mixi
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
mixi (Japanese ミクシィ, “mikushī”) is a Japanese social network that has been running since 2004. The platform describes itself in a line in the markup of its home page: “a social networking service (SNS) where you enjoy communicating with friends and acquaintances”. The operator is 株式会社MIXI (“kabushiki gaisha MIXI”, MIXI, Inc.), a public company; the network itself is named as a party to the user agreement in the first article of the rules.
The network's design is closer to the 2000s than to modern feeds: a personal page with a diary (日記, “nikki”), communities (コミュニティ, “komyuniti”), short posts, reviews, visitors' “footprints” and “maimikushī” connections (マイミクシィ — mutual friends). The platform's main menu lists communities, news, games, “everyone's diaries” and reviews. The owning company, in its corporate report for the year ended March 2025, assigns mixi to the “Lifestyle” segment and states that in December 2024 it released a separate new network, mixi2.
For business there is one key feature, and it is a harsh one: the agreement explicitly forbids publishing advertising and commercial material without separate permission from the platform.
Who's here
The platform does not publicly disclose audience figures for mixi.jp. We opened the home page, the premium subscription page, the announcements feed and the corporate site of MIXI, Inc. — none of them contains a number of registered users or a monthly or daily audience for the mixi network.
The only numeric claim about an audience that we found in an official document relates not to mixi.jp but to the new network mixi2: the company reports that in the seven days after its release in December 2024 more than 1.2 million people registered on it. That is the company's claim about another of its products and has nothing to do with mixi.jp.
The platform's language is Japanese: the home page is served in the EUC-JP encoding and entirely in Japanese, and no other language versions are declared through hreflang links. The legal attachment is Japanese too: the agreement states that the law of Japan applies and the court of first instance is the Tokyo District Court.
Getting started
Registration is free: the agreement says plainly that registration and the basic services are free. The sign-in form on the home page asks for an email address and a password, that is, the account is tied to email rather than to a phone number.
Three requirements worth knowing before registering, all from the rules:
- Age. Only those aged 15 and over may join the service; a separate clause forbids use of the service by those under 15.
- One account per person. One user owns one account; several accounts belonging to one person and joint ownership of one account by several people are forbidden unless the platform has permitted otherwise. Transferring or renting out an account to a third party is forbidden in all circumstances.
- You need at least one friend. Among the forbidden actions is specifically named “a prolonged period of use with zero maimikushī”. Formally this means that the platform treats an account without a single mutual connection as a breach.
We found no separate “business account” with document checks on the open pages of mixi.jp. The only form of verified presence the platform itself writes about is partner registration in mixi Platform (see the section on tools), and it is needed for development, not for running a brand page.
What you can publish
The agreement lists the objects of publication with the term 「日記等の情報」 — diaries, the profile, comments, reviews, images. Rights to what is published stay with the author: the platform specifically states that copyright and related moral rights belong to the user who created them, while the platform itself uses the material to the extent necessary to run the service and does not go beyond the visibility scope the user has set.
The technical limit the platform names as a number is the size of a diary: 200 MB on a free account and 3,000 MB for a premium subscriber.
There is a lot that is forbidden, and the list is specific. From article 14 of the rules: infringement of copyright and trademark rights; impersonation; fraud and assisting crimes; obscenity, child pornography and child abuse material; use of the service for the purpose of meeting strangers of the opposite sex; luring teenagers into running away from home; illegal gambling; images of killings, bodies and cruelty; publication of contact details in places open to all users. A separate set of prohibitions applies to reviews — from insults aimed at the subject of the review to unverifiable claims and complaints that ought to be filed with supervisory authorities.
How to grow
There is no description of a ranking algorithm of mixi's own on the pages we checked. The platform publishes no rules for how posts are shown in the feed and promises no recommendation distribution. Growth here is arranged “by hand”: through communities, mutual connections and visitors' “footprints”.
Built-in statistics for pages as such are not described. The nearest thing to analytics is the “footprints” mechanic (足あと, “ashiato”), that is, a log of visits to your page. The numbers here depend on the subscription: a free account sees 60 log entries and can delete 10 a month, a premium one 600 entries and 30 deletions a month. The same page names the size of the access blocklist: 100 entries against 2,000.
Advertising is present on the platform, but there are no open pages for a mixi ad manager on the mixi.jp domain: mixi.jp/ads.pl returns 404. Indirect confirmation that advertising is shown is in the subscription description: among its features is “hiding advertising”. That is, ad impressions exist, but judging by the open pages you cannot buy them through a publicly described self-service manager.
