Telegram Chatbots The Ultimate Guide

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By Joren Wouters Updated on

This is the ultimate guide to Telegram chatbots in 2023.

I will cover:

  • What Telegram Chatbots are
  • Why you should use Telegram chatbots
  • How you can create your own Telegram bot

And even more.

So if you are a looking to create a Telegram bot for a business, you'll love this guide.

telegram-chatbots

Chapter 1: Intro to Telegram Chatbots

In this first chapter, I will provide an intro to Telegram Chatbots. So:

Let's dive in.

intro-telegram-chatbots

What is a Telegram Bot?

Telegram chatbot is a computer program that can automatically reply to messages on Telegram.

Telegram bots work 24/7 and can have multiple conversations with several people, at the same time. Theyt are oftne used to automatically answer question and provide information about a company’s products or services.

Telegram Chatbot Example

Now a real-life example of a Telegram chatbot: the Eddy Travel chatbot.

With this chatbot you can:

  • Search for flights
  • Get travel inspiration
  • Find accomodations, such as hotels
  • Explore tours
  • And plan group travels

You can try it out yourself by talking to Eddie Travels using this link:

telegram-chatbot-example

Why use Telegram Chatbots?

Telegram is one of the biggest messaging apps in the world, with 400 million active monthly users:

telegram-400-million-users

Also, the platform is growing fast. Every day, 1.5 million new users sign up for Telegram:

telegram-new-users

This means that a lot of people are already on Telegram and that the number of users is expanding rapidly.

With so many people on the platform, it is likely that your customers will also be there. And where your customers, you need to be.

So now you understand why you should use Telegram, why should you use a chatbot?

Actually, I created an extensive post about this, but here are some of the main reasons:

  1. You can save time and money on customer service
  2. It can boost your sales
  3. With a chatbot, you can reply in seconds, instead of days
  4. Your chatbot is 24/7 available, all over the world
  5. People are open to using chatbots, as long as they get good help

Besides this, Telegram also has some advantages over other channels, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp

Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have strict rules regarding their chatbot, such as the 24-hour window. But with Telegram, we have no such rules (yet), which is a huge advantage!

Also, with Telegram you can use chatbots in groups, which is not possible with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

How do Telegram bots work?

Most Telegram chatbots are based on a conversational flow.

And a conversational flow is created by three core elements:

  1. Trigger: Tells the chatbot when to start a conversation
  2. Action: Tells the chatbot what to do (for example: send a message)
  3. Condition: Performs checks based on if this, then that logic

For example, if I start my own Telegram business chatbot, you will get the following response:

telegram-business-bot

And here’s how that looks in ManyChat (the chatbot platform I’ve used):

how-telegram-bots-work

How it works:

  1. If someone types a message containing “Hey”, “Hi”, or “Hello”, the chatbot replies with this flow (the trigger)
  2. The chatbot first checks if the user a new user or a returning user (the condition)
  3. And if the user is new, we send the first message (above). Otherwise, we send the second message (the actions)

Pretty simple, right?

Chapter 2: How To Create a Chatbot on Telegram

Now we know what Telegram chatbots are and why you should use one, it is time to build a Telegram Bot ourselves..

So I will show you how you can create your own Telegram bot, step-by-step.

And I am going to do that by using ManyChat.

Let's dive in.

create-telegram-chatbot

Create a Telegram Chatbot with ManyChat

So the first thing that you need to do is create a free ManyChat account:

Create free Manychat account

Then, you can follow all the steps I explain in this video:

Or you can just follow the steps below.

So when you click on the button above, you will directly go to the Manychat website and here you need to click on Get started free:

manychat-get-started-free

Then, you need to select Telegram:

manychat-sign-up-telegram

And you need to continue with your Telegram account:

manychat-continue-telegram-account

Now, ManyChat will verify your Telegram account and your email. And once you have done that, your ManyChat account is created.

Connect your ManyChat bot to Telegram

Once you have created your ManyChat account, you need to connect it to the Telegram channel.

In order to do that, you need to go Settings > Telegram and click on Connect:

 

manychat-telegram-connect

And click on Create new bot:

manychat-telegram-create-new-bot

Then, we need to create a bot inside Telegram and connect that to our ManyChat account.

Now, open up your Telegram app and talk with the Botfather (this sounds almost like a joke, but I am serious).

Go to Telegram, search for Botfather, start a chat and click on Start at the bottom.

Then, BotFather will automatically respond with a list of commands you can use to create a Telegram bot using the Telegram Bot API:

telegram-botfather-start

So, now you need to say “/newbot” to create your chatbot.

The BotFather will ask for the name and the username of the bot and will automatically create a Telegram API Token for you:

telegram-botfather-newbot

NOTEDon’t share this API token with anyone else besides yourself!

Just copy and paste that API token into ManyChat:

manychat-telegram-bot-token

And that’s it! Now your ManyChat account is connected to Telegram!

P.S. If you to create a chatbot for a Telegram group, you need to use another platform than Manychat (because Manychat doesn’t have this functionality). Here is a video on how you can create one with Xenioo, that does have this functionality.

