How Telegram Ads work

Telegram Ads is the only official advertising platform, run by Telegram itself. Ads serve as sponsored messages in public channels with 1,000+ subscribers and as promotions inside mini-apps. Private chats are never touched — that privacy stance is foundational.

The inventory is large: Telegram has 1B+ MAU (March 2025) and 400M+ people interact with bots and mini-apps. But the platform is closed and auction-driven, so it pays to understand how it works before funding a budget.

The thing that confuses newcomers most: it is one platform with three payment «cabinets» — EUR (fiat, via resellers), Gram (GRAM, formerly Toncoin; cryptocurrency) and Telegram Stars (XTR). These are not three systems — they are three currency rails on one delivery infrastructure.

EUR Ads Cabinet is the original cabinet and the default outside crypto. Access goes through authorised resellers and agencies: resellers say a direct contract with Telegram is around €2 million, of which €1 million is a deposit (Telegram does not publish these numbers); via resellers entry starts at €250–500, and eLama lets you start from €0 on post-payment. You pay the reseller in euros; commission is usually 15–20%. Targeting: country, language, interests, channels, bots, search, retargeting. Best for brands and services running reach campaigns.

The Gram cabinet (formerly the TON cabinet, a.k.a. TON Ads) is a self-serve account at ads.telegram.org, funded in Gram via Fragment from a TON wallet (Tonkeeper, MyTonWallet); Fragment may ask for KYC. Practitioners cite a deposit from ~20 Gram; the minimum CPM is 0.1 Gram (the getting-started page still says “0.1 Toncoin”). The ads are the same sponsored messages, but targeting is limited to explicit lists of channels, bots and search keywords — no geo, no interests. Practitioners report that Gram-cabinet ads are not shown to users from Russia.

Stars Promotions are paid in Telegram Stars (XTR) from the balance of your own channel or bot, and only for ads of that same channel or bot: 1 Star = $0.02 of ad credit versus $0.013 on withdrawal (a 30% discount). There is no fixed Stars-to-Gram rate — the Gram rate floats. Someone else’s product cannot be promoted with Stars. Full per-cabinet breakdowns are linked below.

In the EUR and Gram cabinets the format is the same: up to 160 characters of text plus a CTA button, optionally a banner (photo/video). Under the ads.telegram.org policies you can promote channels, bots, accounts and external websites; a promoted channel must have a post from the last two weeks.

The Gram cabinet has no separate “crypto format”: the ads are the same sponsored messages — only payment and targeting differ. The Stars cabinet promotes only your own channel or bot (a mini app lives inside a bot, so it can be promoted as your bot). What competitors already run is visible in the open tgadsspy archive.

An ad serves as a sponsored message — a distinct block in a public channel feed or a promotion inside a mini-app, not a message in your DMs. Ads are personalised: different users in the same channel see different ads.

Premium accounts see no sponsored messages at all. Delivery is tied to regional accounts, so the same campaign fans out by geo to cover the audiences you want.

The EUR cabinet (via resellers) targets by country, language, interests (from subscriptions), specific channels (an allow-list by username), bots and search queries, and supports retargeting. Two modes: Target Users or Target Channels (they do not combine).

The Gram cabinet targets only explicit lists of channels, bots and search keywords — no geo, no interests (per practitioners): you reach a crypto audience through crypto / DeFi / NFT channels. The Stars cabinet promotes only your own channel or bot, with minimal targeting.

On privacy: since 28 August 2026 ads.telegram.org only promises “We don’t use the contents of your private chats or contacts lists for ad targeting”. The old line that Telegram ads are “not targeted” is out of date — the EUR cabinet targets by geo, language and interests.

Before launch the account is verified (typically 1–5 business days) and every creative is reviewed by Telegram. The moderation rules (ads.telegram.org/guidelines) are the same in every cabinet, however you pay. Targeting cannot be changed after a campaign is created. Channels carry trust flags: verified (blue check), scam, fake, restricted; partner verification (bot_verification) is separate — an organisation confirms an official channel via its own bot.

There is a lot of confusion about the entry barrier. Telegram publishes no official threshold: resellers say a direct contract with Telegram is around €2 million, of which €1 million is a deposit. The usual way in is through resellers from €250–500 (eLama lets you start from €0 on post-payment) or the Gram cabinet with a deposit from ~20 Gram, per practitioners.

Pricing is auction-driven and depends on cabinet, niche and geo. In the EUR cabinet, minimum CPMs for accounts from Russia since 28 August 2026 are €0.60 (country/language targeting), €0.30 (Politics & Incidents) and €0.75 (channels, bots, search); before that, on 17 February 2026, the minimum was cut from €1.00 to €0.70. SA Media puts the average CPM at €0.97 in August 2026. In the Gram cabinet the minimum CPM is 0.1 Gram. By country, the auction rate in PropellerAds data (Q1 2025) runs from €0.35–1.40 in Kazakhstan to €5.25–8.00 in Spain.

Ballpark a budget for your reach and geo in the calculator; the full cost breakdown is on the cost page, and live percentiles by niche and geo live at tgmetrics.net.

On your own — the six steps below: register, verify, top up, build the creative, target, submit for moderation. Via agency: G.MEDIA Agency runs campaigns end-to-end across every cabinet type — a 30-day pilot with a transparent client dashboard.

Before launching, see what competitors already run in the open tgadsspy archive: filter by niche, country and advertiser to see real creatives and offers.