Telegram bot starts and referrals for bot and mini-app owners
Updated September 2026
What a bot start actually is
A "bot start" is the event Telegram fires when someone opens a chat with a bot and sends /start — including through a deep link such as t.me/yourbot?start=payload. That's the entire event: one tap, one /start message, counted once. It is not a session length, not a returning user, and not a completed onboarding flow inside your bot or mini-app.
For SMM panels and agencies that run Telegram bot or mini-app launches, bot starts like Bot Starts – Mix Country are stocked as a distinct category from members or views, because they measure a different funnel step — the very first one.
Referral-link starts: seeding a specific funnel
Several lines under Bots & Referrals are tagged Accept Referral — for example Bot Starts – Accept Referral, Arab, plus China and Indonesia variants. These starts carry a referral deep-link payload through to the bot, landing as if they came through a specific ?start= referral code rather than a generic open. That's useful for:
- Bot owners load-testing a referral tracking system before a real launch.
- Agencies seeding an initial referral count on a mini-app or bot that displays or pays out referral tiers, so the mechanic looks active on day one.
- Panels that want a "referral starts" SKU distinct from plain bot starts, since buyers ask for the two separately.
Geo lines
Most of the 20 services in Bots & Referrals are split by country — Brazil, France, Germany, India, and more — for buyers who need starts to read as coming from a specific market, whether that's to match a language-specific bot's audience or to satisfy a client only running ads in one region. As with every geo line on TGRU, the filter only applies when the service name names a country; generic Mix Country lines don't target a region.
Premium Bot Starts: when the account matters
The separate Premium Bot Starts category — 22 services, all from Premium-tagged accounts — costs more per 1,000 than the standard category: roughly $3.92 to $14.30 against $0.22 to $13.75 for standard starts. Resellers stock this tier for buyers who care about the account quality behind the start as it shows up in analytics — a bot dashboard, an admin panel, or a partner report — where Premium accounts read as better-quality traffic than a mixed pool.
Who resells these
- SMM panels listing a "Bot Growth" or "Bot Starts" section alongside members and views, so a buyer who already orders channel growth doesn't have to go elsewhere for a bot launch line item.
- Agencies running a bot or mini-app launch campaign for a client, where an initial starts number is part of the deliverable alongside the build work itself.
- Bot and mini-app operators buying through a panel to seed early numbers before a wider push, or to test referral plumbing end-to-end before real users touch it.
Drip-feed for a launch window
Every service in both categories accepts runs and interval through the reseller API, the same drip-feed mechanism used across the rest of the catalog. For a bot or mini-app launch, that matters more than it does for a one-off order: a single burst of a thousand starts inside a minute is easy to spot on a dashboard, where the same total spread across a set number of runs over a day or two reads as a normal trickle of launch traffic. Configure the run size and gap once, then let the order work through it — cancelling before it finishes returns the cost of any run that hasn't fired yet.
Standard, referral or Premium — how to choose
Default to plain Bot Starts when the brief is simply "seed a number" and nothing about the account quality or the entry path matters. Reach for the Accept Referral variants specifically when the buyer's own referral or affiliate mechanic needs to register real starts through a ?start= code — a plain start won't touch that code at all. Reach for Premium Bot Starts only when the buyer has said the account quality behind the number matters, since it's the more expensive tier for a reason that doesn't apply to every brief.
What bot starts are not
Be direct with buyers about this: a bot start is not an active user, not a retained user, and not a conversion inside the bot. It's a single /start event. None of the 42 services across both bot-start categories carry a refill option — there's nothing to refill, because a start isn't a count that can drop the way a member or a view can. If a buyer wants starts hoping it will read as an engaged user base, that's the wrong product, and the expectation needs resetting before the order goes in, not after.
Telegram Bots & Referrals — example pricing
| Service | Price from (per 1,000) | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bot Starts, Mix Country | $0.22 | 100 | 1,000,000 |
| Bot Starts, Accept Referral, Arab | $1.6191 | 15 | 1,000,000 |
| Bot Starts, Brazil | $0.99 | 50 | 1,000,000 |
| Bot Starts, France | $1.089 | 50 | 1,000,000 |
| Bot Starts, Accept Referral, Indonesia | $1.6191 | 50 | 1,000,000 |
20 services in total in this category; none carry a refill window.
Telegram Premium Bot Starts — example pricing
| Service | Price from (per 1,000) | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Bot Starts, Mix Country ⭐ | $3.9204 | 1,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Premium Bot Starts, Brazil ⭐ | $7.92 | 1 | 500,000 |
| Premium Bot Starts, Germany ⭐ | $5.50 | 100 | 500,000 |
| Premium Bot Starts, India ⭐ | $12.87 | 100 | 500,000 |
| Premium Bot Starts, China ⭐ | $14.30 | 100 | 500,000 |
22 services in this category, also with no refill window. Rates above are from September 2026 — pull the live card before quoting a customer.
Ordering notes
The bot or the deep link has to be public and reachable while the order runs, same as any other TGRU line. Quantity and the link or username can't change once an order is paid. Run one order per bot link at a time rather than stacking jobs — that applies here as much as it does to members or views.
FAQ
Can bot starts be refilled if the number looks low later? No — neither Bots & Referrals nor Premium Bot Starts carries a refill option. A start is a one-off event, not a retained count.
Do referral starts guarantee the user continues past /start?
No. They land as a start through the referral deep link; what the user does after that inside your bot or mini-app is outside what this product measures.
What's the practical difference between standard and Premium bot starts? Premium lines come from Premium-tagged accounts and cost more per 1,000 — buyers choose them when the account quality behind the start matters for how it reads in a dashboard or report.
Are geo bot-start lines targeted by language or by country? By country, and only when the service name states one. A Mix Country line pulls from a mixed pool with no regional filter.
Add this to your catalog
Bot starts, referral variants and Premium Bot Starts are ordered through the same account and the same reseller API as the rest of the TGRU catalog — pull current rates from the service list, set your markup, and list them as a distinct SKU from members or views. See the FAQ for account and key setup before your first pull.