Telegram 101: bots, channels and codes people opt into

Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app that people install for chats, groups and channels. For a business it offers four separate tools: bots (accounts run by software), channels (one-way broadcasts people choose to follow), Telegram Business (extra features on an ordinary account run by a person) and Telegram Gateway (a paid service that delivers login and verification codes inside Telegram). This primer explains each one in plain words, what it costs and where it fits.

Telegram is an OTT app: it runs over the internet rather than through a mobile operator's messaging network. Telegram, the company, runs the app and the platform; there is no separate "business platform" owner and no operator in the path. Telegram said in March 2025 that it had passed 1 billion monthly active users worldwide.²²

Bots

A chatbot on Telegram is a special account with a username, created through Telegram's own bot (called BotFather), which issues a secret key called a token. The business's software uses that token to talk to Telegram's Bot API, the documented interface for sending and receiving bot messages.¹² Incoming messages reach the business either when its software asks for them or through a webhook, an address Telegram calls whenever something new arrives; the two methods cannot be used at once.²

The rule that shapes everything else: a bot cannot start a conversation. A person must first send it a message or add it to a group.¹ In practice that means a link (t.me/your_bot), a QR code or a button on your site, and the person pressing Start. From then on the bot can write to that person, which makes every bot conversation opt-in by design.

Bots can send text, media, files and buttons. Since Bot API 2.0 in April 2016, buttons can sit under a message and send the bot a signal without cluttering the chat.⁴ Bots can also open Mini Apps, small web pages that run inside Telegram; they were added as "Web Apps" in April 2022.⁴

Channels

A channel is a broadcast feed: the owner posts, followers read. Channels have no limit on followers, a public link and a view counter on each post.⁶ They suit announcements; they are not a way to talk to one person.

Telegram Business

Telegram Business turns a person's own account into a business account with opening hours, a location, quick replies, greeting and away messages, a custom start page and the option to connect a chatbot that answers on the owner's behalf.⁸ Telegram's documentation says the business features are free for Premium subscribers, and that connecting a bot is also available without Premium.⁹

Gateway

Telegram Gateway sends a one-time password (OTP) to the Telegram account tied to a phone number. The business's system calls the Gateway API with the number and the code; Telegram delivers it inside the app and reports back.¹¹ An optional check tells the business in advance whether the number can be reached on Telegram, so it can fall back to another channel if not.¹¹

Telegram launched on iOS on 14 August 2013.⁷ Its bot platform followed on 24 June 2015, opening a Bot API to outside developers.⁵⁴ Channels arrived in September 2015,⁶ and Bot API 2.0 added inline buttons in April 2016.⁴

The business tools came later. Web Apps, now called Mini Apps, were added in April 2022.⁴ Telegram Business launched on 31 March 2024.⁸ In October 2024 Telegram opened its verification platform, letting any business, app or website send codes through Telegram,¹² and a later "Verification Platform 2.0" release added a maximum delivery time with automatic refunds.¹³

The same period brought legal pressure. In August 2024 French prosecutors announced charges against Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, in an investigation into criminal activity on the platform;¹⁹ in September 2024 Telegram changed its privacy policy on disclosures to authorities (see Rules and regulation).¹⁸ Telegram reported 950 million monthly active users in July 2024²³ and passed 1 billion in March 2025.²² In 2026 Telegram added guest bots that can be tagged in any chat, bot-to-bot conversations and chat automation for personal accounts.²⁵⁴

Telegram's 1 billion figure is global and self-reported.²² Telegram publishes very little about where those users are, and independent estimates of users by country disagree with each other, so this primer leaves country rankings out rather than repeat figures it cannot check.

Two official data points help with location:

• European Union. Under the EU Digital Services Act, Telegram states that its services have significantly fewer than 45 million average monthly active recipients in the EU (as of August 2026), below the threshold for a "very large online platform".²⁰ Measured against its global total, the EU is a small part of Telegram's audience.
• Russia. In August 2025 Russia's communications regulator partially restricted voice calls on Telegram and WhatsApp, saying the apps were being used for fraud; it said messaging itself was not being restricted.²⁴

For any other country, the practical test is your own audience: ask customers which apps they use, or offer a Telegram link beside your other channels and measure how many people press Start. Telegram's popularity varies a great deal between countries, and a channel that is everyday in one market can be marginal in the next.

• Notifications people sign up for: order, delivery, booking and account updates sent by a bot to people who started it. See notifications.
• Verification codes: sign-up and login codes through Gateway, often with SMS kept as the fallback. See OTP.
• Support: a bot that answers common questions and hands over to a person, ideally inside a unified inbox beside your other channels. See support and chatbots.
• Communities and membership: channels for announcements and groups for members. See membership.
• Selling inside the chat: Mini Apps for catalogues and booking, with payments. For physical goods and services, bots take payments through third-party payment providers;¹⁵ digital goods and services sold inside Telegram's apps must be paid for in Telegram Stars, Telegram's in-app currency.¹⁴ See commerce.

Telegram prices its business tools in three different ways, and none of them looks like SMS pricing.

