Telegram charges nothing to send bot messages. Your costs are hosting, AI and tools. Official limits, paid broadcasts and worked examples.
By Veracity Media Network · Published 2026-04-19 · Updated 2026-09-27
Yes. Telegram does not charge you to run a bot or to send its messages within the normal limits.
Telegram's Bot FAQ says bots are able to message their users at no cost, within limits of about one message per second in a single chat, 20 messages per minute in a group and about 30 messages per second across all chats. [1]
What costs money is everything around the bot: the server it runs on, any AI model it calls, and a bot builder if you use one. Here is what that adds up to for three common bots, using the prices and assumptions explained below.
| Bot | Telegram | Everything else | Typical month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alerts for a small team | $0 | A $4 server, or a free tier | $0 to $4 |
| AI support bot, 3,000 messages a month | $0 | $6 server plus $2 to $18 of AI | $8 to $24 |
| The same bot on a no-code builder | $0 | Builder plan plus AI usage | Free plans, or from $14 a month, plus AI |
Only very large bots ever pay Telegram anything. That happens when they use paid broadcasts to send faster than 30 messages a second, and only bots with at least 100,000 monthly users and 100,000 Stars on their balance can switch it on.
We first published this guide in April 2026 and rechecked every figure against official sources on September 27, 2026. Several April figures were wrong, and we list the corrections at the end.
Creating a bot takes a few minutes with @BotFather, and the Bot API has no subscription or message fee. The practical limits are the ones to plan around:
| Limit | Standard Bot API |
|---|---|
| Messages in one chat | About 1 per second |
| Messages in one group | 20 per minute |
| Messages across all chats | About 30 per second |
| Files the bot sends | Up to 50 MB |
| Files the bot downloads | Up to 20 MB |
Bots can send files of up to 50 MB and download files of up to 20 MB through the standard Bot API. [2]
If your bot handles large files, you can run Telegram's own Bot API server software on your machine.
With a local Bot API server, a bot can download files without a size limit, upload files of up to 2000 MB, use an HTTP webhook URL and set up to 100,000 webhook connections. The current version is Bot API 10.3, released August 24, 2026. [3]
The server software is free. You pay only for the machine it runs on.
The three limits apply at the same time. The 30-per-second figure gets the attention, but the other two catch more bots:
When a bot sends too fast, Telegram answers with an error that says how many seconds to wait. The popular libraries (grammY, aiogram, python-telegram-bot and Telegraf) have ways to queue messages and retry after that wait. Use them instead of sending in a tight loop.
Paid broadcasts let a bot send up to 1,000 messages a second instead of about 30. You pay for the extra speed in Telegram Stars.
A bot with paid broadcasts enabled can broadcast up to 1,000 messages per second, paying 0.1 Stars for each message above the free 30 per second. To enable it, the bot needs at least 100,000 Stars on its balance and at least 100,000 monthly active users. [4]
Correction to our April edition
We said paid broadcasts needed a 10,000 Star balance and put a dollar value on Stars through a fixed rate of 200 Stars per TON coin. Both were wrong. The requirement is 100,000 Stars and 100,000 monthly active users, and Telegram values Stars for developers in US dollars, as shown below.
What a Star is worth to a bot owner.
Telegram's developer terms say developers can receive the equivalent of 0.013 USD in rewards for each Telegram Star, paid out through Fragment. Stars earned by a bot are valid for three years. [5]
So every Star a bot spends on broadcasting is worth $0.013 it could otherwise have withdrawn. One paid message costs 0.1 Stars, or about $0.0013. The 100,000 Star minimum balance is worth about $1,300. It is a condition for switching the feature on, and paid messages are then charged against the bot's Stars.
126 USD in Stars to send one message to 100,000 users at full paid speed
At 1,000 messages a second, a broadcast to 100,000 users takes 100 seconds. About 3,000 of those messages fall within the free 30 per second, so about 97,000 are paid. At 0.1 Stars each, that is 9,700 Stars, worth about $126 at Telegram's developer value of $0.013 per Star. A daily broadcast at this speed would use Stars worth about $3,780 a month.