Automatically reply to words or phrases

Now that we have successfully connected our ManyChat account to Telegram, it’s time to automatically reply to words and phrases.

To do this, just go to Automation and click on New flow:

manychat-new-flow

Let’s say, we have a course and we want to automatically reply with information about this course when somebody messages us the word “course”.

Then, we need to add a Starting Step to our ManyChat flow, which is also called a Trigger.

And a trigger, is something that starts our flow inside Telegram. And in this case, we want to start the flow when a message contains the word “course”.

So, you can just click on Add Trigger:

manychat-add-trigger

Choose for Telegram (on the left side) and then select the Telegram keyword:

manychat-telegram-keyword

Then, you can click on the keyword and just type in “course” and click on Create:

manychat-telegram-keyword-create

Now, every time messages us a phrase with the word “course” in it, we automatically reply with this ManyChat flow.

Then, as a first step, we will choose Telegram:

manychat-telegram-first-step

P.S. I also have a lot of other channels here, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and SMS, because I also connected these channels to my ManyChat account.

And add the contents of the message. So we will just type information about our course:

My course is called the Lead Generation System, where you can learn how to automatically generate leads for your business.

If you want to sign up for my course or want more information, please click the button below👇

manychat-telegram-message-contents

And we can also add a button that will lead to a page on your website.

So you can just click on Add button, determine the Button title, set it to Open website and add the URL to your website:

manychat-telegram-add-button-website

P.S. I actually do have a course called the Lead Generation System, where you can learn how you can use ManyChat to automatically generate leads for your business. You can check it out here.

That’s it! Now, every time says something related to a course, we automatically reply with information about our course + a link to our website where they can buy it.

Chapter 3: What chatbot platforms for Telegram?

I showed you how to create your own Telegram chatbot with ManyChat.

But ManyChat is not the only chatbot platform out there.

So, which chatbot builders can you use to build your Telegram chatbot?

And how much does a Telegram chatbot cost?

Let's check it out.

telegram-chatbot-builders

How much does a Telegram chatbot cost?

The pricing of your Telegram bot depends on the chatbot platform that you use.

There are many chatbot builders in the market, and the prices vary from a free plan up to $417 per month.

So let’s look at the chatbot builders that offer Telegram chatbots. I will look at whether there is a free plan and how much it will cost to send 1000 messages with a chatbot on each of the platforms:

Chatbot builder Free plan available? Price per 1000 messages
ActiveChat No $33 per month
Botmother Yes $17 per month
Engati Yes Free
Flow XO Yes $19 per month
Flow.ai No Custom price
Manychat Yes $15 per month
Snatchbot Yes $30 per month
Trengo Yes $28,50 per month
Ubisend No $417,16 per month
Xenioo Yes $36,39 per month

Of course, these chatbot builders differ a lot in the features they provide and the type of customers they serve, but it provides some insight into how much a Telegram chatbot costs.

Let’s have a look at the various chatbot builders.

Telegram Chatbot Platforms

Here is a list of chatbot builders you can use to create your own Telegram chatbot:

(By the way, if you want to easily compare these chatbot builders, check out this page where you can compare 52 builders)

