Most developers don't quit because the idea was wrong. They quit because they spent three weeks wiring up six different OAuth flows, handling rate limits from five separate platforms, and debugging a TikTok upload that works in staging but fails silently in production. If you're: building a SaaS with social publishing features, automating content across platforms with AI agents, or running an agency that manages dozens of client accounts, this is the decision that will eat your sprint if you get it wrong. The native APIs — Meta Graph, X, TikTok, LinkedIn — are not built for developers building on top of them. They're built for compliance, for platform control, for gatekeeping. The approval processes alone can take weeks. And once you're approved, you still own every breaking change they ship. Unified social media APIs solve a different problem: one endpoint, one token, one consistent response. You write the post once. The API handles the rest. Here are the five worth looking at in 2026.…