| Bot | What does it do? | Users | 30d % growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spam Info Bot | Checks if a phone number, username, or channel is linked to spam/scam databases | 40.1M | +12% |
| Foursquare | Lets users share and discover locations, venues, and check-ins inside Telegram | 21.5M | -3.0% |
| Tenor GIF Search | Provides GIF search and quick insertion via Tenor’s GIF library | 17.3M | +2.0% |
| Leo – match and meet new friends | Matchmaking bot for chatting and meeting new people | 15.4M | -10% |
| Premium Bot | Allows users to manage Telegram Premium features and gifting | 9.5M | -28% |
| Randomize Bot | Generates random numbers, choices, and simple random events | 6.6M | -3.1% |
| Image Search | Reverse image search via an image-recognition engine | 4.6M | -1.3% |
| Save As Bot | Saves files, images, and media from messages/links | 3.9M | +1.0% |
How To Monetize Telegram Bots: Quick Guide For Publishers
We’ve said much about Telegram Mini Apps and how to monetize them. Meanwhile, it’s not the easiest way to begin monetizing with Telegram. Besides coding skills, it often requires some specific knowledge, like blockchain basics and UX design. Or, well, some substantial budget for development.
If you don’t have all that, is your only way to earn with Telegram to grow a channel slowly and painfully?
No, there is a great alternative to mini apps that can go viral, too: Telegram bots. Thanks to numerous ready-to-use tools, you can quickly create, set up, and monetize a bot.
What’s more, many publishers already use both: all Telegram Mini Apps come with bots by default, and that’s an extra monetization source many underestimate.
What are Telegram Bots?
Telegram bots are small chat applications that live inside Telegram as separate chats. They can do various things for you:
For example:
- Remind you about something
- Create stickers and emojis from your photos
- Find you a relationship match
- Edit or improve your pictures
- Translate messages
- Check if a phone number is spam
- Play simple games with you
- Or serve as an entry point to a Telegram Mini App
Here is how it looks: just like another chat right inside the Telegram app:
Source: WhatsMusic Telegram bot
Description: The bot identifies a song and returns its title when you send an audio message
In this case, you simply send the bot an audio message with the music or type a piece of the lyrics, and this Shazam-like bot gives you the track name. So you don’t need to close Telegram, Google it, or use Shazam; you can get the result right inside the bot in just a couple of clicks.
Bot Categories: What Can They Do?
According to some sources, there are approximately 10 million bots in Telegram, which can be roughly divided into 7 major groups.
Channel Management
– all bots that help chat and channel administrators. This includes bots for contests with built-in randomizers, bots for anonymous questions and comments in channels, and bots that track channel analytics or create quizzes.
Here is an example: a bot that lets people send anonymous messages to a user through a special link:
- A user starts the bot, gets a personal link, and places it in their Telegram, TikTok, or Instagram profile
- When someone opens the link, they can send text, photos, videos, or voice messages
- The user receives them in the bot chat without seeing the sender’s name
Source: Anonymous questions bot
Description: The bot allows you to send anonymous messages to channel owners
Games and Entertainment
These are game-host bots: they run games inside group chats, and guide players through rounds, rules, and actions. This can be, for example, a simple word game, where the bot says a word, and players must reply with a new word that starts with the last letter of it.
There are also Wheel of Fortune, Bingo, and similar bots — in fact, there’s probably a bot that acts as a host for almost any team game that can be played in text.
Besides games, there is funny stuff like the Grandpa bot that jumps into conversations, argues with everyone, throws random comments, and offers strange life advice.
Media and Content
These are photo and video editors and creators – including AI stuff that makes you bald or recreates your photo in a Ghibli-style pic, bots that help you find gifs and videos, and text-to-voice bots.
Source: ReStyle Photo bot
Description: the bot recreates pictures in various styles
Social Bots
That’s all about dating, anonymous chats, and other social activities. These bots work like Tinder-style apps built directly into Telegram. They match people without switching between different apps, and that’s exactly why users love them: everything happens instantly, in the same messenger they already use.
Source: Blurrr – vibes finder bot
Description: a dating app bot finds a match right inside the Telegram
Utilities
This includes various useful tools for users, such as file archiving, translators, calculators, account utilities, and other small, helpful features.
Education, Lifestyle, and Entertainment
This category covers everything from courses and language learning to fitness, wellness, psychology, hobbies, weather updates, recipes, lifestyle tips, and self-development.
