Apollo developer reveals ~$20M/year cost; third-party apps set shutdown dates

On June 8, 2023, Apollo developer Christian Selig announced that the popular third-party Reddit client would shut down on June 30, after Reddit's per-request API pricing made it financially impossible to operate. Reddit's rate of about $12,000 per 50 million requests meant Apollo's roughly seven billion monthly requests would cost around $1.7 million a month, or some $20 million a year. Selig had first disclosed the figures on May 31.

Apollo's announcement triggered a wave of closures across the third-party ecosystem: Reddit is Fun (RIF), Sync, BaconReader, and Boost all confirmed shutdowns around June 30 and July 1, 2023, when the new pricing took effect. The simultaneous loss of these beloved apps became the focal grievance behind the site-wide subreddit blackout that followed.