How to earn Telegram Stars
28.2% of 86,682 active public Telegram channels received at least one Star reaction in their last 100 posts (October 2026). For the median receiving channel that was 12 Stars, about $0.16 at the creator payout rate.
How to earn Telegram Stars as a channel owner
Channels earn Stars in four ways: Star reactions that readers send under posts, paid posts that unlock for a price of up to 25,000 Stars, Star subscriptions of up to 10,000 Stars a month, and gifts that readers send to the channel. Only reactions are visible in public posts, so they are what we measure. To accept them, open Channel Settings → Reactions and turn on paid reactions; Telegram passes 100% of the Stars to the channel.
Most channels that do it earn little. The median receiving channel collected 12 Stars over its last 100 posts; a quarter collected 3 or fewer, and only one in ten reached 409. Those 409 Stars pay out about $5.32.
Which Telegram channels earn the most Stars?
| Topic | Channels | Receive Stars | Median Stars per receiving channel | Median Stars per 1,000 views |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blogs | 2,525 | 59.6% | 71 | 0.058 |
| Music | 1,104 | 54% | 68 | 0.071 |
| Games | 2,624 | 53.5% | 36 | 0.042 |
| AI | 396 | 52.3% | 19 | 0.033 |
| Humor and memes | 2,730 | 44.9% | 20 | 0.029 |
| Art | 712 | 43.8% | 18 | 0.041 |
| Anime | 673 | 41% | 16 | 0.027 |
| Crypto | 3,505 | 40.2% | 22 | 0.048 |
| Technology | 2,934 | 39% | 18 | 0.019 |
| Entertainment | 628 | 38.9% | 41 | 0.049 |
| Psychology | 565 | 37.3% | 12 | 0.032 |
| Sport | 2,052 | 35.9% | 9 | 0.014 |
| Beauty | 2,153 | 35.6% | 9 | 0.018 |
| Books | 432 | 35.2% | 6 | 0.013 |
| Cars | 965 | 33.4% | 12 | 0.031 |
| Food | 823 | 32.8% | 9 | 0.014 |
| Design | 457 | 32.2% | 6 | 0.014 |
| Esoteric | 643 | 31.4% | 16 | 0.039 |
| Travel | 779 | 29.9% | 8 | 0.018 |
| Fashion | 480 | 29% | 8 | 0.02 |
| Announcements | 353 | 28% | 29 | 0.032 |
| Motivation | 807 | 27.5% | 10 | 0.02 |
| Health and fitness | 1,993 | 27.3% | 6 | 0.017 |
| Finance | 2,837 | 23.5% | 9 | 0.019 |
| Business | 1,486 | 22.9% | 15 | 0.04 |
| News | 16,009 | 22.6% | 6 | 0.008 |
| Real estate | 401 | 22.2% | 4 | 0.012 |
| Events and local | 1,365 | 21.2% | 4 | 0.011 |
| Religion | 2,603 | 17% | 10 | 0.02 |
| Education | 7,561 | 16.3% | 6 | 0.011 |
| Shopping and deals | 1,868 | 13.3% | 5 | 0.014 |
| Jobs and careers | 1,371 | 7.1% | 3 | 0.007 |
By topic, blogs are the most likely to receive Stars (59.6%) and jobs and careers the least (7.1%). Personal channels with a recognisable author, such as blogs and musicians, collect Stars because readers tip a person. News and deal channels have large audiences but few tips: their readers come for information, not for the author.
Does channel size matter for earning Stars?
| Subscribers | Channels | Receive Stars | Median Stars per receiving channel | Median Stars per 1,000 views |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10K | 3,305 | 19% | 8 | 0.04 |
| 10K–50K | 64,856 | 26.8% | 10 | 0.022 |
| 50K–100K | 10,296 | 31.7% | 14 | 0.014 |
| 100K–500K | 7,340 | 37.6% | 25 | 0.01 |
| 500K–1M | 513 | 48.9% | 40 | 0.01 |
| 1M+ | 372 | 49.2% | 81 | 0.011 |
Bigger channels are more likely to receive Stars, but per view they earn less: tips come from a loyal core, which grows more slowly than the audience. Compare your own Stars per 1,000 views with the median for your size rather than with the totals of large channels.
Which posts get Telegram Stars?
| Post type | Share of posts with Stars | Share of all posts |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | 35.4% | 35.5% |
| Video | 13.5% | 14.3% |
| Album | 16.7% | 15.9% |
| Text only | 24.8% | 26% |
| Other (files, voice, polls) | 9.6% | 8.4% |
Post type matters less than the audience: the shares above are close. Other (files, voice, polls) posts are slightly over-represented among posts with Stars. Views matter more. Across 16,152 channels with at least three Star-receiving posts, those posts sat at the 55th percentile of the channel’s views on average, and 70.9% of channels had their Star posts above their median.
