How to connect a bot to your Telegram account

TL;DR. Telegram lets any account attach a bot to its profile so the bot can reply to incoming messages on the owner’s behalf. It sits in the Chat Automation section of Telegram settings, and it does not require Premium — that requirement belonged to the older Telegram Business route, and most guides you will find still describe that older state. Two things do gate it on our side: the bot has to be one you created in AdminHub, not our shared bot, and the agent only speaks for you on Pro. Everything else — which chats it may read, when it stays quiet — you control.

Search for how to connect a bot to your Telegram account and most of what you find will tell you to buy Premium and open Telegram Business. That was true, and it isn’t any more. This page is the short version of what is actually required in 2026, including the one prerequisite that is ours rather than Telegram’s and that nothing in the app warns you about.

What this actually is

Normally a bot only sees messages sent to the bot. Chat Automation changes that: you attach a bot to your own profile, and it starts receiving the messages people send to you, in your ordinary DMs, and can answer them under your name. Your customers see your account replying. Nothing about their side changes, and they need no Premium either — that was never the requirement people confused it with.

When you connect, Telegram asks what the bot may see. You can keep every existing contact out and let it work only in new conversations, which is the usual choice for a seller who wants automation for strangers and privacy with friends.

The prerequisite that is ours, not Telegram’s

You can only connect a bot you own. Not our shared bot — a bot created inside AdminHub, which is where your knowledge base and your shop live.

This is worth stating plainly because the failure is silent. If you attach some other bot, Telegram accepts it happily and our side sees an event for a bot it does not recognise; the handler writes a line to the log and stops. No error appears in the app, no warning arrives in chat. From your side it looks like the connection worked and the assistant is simply asleep.

So the order is: create your bot in AdminHub first, put something in the knowledge base, and only then connect.

How to connect

Open Telegram’s settings and find the Chat Automation section. Pick your bot, choose which chats it may access, and confirm. That is the whole of it — there is no step on our side, no code to paste, no webhook to configure. The connection appears in AdminHub by itself.

We deliberately do not spell out a tap-by-tap path here. Telegram moves this entry between releases and platforms, and a guide that names a menu item that has since moved is worse than one that tells you what to look for. The section is called Chat Automation; the search box in Telegram settings will find it.

What it can do once connected

The agent answers from two sources, and the difference between them is the reason it is useful at all. The first is your knowledge base — what you wrote down: returns policy, delivery times, sizing. The second is live data from your own shop, so “where is order 312” gets a real answer with a real tracking number rather than a polite deflection.

When both come up empty it does not invent anything. It hands the conversation to you and writes a line into the gaps list, which is the part worth reading weekly: the same question showing up three times is a missing knowledge-base entry, and filling it is what makes the share the agent closes on its own go up.

What it costs, honestly

The connection itself is free and works on any plan. What is gated is the agent speaking for you.

On the free plan you get the knowledge base, the gaps list and manual replies — useful, but you are still the one typing. On Pro, 400 Telegram Stars for 30 days, the agent answers, and each answer draws 2 credits from the plan’s monthly pool. That metering is not decoration: the business channel used to run the model without charging anything, and closing that was a deliberate fix.

Chat Automation is not Telegram Business

These get conflated constantly, including in our own older articles, so here is the difference in one line each.

Chat Automation is the plain connection: any account, no Premium, a bot answers your DMs. Telegram Business is a paid product on top of Premium with its own extras — greeting messages, away messages, opening hours. Both hand a connected bot the same events, so an assistant that works in one works in the other. If someone tells you a bot in your DMs requires Premium, they are describing Business and calling it the only door.

If… then…

If…	Then…
You want a bot answering your DMs and don’t have Premium	Chat Automation — this is exactly the case it opened up for
You tried connecting our shared bot and nothing happened	That is the expected outcome — create your own bot first
You are on the free plan	Connect anyway; you get the gaps list, and you answer
You want the agent to actually reply for you	Pro, and budget 2 credits per answer
You answer some customers personally	Expect the hour rule — after that the agent resumes in that chat
You don’t want it near your friends	Exclude contacts at connection time; that switch is Telegram’s

Where to start

Do it in this order, because reversing it produces the silent failure above.

Create your bot in AdminHub. Put twenty real answers into the knowledge base — the questions you are tired of typing. Only then open Telegram settings, find Chat Automation, and connect that bot, keeping existing contacts out on the first pass.

Then leave it for a week on the free plan and read the gaps list before paying for anything. It tells you what the agent would have had to answer, which is a far better basis for deciding whether Pro is worth 400 Stars than any promise on this page.

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What the assistant does in full — the tool page. How it answers from knowledge plus live orders — AI customer support on Telegram. What to feed the knowledge base — knowledge base for a Telegram AI bot.