Path to monetization
The platform does not pay authors. Not one page of mixi we checked contains a revenue-sharing programme, tips, paid subscriptions to a diary or a fund for authors. Money on mixi moves the other way: the user pays the platform.
There is one paid service — mixiプレミアム (“mixi puremiamu”, mixi Premium). Its price is named plainly: 484 yen a month including tax. From 2026 it changes: in an announcement of 15 July 2026 the platform reports that from 1 October 2026 the monthly fee will rise from 484 yen to 770 yen (including tax), and for payment via Apple ID from 480 to 770 yen. The same place states that subscribers paying through d払い and auかんたん決済 who took out the subscription before that date and have not changed their payment method keep the old price.
The platform lists what the subscription gives in a table: a return of mixi points, showing other users' last login time for up to six months instead of three days, an extended visit log, “ninja mode” for communities, hiding advertising, search and scheduled publishing of diaries, styling of posts, an increased diary size, and setting a community's URL.
Inside the platform there is its own unit of account — mixiポイント (“mixi pointo”), for which there are separate rules and special conditions for automatic top-up. The exchange rate and the withdrawal procedure are not given on the open pages, and the mechanic itself is tied to games rather than to rewarding authors.
Tools and automation
mixi does have official programmatic access, and it is publicly documented. The developer centre describes the platform like this: mixi Platform includes mixiアプリ (apps inside mixi), mixi Connect and mixi Plugin. The core of external access is the mixi Graph API; the platform calls it a set of “type API” interfaces inside mixi OpenStack that gives access to the social graph and to the content accumulated in mixi.
The set of interfaces is listed in the same place: People API, Groups API, People lookup API, Updates API, Voice API, Check API, Photo API, Message API, Diary API, Profile Image API, Calendar API, UserInfo API, plus plug-in buttons: “Iine!” (the equivalent of “like”), mixiチェック and SimplePost.
Access is not open: running mixi apps and using mixi Connect requires partner registration, which is separate for legal entities and for individuals. This is a fundamental difference from platforms where a token is issued automatically.
Note how the platform is being wound down. Published in the developer centre's feed are: an announcement of 29 August 2024 about ending the acceptance of applications to list mixi apps by category, an announcement of 9 December 2024 about ending some payment methods, and an announcement of 3 April 2026 about ending support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in the billing API. In a separate announcement the platform reported the end of the page API.
We found no third-party scheduling services whose support for mixi is confirmed by a source.
Limits and rules
- Age: 15 and over.
- Accounts: one per person, with transfer and joint ownership forbidden.
- Commercial activity: it is forbidden to place in publicly available locations or to send by message material aimed at commercial advertising, promotion or solicitation unless the platform has permitted it separately; a separate clause forbids affiliate links. The same place forbids pyramid schemes, chain letters, MLM and publication of bank account numbers.
- Spam: the platform gives its own definition — publishing or sending identical and similar texts, listing words unrelated to the place of publication, excessively long texts and repeated identical links. Indiscriminate messages, indiscriminate maimikushī requests and invitations to complete strangers are forbidden separately.
- Sanctions: for a breach the platform may forcibly expel a user, suspend their use, delete material in whole or in part, or change its visibility scope; by the text of the agreement the user cannot contest these measures.
- Law: Japanese, the court is the Tokyo District Court.
- Date of the agreement's revision: the last change is dated 3 October of the 4th year of the Reiwa era, that is 2022.
Who it's for
It suits you if your audience is Japanese and you need an “interest club” format: mixi communities live a life of their own, and the platform itself barely intervenes with an algorithm. It suits personal and authorial diary-keeping in Japanese.
