/best-free-social-listening-tools/) Sep 13, 2026 ## [The 10 best free social listening tools in 2026 (and what each one misses)](/blog/best-free-social-listening-tools/) Ten free ways to watch for brand mentions, from Google Alerts and F5Bot to Reddit and Hacker News feeds, what each one misses, and the free credit that comes with an API. - [Tools](/blog/tag/tools/) - [Social listening](/blog/tag/social-listening/) ## Start monitoring brand mentions One request tracks your first keyword. The first scored mention lands within minutes, in Slack, a webhook, or your agent. [Get your API key ›](https://app.mentio.dev/login?mode=signup)[Read the docs ›](https://docs.mentio.dev) $5.80 free credit · no card · no subscription