Bots · Mini Apps · CRM
Telegram bots and automation, quoted with the running cost
Custom bots, Mini Apps and CRM integrations built on the Bot API — with the platform's structural limits written into the brief before anyone commits budget.
What can a Telegram bot actually automate? A bot can answer and route conversations, take payments, run onboarding flows, push notifications to users who opted in, sync records with a CRM, moderate groups and host a Mini App interface. What it cannot do is contact anyone first: Telegram's documentation states that a user must message the bot or add it to a group before the bot can send anything. Every workable automation starts from that constraint.
What we build
- Conversational bots — onboarding, qualification, support triage and human handover, with the conversation state stored somewhere you can query.
- Notification and broadcast systems — the sending side of broadcast messaging, with queue, back-off and opt-out handling.
- CRM and webhook integrations — Telegram events into your existing system rather than a separate silo nobody reads.
- Mini Apps — when the interaction needs a real interface rather than a chat flow.
- Group and community automation — moderation, gating and analytics inside the Privacy Mode constraints.
The constraints that decide your brief
These are platform-level and non-negotiable. Reading them before the kick-off saves weeks.
| Constraint | Effect on the brief |
|---|---|
| A bot cannot start a conversation | No cold outbound. The user presses start first, always |
| A bot cannot join a group by itself | Somebody has to add it — see why a shill bot runs on personal accounts |
| Privacy Mode is on by default in groups | The bot sees commands, replies and its own messages — not all group traffic |
| Message deletion window | Sent messages can only be deleted within 48 hours |
| File sizes over the cloud Bot API | Download up to 20 MB, upload up to 50 MB |
| One business bot per account | Telegram Business connections are single-bot |
| Send limits | ~30 messages/second bulk, 20/minute per group — both published by Telegram |
| A bot cannot file an abuse report | Telegram marks both report methods user-only — see why no report bot exists |
| A bot cannot add a member to a chat | No add-member method exists — see what an invite member bot can do |
| A wrapper cannot expose what the API omits | Add-member code runs on MTProto and a phone number — see which library carries the call |
What a year actually costs
Vendors quote the build. The number that matters is build plus twelve months of running it, and it has four parts: the build itself, hosting, any model or third-party API usage, and maintenance when Telegram ships a Bot API change. We put all four in the proposal, with the assumptions written next to them, so the comparison against another quote is a real comparison.
When a bot is the wrong answer
- Tiny volume. If you handle a handful of chats a day, Telegram Business quick replies and away messages do the job without a build.
- You need a real interface. Complex forms and dashboards belong in a Mini App, not a chat flow with fifteen buttons.
- Your audience is not on Telegram. A bot cannot create demand for a channel nobody uses.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a Telegram bot cost?
The Bot API itself is free; the cost is build, hosting and maintenance. Published quotes across the market span two orders of magnitude — a few hundred dollars for a single-purpose bot, mid four figures for something with payments or a database, and five figures for CRM-integrated systems. We quote build and first-year running cost together, because a build price alone hides hosting, monitoring and the maintenance that every integration eventually needs.
Can a bot message our existing customer list?
No. Telegram's developer documentation is explicit that bots cannot start conversations — the user must message the bot or add it to a group first. There is no upload path and no paid tier that changes it. The workable route is to convert customers into subscribers with a deep link, which the bot can then message freely.
What can a Telegram bot not do?
It cannot initiate contact, it cannot add members to groups programmatically, and by default it does not see ordinary group messages because bots run in Privacy Mode and only receive commands, replies and messages sent via them. Sent messages can only be deleted within 48 hours. These are platform constraints, not implementation choices, and they decide whether a brief is buildable.
Related reading
- Broadcast messaging — the sending layer these bots feed.
- Growth & marketing — filling the subscriber base a bot talks to.
- Telegram mass report bots — the reporting API is user-only, and what that means for anything sold as a report bot.
- Telegram invite member bot — the invite-link parameters Telegram documents, and the two errors that stop everything sold as a member adder.
- Telegram member add bot — which Telegram libraries carry an add-member call and which cannot, and the approval flow that replaces it.
- Telegram shill bot — the published error tables for posting and joining, Telegram's native antispam system, and the disclosure rules above the platform's terms.
Bring the brief, get the constraints
Send what you want the bot to do. You get back what is buildable, what the API blocks outright, and a build-plus-first-year cost — before any engagement.