activechat-logo-whitespace ActiveChat botmother-logo-whitespace Botmother botpress-logo-whitespace Botpress Chatrace logo with whitespace Chatrace crisp-logo-whitespace Crisp dialogflow-logo-whitespace Dialogflow engati-logo-whitespace Engati flowxo-chatbot-software Flow XO flow-ai-whitespace Flow.ai manychat-logo-whitespace Manychat pandorabots-logo-whitespace Pandorabots snatchbot-logo-whitespace SnatchBot trengo-logo-whitespace Trengo ubisend-logo-whitespace Ubisend uchat-logo-whitespace UChat Xenioo
Interface
Visual Flow Builder
Create chatbot dialogs with a visual flow builder.
Test chatbot
Is it possible to test the chatbot before putting your new flows or changes live?
Interface easy to use?
Is the chatbot platform easy-to-use?
Easy to setup a chatbot?
Is it easy to set up your chatbot with this chatbot platform?
Chatbot elements
Delays
Use delays between messages in your chatbot
Images
Can you send images via your chatbot?
Video
Can you send video via your chatbot?
Audio
Can you send audio via your chatbot?
Attachments
Can you send attachments via your chatbot?
Gallery (Horizontal list)
Show a gallery of cards inside your chatbot. A card consists of an image, title, subtitle and button.
Vertical list
Show a vertical list of items inside your chatbot
Emojis
Can you use emojis inside your chatbot?
Persistent menu
Can you add a persistent menu to your chatbot?
Quick replies
Can you add quick replies to your chatbot where users can click on?
Buttons
Can you add buttons to your chatbot where users can click on?
Free text input
Can chatbot users freely type text to your chatbot whenever they want to?
Location sharing
Can users share their location inside the chatbot?
Email validation
When a chatbot user gives their email, can the platform validate it’s a correct email address?
Phone number validation
When a chatbot user gives their phone number, can the platform validate it’s a correct phone number?
Date validation
When a chatbot user gives a date, can the platform validate it’s a correct date?
Users
Custom fields
Store information from your chatbot users inside fields. For example, you can ask for someone’s email and store it inside the “email” custom field.
Tags
Add tags to users in your chatbot flows to organize and categorize contacts.
User segments
Can you create user segments based on custom fields and tags?
Messages
Broadcasts
Send a message to all or a part of your chatbot users at a specific date and time
Sequences
Send messages on a pre-defined schedule with a certain time interval between those messages
Conditions
Make checks in your chatbot flow based on if-then logic. For example, if the user has not given their email, ask for their email.
Multiple languages
Is it possible to create a chatbot in multiple languages?
Easy to translate
Can you translate text to other languages without using a third-party platform and without creating duplicate flows?
AI & NLP
Keywords
Trigger chatbot flow based on certain words or phrases a user says to the chatbot.
Intents
Trigger a chatbot flow by understanding the intent of the user.
Entities
Capture specific information from sentences. For example, if a user says “veggie pizza”, the chatbot can understand it’s not a regular pizza, but a veggie pizza.
DialogFlow integration
Does the chatbot platform provide a direct integration with Google’s AI Platform?
Channels
Website
Can you publish your chatbot on your website?
Facebook
Can you publish your chatbot on Facebook?
Instagram
Can you publish your chatbot on Instagram?
WhatsApp
Can you publish your chatbot on WhatsApp?
Telegram
Can you publish your chatbot on Telegram?
SMS
Can you publish your chatbot on SMS?
Slack
Can you publish your chatbot on Slack?
Skype
Can you publish your chatbot on Skype?
Email
Can you publish your chatbot on email?
Integrations
Live chat
Direct integration with live chat, either via a built-in live chat functionality or a third-party live chat platform.
Zapier
Direct integration with Zapier, one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
Make (formerly Integromat)
Direct integration with Make (formerly Integromat), one of the largest integration platforms in the world.
Google Sheets
Direct integration with Google Sheets, to store or retrieve data from sheets.
Webhooks
Can you call an API inside your chatbot flow to send or get data from other applications?
Marketing
Facebook website widget
Embed your chatbot as a Facebook Widget on your website.
Native website widget
Embed your chatbot as a native widget (your own branding & colors) on your website.
Landing pages
Can you create a simple landing page to drive users to your chatbot?
Facebook Ads
Start a conversation with your chatbot when someone clicks on a Facebook Ad
One-Time Notification
Send one-time notifications via Facebook Messenger for a topic that a chatbot user has opted-in for
Facebook comments auto-reply
Automatically reply with your chatbot to users who comment on your Facebook Posts
Button creator
Add a button to your website to drive users to your chatbot
Custom URLs
Generate a simple URL that can be shared anywhere to send users to your chatbot
Pricing
Free trial
Does the chatbot platform provide a free trial?
Free plan
Does the chatbot platform provide a free plan?
Price per month
What is the lowest price per month for creating a chatbot on this platform?
14917514950191919151930253001030
Monthly pricing
Is it possible to pay monthly?
Money back guarantee
Is there a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the platform?
Analytics
Dashboard
Dashboard that provides general analytics of your chatbot.
User input
Get the input from users that your chatbot didn’t understand.
Sent messages
The number of messages that were sent by your chatbot.
Open rate
The percentage of chatbot users that opened a message inside your chatbot.
Click rate
The percentage of chatbot users that click on a button inside your chatbot.
Conversion rate
The percentage of users that converted through your chatbot. For example, the percentage of users that gave their email address
Fall back rate
The percentage of interactions where the chatbot did not know an answer to a question.
Custom dashboards/reports
Can you create your own dashboard or reports?
eCommerce
Payments
Collect payments inside your chatbot
Shopify
Direct integration with Shopify to get products, order information and cart data.
WooCommerce
Direct integration with WooCommerce to get products, order information and cart data.
Buy directly within chatbot
Ability for chatbot users to buy products or services directly from a chatbot
Cart abandonment
Trigger messages in the chatbot when a user abandons their cart on a website or inside the chatbot
Templates & Cloning
Templates
How many pre-built templates does the chatbot platform provide?
18000345195111619173002716
Make template
Can you make templates yourself?
Share template
Can you share self-created templates with others?
Duplicate chatbot flows
Is it possible to duplicate chatbot flows, so you can easily reuse them?
Duplicate chatbot elements
Is it possible to duplicate chatbot elements, so you can easily reuse them?
Optimization
A/B Testing
Can you optimize your chatbot flows by performing A/B tests?
Support
Tutorials
Does the chatbot platform provide tutorials on how to use its platform?
Documentation
Does the chatbot platform provide documentation on how to use its platform?
Customer support
Does the chatbot platform provide customer support?

Now It's Your Turn

So that’s how you can use Telegram chatbots in your marketing.

Now I want to turn it over to you: Are you going to create a Telegram Chatbot? 

Or do you already use a Telegram chatbot?

Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Comments (2)

  1. Priya Sharma

    Hi Joren! this really an amazing article, I was looking for something like this & truly feel glad to spend time on your blog. I am surely going to try these tips. Thanks for sharing.

    1. Joren Wouters

      Glad you liked it!

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