How to advertise a Telegram channel: 4 paid routes compared

TL;DR. Advertising a Telegram channel means paying for one of four things: Telegram Ads (an auction from 0.1 TON per 1,000 views, shown in public channels with 1,000+ subscribers, links only to Telegram), a paid post in another channel (the most used route — full-size, in the channel’s own voice, priced by its admin), a creator’s mention outside Telegram, or ads on other networks. Vet a channel before you buy a post in it, give every placement its own invite link, and compare routes by one number: cost per subscriber who stays. Before the first payment, set a free benchmark — a cross-promo trade costs nothing per impression.

Most “how to advertise on Telegram” pages describe one route, usually whichever their author sells. Here are all four, what each buys you, and how to tell afterwards whether it worked.

Route 1: Telegram Ads, the official platform

Telegram sells ads itself through ads.telegram.org. An ad is a sponsored message: a title, a short text and a link that appears as a button under it.

• Pricing: you buy impressions, not clicks. Each ad has a CPM bid — the price of 1,000 views — and the minimum CPM is 0.1 TON. Bids are in Toncoin, so the dollar cost floats with the exchange rate, and busy topics clear well above the minimum.
• Where it shows: in public channels with 1,000+ subscribers, picked by the targeting you set.
• Where it can point: only to a channel or a bot on Telegram. Links to external sites are not allowed.

Telegram Ads are the route where you control the throttle: raise the budget, get more impressions, no negotiations with admins. The trade-off is format — a short message among other content, without the vouching a channel admin gives a post. A worked example of what a subscriber costs this way is in Telegram Ads cost.

Route 2: a paid post in another channel

You agree with a channel’s admin, pay, and they publish a post about your channel in their feed. This is the most widely used paid route, for three reasons: the post is full-size (text, image, buttons), it’s written in the channel’s own voice, and the readers trust the admin who chose to run it.

The risk is buying an audience that isn’t there. Inflated views and bought subscribers are common, so the channel has to be vetted before the money moves.

How to vet a channel

• Views per post against subscribers. A channel with 40,000 subscribers and 1,500 views per post has an audience of about 1,500, whatever the counter says. Compare the real views with the price.
• Older posts, not today’s. Look at posts from one or two weeks ago: their view counts have settled. Suspiciously identical counts across posts are a warning sign.
• Reactions and comments. A few real reactions from real-looking accounts mean more than a wall of identical emoji.
• Topic overlap. The best placement is a channel your future readers already read. A bigger channel in the wrong topic converts worse than a smaller one in yours.
• How many ads it runs. A feed that is half ads trains its readers to scroll past them.
• Built-in statistics. Ask the admin for screenshots of the channel’s statistics: growth, views and where subscribers came from. An admin who refuses is an answer too.

What to agree on

The date and time, how long the post stays in the feed and whether another ad will be published right after it, who writes the text, and when you pay — after publication, or through an exchange that holds the money until the post is live. And send your own invite link for the placement, made just for this channel.

How to write the post

Write it in the host channel’s voice, not as an ad: one useful thing your channel gives, who it’s for, and why to join now rather than later. One link, one call to action. A post that reads like a recommendation from the admin converts better than a banner pasted in.

Route 3: creators outside Telegram

A mention in a YouTube video, an Instagram story, a TikTok or a newsletter, from a creator whose audience matches your topic. It works best when the creator actually reads Telegram channels themselves and can say why yours is worth it. Ask for the audience’s countries and languages before you pay — a big following in the wrong language converts to nothing — and give the creator their own invite link.

Route 4: ads on other networks

If you already run ads on other platforms, they can send people to the channel. Each network has its own rules about links to messengers, so check them before you build the campaign. Expect a lower conversion than from inside Telegram: the person has to switch apps to subscribe, and a page that shows what’s inside the channel before the jump helps.

Count what you bought

Paid promotion without counting is a donation. Two habits make it a decision:

1. One invite link per placement. Telegram’s own list of invite links shows how many people joined through each one, so every channel, creator and campaign gets its own link.
2. Cost per subscriber who stays. Divide what the placement cost by the people who joined through its link, then check a week later how many are still there. That number compares a paid post, a creator and a Telegram Ads campaign on equal terms.

The four routes side by side

	Telegram Ads	Paid post	Creator	Other networks
You pay for	1,000 views (auction)	one post	one mention	that network’s model
Price set by	auction, min 0.1 TON CPM	the admin	the creator	that network
Format	short sponsored message	full post in the feed	the creator’s own format	an ad off Telegram
Links to	Telegram channels and bots only	whatever the post contains	your link	your link
Main risk	low conversion of a short message	inflated views	wrong-language audience	app switch loses people

The free benchmark to set first

Every paid route should beat something, and the cheapest thing to beat is a trade. In cross-promotion, two channels of similar size mention each other: zero cost per impression, an audience that already reads channels in your niche. Run two or three trades first and you’ll know what a subscriber costs you for free — then a paid placement has to beat that number, not just “work”.

The catalog in AdminHub’s cross-promo lists channels by category and audience size, so the search for partners starts from a shortlist. Each deal gets its own invite link, so a trade is counted the same way as a paid post. How to run trades well is in the cross-promotion guide, and the full map of free and paid routes in how to promote a Telegram channel.

Rules and labels

Advertising law doesn’t stop at the app. Depending on where you and your audience are, a paid post may have to be marked as advertising, and some countries restrict which channels may carry ads at all. Check the rules that apply to you before you pay.

Checklist before the first payment

1. The channel converts on its own: a clear name, description and pinned post.
2. A free benchmark from two or three cross-promo trades.
3. Every candidate channel vetted: views per post, older posts, reactions, statistics screenshots.
4. One invite link per placement, created before the deal.
5. A small first placement, then cost per subscriber who stays, then a bigger one.

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Telegram Ads facts — sponsored messages with a button link, the 0.1 TON minimum CPM, public channels with 1,000+ subscribers, links only to Telegram channels and bots — are from Telegram’s ad platform guide.