For most large bots, the free alternative is to send more slowly. The same 100,000 messages go out free in about 56 minutes. Paid broadcasts make sense when the message loses its value within minutes, such as a price alert or breaking news.
Bots can sell things, and Telegram has two rules depending on what you sell.
Payments for digital goods and services in bots must be made exclusively in Telegram Stars. [6]
For physical goods and services, Telegram does not charge any commission for using the Payments API. The payment provider charges its own fees, for example Stripe's 2.9% + 30¢ per successful US card charge. [7]
Users buy Stars through Apple or Google in-app purchases or through Telegram's @PremiumBot. When you convert Stars into a payout, the developer value of $0.013 per Star applies. Plan your digital prices with that value in mind.
Hosting. A simple bot needs very little computing power. As a reference point:
DigitalOcean's Basic Droplets start at $4 a month for 512 MiB of memory and 1 vCPU, $6 a month for 1 GiB and $12 a month for 2 GiB. [8]
A notification bot fits on the smallest server, or on a free tier of a serverless platform. A bot with an AI model, a database and a few thousand users a month is comfortable on 1 to 2 GB of memory.
AI models. If your bot answers questions with an AI model, this is often the biggest running cost. Providers charge per token, which is roughly three-quarters of a word.
OpenAI lists GPT-5.6 Luna, its lowest-priced general text model, at $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens. [9]
Anthropic lists Claude Haiku 4.5 at $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens, and Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 and $10. [10]
For a support bot answering 3,000 messages a month, where each answer reads about 1,500 tokens (the question, recent chat history and a few paragraphs of your help content) and writes about 300:
| Model | AI cost per month |
|---|---|
| GPT-5.6 Luna | $1.98 |
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | $9.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | $18.00 |
1.98-18.00 USD per month of AI model cost for 3,000 support answers
3,000 answers a month at 1,500 input and 300 output tokens each cost about $1.98 on GPT-5.6 Luna, $9.00 on Claude Haiku 4.5 and $18.00 on Claude Sonnet 5, at list prices checked on 2026-09-27. Longer help content or chat history raises the input side proportionally.
Your own numbers depend mostly on how much text you send the model with each question. Double the context and the input cost doubles.
1. Alerts for a small team. A bot that posts when a deployment finishes or a monitor fires. A few dozen messages a day, no AI.
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Telegram | $0 |
| Server | $0 to $4 |
| Total | $0 to $4 |
2. AI support bot. Answers 3,000 customer questions a month from your help content, built in code.
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Telegram | $0 |
| Server (1 GiB) | $6 |
| AI model | $2 to $18 |
| Total | $8 to $24 |
3. Large broadcast bot. 100,000 monthly users, one broadcast a day.
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Telegram, sending at the free speed (about 56 minutes per broadcast) | $0 |
| Telegram, sending at full paid speed (about 100 seconds per broadcast) | Stars worth about $3,780 |
| Server (2 GiB) | $12 |
| Total | About $12, or about $3,790 with paid speed |
Write the code. Every major language has a Telegram library, and a first working bot takes an afternoon for someone used to web development. This is the cheapest route: only hosting and any AI costs. You also keep full control and can move the bot anywhere.
