Promote Your Own Channel or Bot with Telegram Stars: The Stars Cabinet in 2026

If your channel or bot earns Telegram Stars — from reactions, paid posts, paid messages, Suggested Posts or ad rewards — there is a second thing you can do with them besides withdrawing: buy Telegram Ads to promote that same channel or bot. Telegram prices it deliberately: the Stars go further as ad credit than as cash.

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The rules#

• Only your own property. Stars on a channel's or bot's balance can pay for ads that promote that channel or bot — not a third-party product (Telegram API).
• A 30% discount. Telegram's terms value a Star at $0.02 of advertising credit, while withdrawing it pays $0.013 (Content Creator Rewards ToS).
• Same ad policies as every other cabinet (guidelines).
• Hold period. Stars earned by a channel become available 21 days after they accrue (ToS).

Spend or withdraw: the math#

10,000 Stars	Value
Withdrawn via Fragment	≈ $130
Spent as ad credit for your own channel	≈ $200

If you were going to buy ads for the channel anyway, spending Stars is roughly 1.5× more efficient than withdrawing them and paying for ads in another currency.

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What the Stars cabinet is good for#

• Growing the channel or bot that earned the Stars — a closed loop: content earns Stars, Stars buy reach, reach earns more Stars.
• Search ads with global reach. Telegram said search ads bought with Stars are shown to all users, while those bought with TON (now Gram) are not shown in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine (tginfo).

What it can't do#

• Promote a different product, brand or channel.
• Offer rich targeting: practitioners describe it as minimal (aksanov.digital).
• Provide Russian ad marking (erid): practitioners note there is no automatic marking in the Stars cabinet.

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How to start#

1. Check the Stars balance in your channel's or bot's statistics (Monetization).
2. Open the ad account for that channel or bot — in the API this is payments.getStarsRevenueAdsAccountUrl, which opens the Telegram Ads platform for the property that owns the Stars (Telegram API).
3. Create an ad promoting the same channel or bot, following the ad policies.
4. Start with a small budget and watch subscriber growth before scaling.

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Common mistakes#

1. Trying to advertise a partner's channel with your Stars. Only the channel or bot that holds them can be promoted.
2. Withdrawing, then paying for ads another way. You lose about a third of the value.
3. Expecting geo targeting. The Stars cabinet is not the place for it.
4. Assuming a fixed Stars-to-Gram rate. Only the dollar values ($0.013 withdrawal, $0.02 ad credit) are fixed; Gram's price floats.

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FAQ#

Can I buy Stars and spend them on ads for my channel? The API describes spending the Stars available on the channel's or bot's balance. Practitioners also describe topping up the Stars cabinet with bought Stars; check the current options in the app before planning around it.

How many Stars do I need to start? Telegram does not publish a minimum; practitioners mention starting from about 1,000 Stars and around 25,000 for a meaningful test.

Are Stars-bought ads different from other ads? They are the same sponsored messages under the same policies; the difference is who can use them and what they can promote.

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Sources: Telegram API: Stars, Content Creator Rewards ToS, Ad policies, tginfo, aksanov.digital.