We can also include various fun or miscellaneous stuff like fortune-telling or prediction bots here:
Source: Tarot reading bot
Description: The AI-based bot answers random user questions, imitating a Tarot reading
Tech and Finance
These are bots related to cryptocurrency, technology, and finance: wallets, trading tools, analytics, DeFi/staking, airdrops, NFTs, prediction markets, Web3 games, and services.
Which Bot To Create?
So, the next question is: which bot should you actually build? Of course, you can create one just because you love its idea. Who’s gonna stop you? But we are here for making it popular and monetizable, so we need something from a hot niche.
What are the hot niches, though? Let’s take a look at the FindMini.app’s latest bot rankings:
Here are the two main takeaways from this ranking:
- There is a huge demand for practical utility services. For example, image finders, and random number generators have huge user bases, and some of them keep growing in the long run.
- The retention rates are pretty low. If you check the graphs at FindMini.app, most of the bots have sudden traffic spikes and declines. The reason is that people rarely use bots constantly, and come back to them only when needed.
So, if you want to nail it, the best option is a product that simply works and performs one very useful task.
Can I Do Without Coding?
Most more or less complex bots, for example, those that use AI chats, require coding. If you’re not ready to code at all, you can still create something very basic, like a simple ‘drink water reminder’ bot.
Such a bot will only send fixed reminders at the intervals chosen by a user. Although it might be nice for a personal user, it is not suitable for monetization.
Good news: if you already have a site with a loyal audience, you can still benefit from simple bots. For example, a bot can send your site updates directly to your users on Telegram. This probably won’t bring in a new audience, but it can become a nice retention tool for your existing users. Such bots can be easily created with bot constructors that support auto-posting and RSS feeds.
Some examples include:
- ManyBot: the simplest one, allows setting autoposting
- Flow XO: a more complicated bot that allows you to add RSS feed
How to Monetize Bots?
A short answer: just like you’d monetize your site, app, or social media pages – by placing ads.
Quick note: Some bots also offer paid tasks or actions as an additional monetization method. For example, it can archive 3 files for free and charge for the rest. Still, we are talking about ads in this piece, and here you have two options:
Placing Ads From Direct Advertisers
Selling ad placements is a viable option, but it comes with several significant drawbacks, especially if you want to start monetizing immediately.
You have to wait for advertisers to find you, or search for them yourself, and this usually involves a lot of negotiations and approvals. What’s more, most placements are fixed-price, so you get paid once, and that’s it: you won’t have a stable, ongoing revenue stream.
Placing Monetag Smartlinks
A much simpler option: you just add Smartlinks (Direct Links) directly into your bot.
A Smartlink is a special link that takes a user to the most relevant ad from the feed of thousands offers.
You can place them inside one of the bot’s service messages, or send them as a separate ‘check this out – you might find something interesting’ type of message.
The advantages are clear:
- You control the ads yourself: place as many links as you want, whenever you want.
- You don’t need to wait for advertisers and spend time discussing various deals.
- You avoid the risk of low-quality or scammy advertisers: Monetag has a fully clean ad feed.
- There are no earnings limits: the more users interact with the Smartlinks, the more you make.
A couple of quick Smartlink funnel ideas for bot owners:
Funnel 1: Anime
- You suggest your anime fans track new series and episodes using your Telegram bot so that they don’t need to check your site themselves every time.
- A user adds the bot and selects the anime titles they want to follow.
- When a new episode is announced, the bot sends a message like: ‘New episode coming soon!’ This message contains a Smartlink.
- If a user follows the Smartlink, the system automatically shows a relevant ad or offer. A user interacts with this ad, and you earn!
Funnel 2: Sports
- You create a sports news bot that automatically sends sports news from your website’s feed (match results, breaking news, transfers, etc.).
- The bot sends messages with the latest sports news. Each message includes a ‘Read more’ button that leads users to your site.
- On your site, you place Smartlinks inside articles or on key pages. When users click Read more, they land on your website. If a user follows a Smartlink, they see a relevant ad or offer, and you earn.
Funnel 3: Action-Based Utility Bot
- A user sends a link, file, or command to a bot to edit a file or complete any other task.
- To proceed, the bot asks the user to follow a Smartlink to watch an ad.
- After a user follows the link, the requested action is delivered directly in the chat.
How to Begin Working With Smartlink?
- Log in to your Monetag account.
- Go to the Direct Link / SmartLink section (or: Sites → Add Site → Add Zone → Get tag).
- Generate your unique SmartLink URL.
- Add this URL to your site’s HTML or right to your bot’s messages.
If you are not with Monetag yet, you are welcome to join – and earn from your Telegram bots from the very first day.