Use a no-code builder. Faster to start and no programming needed. You pay a monthly plan, work within the builder's way of designing conversations, and would need to rebuild the bot to move elsewhere. How well each builder supports Telegram varies a lot:
| Builder | Telegram connection | Starting price |
|---|---|---|
| Manychat | Built in, on every plan | Free for 25 active contacts a month. Paid plans from $14 a month billed yearly |
| Botpress | Built in, with a bot token | Free for 25 conversations a month. Plus is $150 a month billed yearly |
| MindStudio | Built in, with a Telegram trigger | Free for 1 agent. Individual is $20 a month ($16 billed yearly), plus AI usage |
| Landbot | Not built in. Needs its API channel and your own bridge code | Free plan is web only. Professional, which includes the API, is €80 a month billed yearly |
| Voiceflow | Not listed as a built-in integration. Connect through its API | Business pricing after a demo |
Manychat's Free plan includes 25 active contacts a month. Essential ($168 a year), Pro ($348 a year), Business ($828 a year) and Advanced ($1,668 a year) include 250, 2,500, 7,500 and 25,000 active contacts a month, with a charge per extra contact. Telegram is supported on all plans. [11]
Botpress has a Free plan with 25 conversations a month. Plus costs $150 a month billed yearly with 250 conversations and $25 of AI usage, and Team costs $750 a month billed yearly with 1,500 conversations and $150 of AI usage. Extra conversations cost $0.65 each on Plus and $0.50 on Team. [12]
Botpress's official Telegram integration connects a bot by pasting the access token from BotFather into the integration settings. [13]
MindStudio's Free plan includes 1 agent and 1,000 runs a month. Individual costs $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly, with unlimited agents and runs. AI model usage is charged on top at the provider's price, without markup. [14]
MindStudio connects to Telegram through a built-in Telegram trigger: you register the bot token from BotFather, and messages sent to the bot start the agent. A Telegram Send Message block sends replies. [15]
Landbot's Free plan includes 100 chats a month on the web channel. Starter costs €32 a month billed yearly, and Professional costs €80 a month billed yearly with 2,500 chats and 300 AI chats. API and webhooks are included from Professional. [16]
Landbot's help center explains how to build a Telegram bot by connecting its APIChat channel to Telegram with your own Node.js code. [17]
Our April edition said MindStudio had no built-in Telegram connection. It does now.
Which route fits:
| Your situation | Good starting point |
|---|---|
| You can code and want the lowest running cost | Your own bot with grammY, aiogram or python-telegram-bot |
| Not a developer, Telegram is one of several social channels | Manychat |
| A technical team that wants a visual builder with room for code | Botpress |
| An AI assistant that should use different AI models | MindStudio |
| A website chatbot first, Telegram later | Landbot, with developer help for Telegram |
This is where Telegram's pricing stands out. WhatsApp charges businesses for many of the messages they send.
Since July 1, 2025, the WhatsApp Business Platform charges per delivered template message instead of per conversation. Replies that are not templates are free inside an open customer service window, and utility templates sent inside that window are also free. All messages are free for 72 hours inside a free entry point window, which opens when a customer arrives from a Click to WhatsApp ad or a Facebook Page call-to-action button. Rates depend on the template category, the recipient's country and volume. [18]
So a WhatsApp bot that only answers people who wrote to it can run without message fees, but any message you start, such as a reminder, an update or a promotion, is usually charged per message. On Telegram, both kinds are free within the rate limits.
These are the questions people search for most about Telegram bot costs.
Is the Telegram Bot API free? Yes. Telegram's official FAQ says bots can message users at no cost within the rate limits.
Is there an official price list? There is no price list, because there is no charge. The only paid option is paid broadcasts, priced in Stars in the Bot FAQ.
What are the rate limits? About 1 message a second in one chat, 20 a minute in a group and about 30 a second across all chats.
How much does it cost to make a Telegram bot? From nothing for a simple bot you write yourself, to about $8 to $24 a month for an AI support bot, plus a builder plan if you use one.
Sources. Every Telegram fact comes from Telegram's own documentation and terms. Builder prices come from each vendor's pricing page, and hosting and AI prices from the providers' pages. All were checked on September 27, 2026.
Calculations. The example bots, the AI cost table and the paid broadcast figures are our own, with the inputs stated next to each. The Star values use Telegram's published developer value of $0.013 per Star.
Corrections in this edition.
Affiliate relationships. We have affiliate relationships with Manychat, Botpress, MindStudio and Landbot. The links in this article go to our reviews, and the vendor links on those reviews may earn us a commission at no cost to you. Voiceflow, Telegram, DigitalOcean, OpenAI and Anthropic pay us nothing. Commissions do not decide what we recommend, and we say where a partner's product falls short.
Next check. By December 2026, or sooner if Telegram changes the rules for paid broadcasts or Stars.
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