It does not suit direct promotion: commercial advertising and affiliate links are forbidden by the agreement without separate consent from the platform, and there is no advertising self-service on the open pages. It does not suit you if you need income from the platform — here the user pays, not the network. It does not suit you if you are counting on scheduling: programmatic access requires partner registration, and the platform has been shrinking rather than growing in recent years.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the operator is 株式会社MIXI (MIXI, Inc.); the company is named as a party to the user agreement in article 1
The agreement was opened directly, the page is in the EUC-JP encoding
source, checked 2026-07-28
the main units are a personal page with a diary (日記), communities (コミュニティ), short posts, reviews and mutual «maimikushī» connections (マイミクシィ)
The list is taken from the platform's main menu
source, checked 2026-07-28
Sources diverge: the platform describes itself as follows: «ソーシャル・ネットワーキング サービス (mixi(ミクシィ))»
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
the owner reports that more than 1.2 million people registered on the new network mixi2 in the 7 days after its release in December 2024
MIXI, Inc.'s claim in its integrated report; it relates to mixi2, not to mixi.jp
source, checked 2026-07-28
Getting started
only those aged 15 and over may join the service (article 7); a separate clause of article 14 forbids use by those under 15
The wording is «満15歳以上の者に限る»
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
one user owns one account; several accounts belonging to one person and joint ownership of one account are forbidden; transferring or renting out an account to a third party is forbidden in all circumstances
Article 11
source, checked 2026-07-28
among the forbidden actions is a prolonged period of use with zero mutual «maimikushī» connections
Article 14, clause 23
source, checked 2026-07-28
Content
it is forbidden to place in publicly available locations or to send by message material aimed at commercial advertising, promotion or solicitation unless the platform has permitted it separately
Article 14, clause 15(ア)
source, checked 2026-07-28
material containing affiliate links is forbidden
Article 14, clause 15(イ)
source, checked 2026-07-28
spam is defined as: publishing or sending identical and similar texts, listing words unrelated to the place of publication, excessively long texts and repeated identical links
Article 14, clause 18
source, checked 2026-07-28
How the money works here
Affiliate links are forbidden outright. The user agreement, article 14 "Prohibited actions", point (15)(イ) classes as forbidden placement: "アフィリエイトのリンクを含む日記等の情報" — "diary entries and other material containing affiliate links". The prohibition extends both to publications on the site and to private messages to other users. A separate point, (15)(オ), forbids links leading to sites that mixi considers improper — porn sites, "one-click" sites and sites distributing malware, "単にリンクを張る行為を含む" ("including the mere placing of a link")
our translation; the original is in Japanese; the mixi user agreement was read in full (the page is served in the EUC-JP encoding)
source, checked 2026-08-04
Commercial advertising is forbidden by default. Article 14 (15)(ア): "商業用の広告、宣伝又は勧誘を目的とする日記等の情報。ただし、弊社が別に認めたものを除く" — "entries and other material whose purpose is commercial advertising, promotion or the solicitation of customers, except for what the company has permitted separately". Point (15)(ウ) forbids "無限連鎖講（ネズミ講）、チェーンメール、MLM、リードメール等他人を勧誘する内容" — financial pyramids, chain letters, multi-level marketing, lead-mail and other solicitation of others. A violation of article 14 entails compulsory exclusion, suspension of use, deletion of entries or a change in the scope of their visibility
our translation; the original is in Japanese; for the exception "if the company has permitted separately" the agreement does not describe the procedure for obtaining such permission
source, checked 2026-08-04
Pricing
mixiプレミアム costs 484 yen a month including tax
The price applies until 1 October 2026
source, checked 2026-07-28
from 1 October 2026 the monthly fee for mixiプレミアム will rise from 484 to 770 yen including tax; for payment via Apple ID from 480 to 770 yen · the source is dated 2026-07-15
The platform's announcement of 15 July 2026
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
diary size: 200 MB on a free account and 3,000 MB for a premium subscriber
The plan comparison table
source, checked 2026-07-28
visit log: 60 entries and 10 deletions a month on a free account, 600 entries and 30 deletions on premium
The plan comparison table
source, checked 2026-07-28
access blocklist: 100 entries on a free account, 2,000 on premium
The plan comparison table
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
the law of Japan applies; the court of first instance is the Tokyo District Court
Article 23
source, checked 2026-07-28
the latest revision of the user agreement is dated 3 October of the 4th year of the Reiwa era (2022)
The list of change dates in the document's header
source, checked 2026-07-28
API access
official access exists: mixi Platform includes mixiアプリ, mixi Connect and mixi Plugin
The developer centre was opened directly
source, checked 2026-07-28
the mixi Graph API includes the People, Groups, People lookup, Updates, Voice, Check, Photo, Message, Diary, Profile Image, Calendar and UserInfo APIs
The list is from the side menu of the documentation; the page shows no update date
source, checked 2026-07-28
running mixi apps and using mixi Connect requires partner registration, which is separate for legal entities and individuals
A token is not issued automatically
source, checked 2026-07-28
announced: 29.08.2024 — the end of accepting applications to list apps by category; 09.12.2024 — the end of some payment methods; 03.04.2026 — the end of support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in the billing API
The announcements feed of the developer centre
source, checked 2026-07-28
provision of the page API has ended
A separate announcement in the mixi Connect section
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: ja
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
the interface language of the home page: ja; no other language versions are declared through hreflang links
source, checked 2026-07-28
Catalogue section: all similar See also: catalogue index · region: Japan · scheduler comparison · find by situation · platform restrictions