Bot messages. Telegram does not charge for ordinary bot messages. Its Bots FAQ sets a free limit of about 30 messages per second for a bot broadcasting to its users; above that, a bot can turn on paid broadcasts, which raise the ceiling to 1,000 messages per second and cost 0.1 Stars for each message beyond the free limit, paid from the bot's Stars balance.³ Telegram sets eligibility thresholds for paid broadcasts, and its developer terms say the higher limits must be used in good faith, never for spam.¹⁶

Verification codes. Telegram Gateway charges US$0.01 per delivered code (as of October 2026).¹¹ Codes not delivered within the time limit the business sets are refunded automatically,¹³ testing on your own number is free, and Telegram says SMS verification can cost up to 50 times more per code.¹¹ That comparison is Telegram's own, and the real SMS price depends on the country and the provider.

Telegram Business. The business features are free to Premium subscribers;⁹ TechCrunch reported Premium at US$4.99 a month on iOS and Android at launch in April 2024.¹⁰ Prices vary by country and store.

The rest of the cost is yours or your provider's: hosting the bot, the software or inbox you use, and payment-provider fees on sales.¹⁵ There is no Telegram rate card per country because, outside Gateway and paid broadcasts, there is no per-message fee to publish.

This section describes rules; it is not legal advice.

Consent is built in, but not complete. Because a person must start the bot, the platform guarantees that someone chose to talk to you.¹ It does not record what they agreed to. If you send marketing, the consent and opt-out rules of the person's country still apply, and you should keep your own record of what each person signed up for (see consent is a data model).

Platform terms. Telegram's developer terms govern every bot, including the rule that broadcasts must be made in good faith.¹⁶ Automating a personal account instead of using a bot sits outside those terms and puts the account at risk (see the cost of an unofficial transport).

Privacy and disclosure. Ordinary Telegram chats, including bot chats, are "cloud chats" stored on Telegram's servers; end-to-end encryption applies to "secret chats" between people.⁷ Telegram's privacy policy says it may disclose a user's IP address and phone number to judicial authorities in response to a valid order concerning a criminal suspect, after legal review, and that such disclosures appear in a quarterly transparency report.¹⁷ Telegram adopted this wording in September 2024.¹⁸ It also says it moderates public content with a mix of AI tools, introduced in early 2024, and human review.²¹²⁰

Legal environment. In August 2024 French prosecutors charged Pavel Durov with complicity in criminal activity on the platform and with refusing to provide information requested by the authorities; Telegram said it abides by EU law.¹⁹ The proceedings are a matter for the French courts, and this primer does not assess them. National rules differ: Russia's restriction of Telegram calls in 2025 is one example of a country acting on one feature rather than the whole app.²⁴

Your own data duties. Whatever the platform does, the business remains responsible for the personal data it collects through its bot: what it stores, for how long and where. In the EU, Telegram states it is below the DSA's threshold for the strictest platform obligations,²⁰ which changes nothing about your own GDPR duties.

• No cold outreach. You cannot message a phone number on Telegram with a bot. Your audience is the people who started the bot; growing it means promoting the link.¹
• Sending limits. Besides the broadcast limit, the Bots FAQ asks bots to stay near one message per second in a single chat and 20 messages per minute in a group; going faster returns errors.³
• Status is thin. The Bot API confirms that Telegram accepted a message; it is not an SMS-style delivery receipt, and it does not tell a bot that a message was read.²
• Uneven reach. Strong in some countries, marginal in others; check your own audience before investing.
• Gateway needs Telegram. Codes only reach people with a Telegram account on that number, so a fallback such as SMS is still needed.¹¹
• Digital-goods rules. Selling digital goods inside Telegram's apps requires Stars, which affects margins and refunds.¹⁴
• Token hygiene. Whoever holds the bot token controls the bot. Keep it in your own account, and make sure you can take it with you if you change provider.

Only what Telegram has shipped or announced:

• AI bots in any chat. In 2026 Telegram let bots be tagged in chats they are not members of ("guest bots"), let bots talk to other bots and let people connect a bot to answer messages on their behalf ("chat automation").²⁵ For businesses, this moves bots from a separate chat into the conversations people already have.
• Verification as a product. Gateway moved from launch (October 2024) to a second version with delivery deadlines and refunds.¹²¹³ Telegram positions it directly against SMS codes.¹¹
• Regulatory attention in Europe. Telegram publishes DSA guidance and reports its EU user numbers against the 45 million threshold;²⁰ crossing it would bring the stricter "very large online platform" regime. That is a scheduled legal test, not a forecast.

Choose Telegram when your customers already use it every day, when they are happy to press Start in exchange for faster updates, and when you want rich, free-to-send messages without template approval. Add Gateway when a meaningful share of your users have Telegram and you want a cheaper path for codes, with SMS kept as the fallback (see SMS 101).

Look elsewhere when you must reach people who have not opted in, when your market barely uses Telegram, or when you need guaranteed delivery receipts. For comparisons, see channels are not interchangeable, choosing a channel per message, the Telegram channel page and the Channels 101 chooser, which channel for which need.