How to earn Telegram Stars by language
| Language | Channels | Receive Stars | Median Stars per receiving channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Russian | 33,351 | 42.7% | 18 |
| English | 9,522 | 20.7% | 9 |
| Persian | 9,486 | 17.2% | 5 |
| Arabic | 7,482 | 20.6% | 7 |
| Chinese | 3,444 | 5.1% | 5 |
| Uzbek | 2,894 | 30.2% | 8 |
| Ukrainian | 2,076 | 34.9% | 6 |
| Spanish | 1,471 | 14.1% | 5 |
| Burmese | 1,106 | 8% | 3 |
| French | 682 | 12.2% | 4 |
| Amharic | 675 | 16.6% | 3 |
| Italian | 630 | 9.8% | 5 |
| German | 539 | 10.8% | 6 |
| Hindi | 531 | 2.8% | 1 |
| Portuguese | 499 | 8.6% | 2 |
| Indonesian | 399 | 14% | 3 |
| Turkish | 361 | 13.9% | 3 |
Reader habits differ by language as much as by topic. Where readers rarely buy Stars, channels see few reactions whatever they post.
How to earn Telegram Stars for free as a user
Users cannot earn Stars by watching or tapping. The legitimate free routes are winning a Star giveaway, which only 0.2% of channels announced in their last 100 posts, receiving gifts and converting them to Stars, and earning referral commission in Telegram’s affiliate program. See how to get free Telegram Stars.
Star counters show Stars sent, not withdrawable Stars: refunds and the 21-day hold can reduce what reaches the balance.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
How can I get Telegram Stars?
Buy them in the Telegram app or on Fragment, receive them as reactions, gifts or payments if you run a channel or bot, win them in a Star giveaway, or earn them as commission in a mini app affiliate program.
How do channels earn Telegram Stars?
Mainly through Star reactions, which readers send under posts, plus paid posts, Star subscriptions and gifts. Reactions are the visible part: 28.2% of active channels in our snapshot received them, most often blogs, music, games channels.
How many Stars does a Telegram post get?
Usually very few. The median post with Star reactions had 2 Stars, and 42.1% of such posts had exactly one.
Can I earn Telegram Stars for free?
As a channel owner, yes: Stars that readers send cost you nothing. As a user, only by winning giveaways or through affiliate commissions; services that promise free Stars for tasks or logins are a common scam pattern.
Find channels to compare
The tables above are a fixed snapshot. To look at live channels, continue in semantic channel search: try telegram stars rewards channel, star reactions channel blogger or support creator telegram stars. Before paying for a placement, check a channel’s real audience with the channel audit and its sellers with the network checker.
Sources and method
We read the last 100 public posts of 107,721 Telegram channels with at least 1,000 subscribers, collected from the web version of each channel between October 26, 2026 and October 28, 2026. 86,682 of them posted within 30 days of collection and form the base of every share on this page. The window covers 9,008,552 posts; for the median channel it spans 54 days. Channels with fewer than 20 posts are left out.
Star reactions are the paid reactions shown under each post: the counter is the number of Stars readers sent, and Telegram credits those Stars to the channel. Dollar values use the creator payout rate of $0.013 per Star; they are estimates of the Stars’ payout value, not of anyone’s bank balance. Links are classified by domain and by Telegram link type (bots, mini apps, invite links, gift and boost links). Ad markers are text labels such as erid, #ad or #реклама; unlabelled ads are not counted. Topic and language are neural-network labels from our channel index; channel creation periods come from the numeric channel ID and are intervals, not dates.
Stars per 1,000 views divide all Stars on a channel’s last 100 posts by the sum of views on those posts. Post type compares posts with Stars against all posts of the same channels; the view percentile places each post with Stars among its channel’s posts older than seven days.
Telegram rules and prices were checked on October 28, 2026: Telegram client configuration reference (core.telegram.org/api/config): stars_usd_withdraw_rate_x1000 = 1300, stars_usd_sell_rate_x1000 = 1410 and the Star limits; Telegram Content Creator Rewards terms (telegram.org/tos/content-creator-rewards); Telegram Terms of Service for Bot Developers (telegram.org/tos/bot-developers), section 6.2. We measure what public posts show. Private channels, deleted posts, Telegram’s own ad revenue, paid media inside unopened posts and private deals are not visible to us. All numbers are baked into this page from one snapshot; nothing is fetched when you open it.