How to accept donations on Telegram
There are two ways to accept donations on Telegram: Star reactions inside Telegram, or a link to a donation platform. In October 2026, 28.2% of 86,682 active public channels received Stars, while 2.3% posted links to donation platforms such as Boosty, Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.
How to accept donations on Telegram: platforms channels link
We counted channels that linked each donation service at least once in their last 100 posts. A channel can link several. Services linked by fewer than five channels are left out.
| Platform | Channels | Share of linking channels |
|---|---|---|
| Boosty | 1,005 | 50.3% |
| Patreon | 377 | 18.9% |
| DonationAlerts | 163 | 8.2% |
| PayPal.Me | 149 | 7.5% |
| CloudTips | 147 | 7.4% |
| Sponsr | 142 | 7.1% |
| Buy Me a Coffee | 116 | 5.8% |
| Tribute (web) | 75 | 3.8% |
| Ko-fi | 62 | 3.1% |
| YooMoney | 57 | 2.9% |
| Dalink | 43 | 2.2% |
| Donatty | 8 | 0.4% |
| Donate.Stream | 7 | 0.4% |
Share of linking channels is relative to all channels with any donation link; it sums to more than 100% because channels link several platforms.
Boosty leads with 1,005 channels. Russian-language services dominate the list because Russian-language channels make up the largest group in the snapshot and because foreign card payments are hard to accept from Russia; platforms such as Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-fi carry most English-language donations.
Telegram donation links by language
| Language | Channels | Donation platform links | Asked for support in a post | Received Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| German | 539 | 10.6% | 1.7% | 10.8% |
| Russian | 33,351 | 4.2% | 9.1% | 42.7% |
| Italian | 630 | 4% | 18.9% | 9.8% |
| Spanish | 1,471 | 3.3% | 1.8% | 14.1% |
| Ukrainian | 2,076 | 2% | 25.3% | 34.9% |
| French | 682 | 1.8% | 13% | 12.2% |
| English | 9,522 | 1.7% | 6.9% | 20.7% |
| Portuguese | 499 | 0.4% | 1.4% | 8.6% |
| Chinese | 3,444 | 0.3% | 0.2% | 5.1% |
| Persian | 9,486 | 0.1% | 0.4% | 17.2% |
| Arabic | 7,482 | 0.1% | 0.7% | 20.6% |
| Uzbek | 2,894 | 0.1% | 1.9% | 30.2% |
| Burmese | 1,106 | 0.1% | 0.7% | 8% |
| Amharic | 675 | 0% | 1.5% | 16.6% |
| Hindi | 531 | 0% | 1.1% | 2.8% |
| Indonesian | 399 | 0% | 5% | 14% |
| Turkish | 361 | 0% | 2.5% | 13.9% |
In all 17 languages more channels receive Stars than link a donation platform: Stars are the default tip jar of Telegram. The gap is smallest in German-language channels (10.8% against 10.6%), where donation platforms are almost as common as Stars. Where Stars are less common, as in Chinese- and Hindi-language channels, donation links are also rare.
What channels that ask for donations look like
| Signal | With donation links | All active channels |
|---|---|---|
| Received Star reactions | 61.8% | 28.2% |
| Ad-marked posts | 9.9% | 7.2% |
| Median subscribers | 20,700 | 21,700 |
| Median post views, % of subscribers | 34.2% | 15.8% |
| Posts without any reactions, share of channels | 5.9% | 13.5% |
1,998 channels linked a donation platform. 61.8% of them also received Stars, so the two are complements, not substitutes: channels whose readers donate outside Telegram are the ones whose readers send Stars too.
Stars donations are visible to everyone under the post, with a leaderboard of top senders, which encourages more giving. See how Star reactions work and how to withdraw them.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
How do I accept donations on my Telegram channel?
Turn on paid reactions (Channel Settings → Reactions → Enable Paid Reactions) so readers can send Stars under any post, and add a link to a donation page in the description or a pinned post. Stars are withdrawn through Fragment; platform payouts follow the platform’s rules.
How do I set up a donation link on Telegram?
Create a page on a donation service, copy its link and add it to the channel description, a pinned post or a button. Inside Telegram, a Star subscription invite link works as a monthly donation with access to a private channel.
Is there a Telegram donation bot?
Several bots accept card or crypto payments for creators, and Telegram’s own Stars work without a bot. A bot keeps payment data outside Telegram and takes its own fee, so read its terms before using it.
Which is better, Stars or a donation platform?
Stars need no signup from readers who already have a Telegram account and pay out $0.013 per Star from 1,000 Stars. Platforms suit monthly supporters and card payments, but readers must leave Telegram to pay.
Find channels to compare
The tables above are a fixed snapshot. To look at live channels, continue in semantic channel search: try donate telegram channel, support telegram channel or telegram donation bot. 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.
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.