Telegram bots — Chatonaut

The difference

Telegram lets you speak first

If you came here from our Instagram page, this is the part that changes.

Instagram: Meta sets the rules

You answer on their clock

You can message someone only after they message you—and only for 24 hours.
A comment gives you 7 days to reach that one person in DMs.
You cannot broadcast to your followers. Not through us, not through anyone.

You write when you have something to say

Anyone who pressed Start stays reachable—today, next month, whenever you have news.
One broadcast reaches your whole list, or only the people you tagged.
Every link carries a parameter, so the bot knows which post they came from.

One rule stays: the person presses Start first. Nobody hears from your bot out of nowhere—not on Telegram, not with us. We pace big sends for you, because Telegram lets a bot send about 30 messages a second, and a bot that hits that ceiling helps no one.

Instagram is a trademark of Meta Platforms, Inc. Chatonaut is an independent product, not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Meta. See what we do on Instagram.

Three kinds of block. That’s the builder.

You lay the flow out on a canvas—a message, a branch, an action. No code, no server of your own to keep alive.

A message with buttons under it

Text, a photo, a video, a file, a voice note, a sticker. Buttons sit under the message: one opens a link, the next moves the person a step further.

Telegram can tint a button blue, green or red—so “Confirm” and “Cancel” stop looking like the same thing.

In the chat

B

Which size should I check for you? Medium Large

Large

A condition to split the path

Branch on what they typed—a word, a number, an email, a phone. On the tags you put on them. On the time of day. Or on whether they are subscribed to your channel, if your bot is an admin there.

An action to make it count

Tag a person. Save their answer and reuse it later—{{var.city}} in the next message. Wait an hour. Ping yourself on Telegram. Hand the chat to a human. Or call a URL of your own.

Deep links

One link per campaign

Any link to your bot can carry a parameter. The bot reads it before it says a word and starts the flow you built for that link.

The value stays with the conversation, so a later message or condition can use it.
Match the whole value or just the start of it—that is how one flow serves a personal link for every customer.
The same link works from a post, an ad, a bio, a QR code on a table.

The link you hand out

↗

t.me/yourbot?start=spring

printed on the table tent

the bot reads spring and starts that flow

First message

B

Table tent, then. Here’s the spring set—want the vegetarian one? Yes, vegetarian

Broadcasts to a list you own

Everyone who pressed Start is on it. No ad account in the middle, no feed deciding who gets to see you.

Everyone, or one tag

Send to every conversation the bot has—or only to the people a flow tagged earlier.

Buttons in the message

Add a button that opens a link, or one that drops the person straight into a flow and keeps the conversation going.

Now, or on a date

Schedule it and walk away. When it finishes, every recipient has a status—sent, failed or skipped—and failures say why.

Someone blocked the bot? Telegram tells us, we mark them, and the next broadcast steps over them instead of burning your rate limit on a closed door.

The agent answers. A person takes over.

The same agent works on Telegram, on Instagram and in your website chat—one set of answers, three places.

It reads what you already wrote

Upload a file, paste text, or point it at your site and let it read. The agent answers from that and remembers the rest of the conversation.

It knows when to stop

Ask for a human and the chat goes to your team, marked and waiting. The bot stops talking over them.

One inbox, real roles

Every channel lands in the same inbox. Invite colleagues by email and give each one a role: owner, admin or operator.

The AI agent is part of Premium, with 500 AI replies included every month. More about the agent

For developers

Or drive the bot from your own code

Send a message, list chats, read a conversation, edit or delete what the bot sent. Webhooks fire on message.received and button.clicked.

POST /api/v2/telegram/messages
GET  /api/v2/telegram/chats
GET  /api/v2/telegram/chats/{id}/messages
POST /api/v2/telegram/messages/{id}/edit

Two limits, both Telegram’s: you can edit or delete a message for about 48 hours after it goes out, and Telegram hands bots no history—so a conversation comes back the way the bot saw it, not the way your phone shows it.

Plans

Start free, pay when it works

Free $0 Up to 50 conversations a month and 1 flow. Every channel included. Plus $15/mo Conversations, flows, broadcasts and your team, without the caps. No AI agent. Premium $29/mo Everything in Plus, and the AI agent with 500 AI replies a month.

See the full comparison Premium is free for the first 3 days.

Questions people ask first

Do I need a developer?

No. Open @BotFather in Telegram, ask it for a new bot, copy the token it sends back and paste it into your account. That is the whole setup.

Can the bot message someone who never wrote to me?

No. Telegram requires the person to press Start first. After that there is no 24-hour window—you can write next month if that is when you have news.

Does the AI agent work on Telegram?

Yes, and it is the same agent you use in your other channels. It comes with Premium, which includes 500 AI replies a month.

Can I check that someone is subscribed to my channel?

Yes, as long as your bot is an admin of that channel. Add the check as a condition before you hand out a code or a file.

Can the bot edit or delete a message it sent?

For roughly 48 hours after sending. That is Telegram’s limit, not ours.

What happens when I send a big broadcast?

We spread it out under Telegram’s ceiling of about 30 messages a second and show you the result for every recipient.

Paste the token. The bot is live.

Start for free See pricing

No card. Premium free for 3 days.

A bot on Telegrambuttons and branching, broadcasts to your own list, an AI agent.