| Dogs | Rewarded users depending on their account ages, encouraging their curiosity |
| Caps | Used the NFT-gifts mechanics, which allows receiving in-game values only for those who own the Telegram gift “Caps |
| Notcoin | Created squads to make influencers and channel admins promote the app themselves by competing with each other |
| Major | Used social instincts like status and dominance by allowing users to buy ranking positions with Telegram Stars |
Creating a Telegram Mini App in 2025: Worth It or Not?
So you already know you can earn with a Telegram Mini App – and earn a lot. But is it still high time to jump on the hype train – or is it not a good idea to enter the niche anymore?
A little spoiler is that the TMA market is at the perfect stage to step in. It means, if you do things right, you have the best opportunity to get the most out of it, right now.
For this article, we asked Eugene Ustinovich, the founder of the Telegram Mini Apps Collaboration community and co-founder/CPO of Apps Hunter, to answer a simple question: Should you build your own Telegram App in 2025?
His short answer was ‘Yes, definitely’ – and all the details are right here in this post.
What’s Happening with the TMA Market in 2025?
Several facts about Telegram Mini Apps give a blatant hint: it’s the perfect time to begin. The main fact is that the TMA market is in its very early stage, so entering it right now might mean lower competition and big profits in the long term.
Eugene:
“TMAs haven’t yet attracted major advertisers with huge media budgets: big brands haven’t entered the space, so the profits are not so significant at the moment. If you come in now to build a TMA startup, you’ll be in a perfect position when those media budgets eventually pour in. It’s that kind of market phase.”
Some more advantages include the unusual nature of TMA and its audiences. Here is what you should know about it.
Fact 1. TMA works exclusively on TON
Telegram has officially prohibited using any other blockchains and wallets except TON, and this seems to be a problem at first glance: all the app owners are locked in a single ecosystem and can’t get advertising and venture budgets from others.
However, this has particular advantages:
the long-term strategy will give a boost to the TON ecosystem development and build a loyal customer base around this blockchain.
Besides, all TMA users will enjoy a seamless and unified experience: they’ll have access to standard, familiar tools and wallets, without any confusion with other blockchains.
Fact 2. Users can pay only in Telegram Stars
Telegram has a virtual currency called Telegram Stars that can be used for purchasing goods or services in Mini Apps. No other payment methods are available if we are talking about digital goods, and this creates a very smooth user experience:
- Users don’t need to enter their card details every time they want to pay
- All the payments happen instantly, right within the Telegram ecosystem
- If your app supports Stars, every user from any part of the world can make a payment
- Users who have already purchased Stars often don’t treat them as real money and easily spend them
One slight disadvantage of Stars is that it takes time to convert them into real money: you need to first exchange them for TON and then exchange them into fiat currency.
Note from Eugene:
“According to Telegram rules, users can request a Stars refund up to 90 days later. This is a challenge for TMA owners, as many scammers exploit this loophole. At the moment, there are no particular practices for combating such scams, and you must simply know about this when you create your app.”
What Kind of App is Worth Creating?
So, we now know that a Telegram Mini App can become a very profitable venture. The next question is what exactly you should create. Will a simple tap game like Hamster Combat do? Or a casual game adapted to TMA?
No, and no — as Eugene puts it, Telegram’s native narratives and mechanics have the biggest success among users.
Eugene:
“The key TMA drivers are the social mechanics. Besides, the main audience of TMA comes from the Web3 community. Some think that they can create a simple game, but the history of mini apps began with Notcoin – the first in-app token, which was eventually listed. This attracted plenty of Airdrop hunters – people who hope to earn by performing tasks in TMA, and they are the key users you need to target.”
These two facts create some dos and don’ts for your TMA ideas.
What will most likely work out:
- DeFi solutions and SocialFi mechanics will perfectly suit the Web3 audience and fit the Telegram nature. This might involve various wallets, and games where users can earn tokens, and create or sell NFTs. Besides, DeFi apps will make it easier to enter the Web3 world for a broad audience.
- Casual and mid-core games traditionally attract a significant number of players. However, to keep the retention rate of such a game high enough in Telegram, you need to broaden it with social mechanics: introduce leaderboards, share the achievements, and get rewards for their activity.
- Telegram, by its very nature, is designed to become a platform for AI agents. According to Eugene, there is every chance they will be at the top of the hype in 2025.
Overall, the top solution to enter the TMA is to introduce a viral app using social and multiplayer mechanics. Here are some examples:
What will most likely not:
- Simple copies of successful Web2 games from other platforms. As you already know, the Web3 audience won’t be so interested in them, and such games don’t allow you to build a community and apply the social mechanics of Telegram. So, these apps won’t have anything unique to offer to the Telegram audience.
- Copies of the leading apps. If some trend is already live, it’s too late to catch it. The only exception here is when a leader hasn’t embraced the whole market, and there are some users remaining untapped.
Possible Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Now we know what app mechanics and marketing efforts can become successful for TMA. But we remember that a startup can still easily fail, right? In this part, Eugene shared all the pitfalls and possible mistakes you should avoid to make your TMA shine, not fall into oblivion.
Ignoring the community
The problem is that TMA has a low user retention rate. There are two reasons for that:
- There’s no in-house app catalog, like this we see in, say, Google Play
- There’s an issue with push notifications: the built-in ones are too slow or too expensive, while notifications from Telegram bots often end up being muted by users. Besides, being a messenger, Telegram already sends too many notifications, and the TMA ones easily get lost.
That’s the reason why you need to focus on building a genuinely live community. Fake engagement won’t work out: it’s very obvious to the users. Instead, you need to go live on other platforms, create customer support bots with the help of @LivegramBot, consider localization for the top popular languages, and be heavily involved in communication with users.
Chasing the MAU
MAU, or monthly active users, is no longer an important metric. The new trend is grossing rankings, which show how much revenue your TMA generates through user purchases, subscriptions, in-game currencies, etc.
Sending too much traffic
Of course, you need traffic, but be careful with that at the very beginning. First, you need to know how your funnel works and how users convert. Then, it’s essential to fine-tune your product with a smaller group of users, so don’t send loads of traffic right from the start. Besides, you need to be careful with the traffic sources: quality stands over quantity.
Note:
Eugene also highlights the importance of the right promotion and tracking of your TMA: without that, even the best one stands no chance.
We created a very detailed guide on TMA metrics:
And we will release a guide on TMA promotion soon, so subscribe to our blog to be the first to know!
To Sum Up
Keeping in mind that Telegram is a unique universe with its particular mechanics, narratives, and users, you have all the chances to go viral. And, definitely, monetize all your efforts with the Monetag formats – also created specifically to fit the TMA users and bring you high CPMs.
