How to create a Telegram bot for your business, no code needed
Yevhen Kurapov, co-founder · Updated Oct 20, 2026
In Telegram, open @BotFather, send /newbot, pick a display name and a username ending in “bot”, and copy the token it sends. That creates an empty bot. To make it answer customers, paste the token into a no-code service such as ChatPal, add your website or price list, and share the bot’s t.me link. Bots are free on Telegram.
To create a Telegram bot, open @BotFather in Telegram, send /newbot, choose a name and a username, and copy the token BotFather sends back. It takes about five minutes and costs nothing. The catch: a new bot is an empty account. It doesn't reply to anyone until something is connected to its token. For a business that wants the bot to answer customer questions, that something can be a no-code service; this guide uses ChatPal, which we make, and shows exactly where a developer is the better choice.
What you need before you start
- A Telegram account, on your phone or Telegram Desktop. The bot itself needs no phone number, no business verification and no Meta account.
- A clear job for the bot. "Answer questions about prices, opening hours and repairs" works without code. "Take payments", "run a quiz" or "moderate our group" doesn't; the developer section below explains why.
- The information it should answer from: your website, a price list, your policies. A PDF or a Word file is enough.
Step 1: create the bot in BotFather
BotFather is Telegram's own bot for making and managing bots.
- In Telegram, search for @BotFather and open the chat. Press Start.
- Send
/newbot. - Type the name customers will see in their chat list, for example "Eastside Bike Workshop". You can change it later with
/setname. - Type the username. It must be 5 to 32 characters, use only Latin letters, numbers and underscores, and end in "bot":
eastsidebikes_botorEastsideBikesBot. It becomes the bot's link (t.me/eastsidebikes_bot) and can't be changed later, so avoid a street name or a year you might outgrow. - BotFather replies with a token, a long string like
123456789:AAF.... Copy all of it.
If the username is taken, BotFather tells you. Try the business name with your city or trade added.
Keep the token private
The token is the bot's password: anyone who has it can control the bot. Don't paste it in a group chat, a screenshot or an email. If it leaks, send /token to BotFather and pick the bot to generate a new token, then paste the new one wherever the old one was used.
Step 2: give the bot a profile customers trust
A bot with no picture and no description looks like spam. Three BotFather commands fix that, and none of them needs code. Send the command, choose your bot from the list, then send the text or picture.
| Command | What it changes | Where customers see it | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
/setuserpic | Profile picture | Chat list and the top of the chat | One image |
/setdescription | Description | In an empty chat, under "What can this bot do?", before they press Start | 512 characters |
/setabouttext | About text | The bot's profile page | 120 characters |
The description is the first thing a new customer reads, so say what the bot is for and what it can't do. A description you can adapt:
Ask us about [repair prices, turnaround times and opening hours]. Type your question and you'll get an answer in seconds, day or night. Voice messages aren't read, so please type. To talk to a person, just ask.
For the about text, one line with your address or website is enough.
Two more settings are worth a minute. Send /setjoingroups and turn it off, so nobody adds the bot to a group where it would stay silent. And skip /setcommands for now: a command menu is useful only when a developer has written code for each command. Customers of an AI assistant just type their question.
Step 3: make it answer from your information
This is the part that makes the bot answer. The steps below are ChatPal's; the BotFather part above is the same whatever service you use.
- Create a free ChatPal account; no card is needed. On the Setup page that opens, paste your website address and click Let's get started. ChatPal reads the site and drafts the assistant's instructions and welcome message, which you can edit under Configuration.
- Add the rest of what customers ask about. Open Knowledge in the left navigation. On the Files tab, click Upload files for a price list or policy (PDF, Word, text or Markdown); on the Website & links tab, click Add Link for more pages. Wait until each one shows Ready.
- Open Integrations, choose Telegram and click Connect Telegram Bot.
- Paste the token from step 1 into Telegram Bot Token and click Save.
ChatPal checks the token and registers the bot's webhook with Telegram itself, so there's nothing more to do in BotFather. The page then shows the bot's picture, name, @username and description from step 2: that's how you confirm the right bot is linked. It also shows the bot's Telegram Link, which ends in ?start=chat, and a QR code you can save with Download QR code for a counter sign or a flyer.
Our step-by-step guide to an AI chatbot on Telegram covers the next layer in detail: what to put in your documents, the welcome message, and handing chats to your team.
Step 4: test it the way a customer would
Open the bot's link on your phone and press Start. The bot sends your welcome message. Then ask it the ten questions customers asked you most last month, in their words, typos included. Ask one in another language too: the assistant answers in the language the customer writes in.
Every test chat appears under Chats in ChatPal, so you can reread each answer. When one is wrong or missing, the fix is almost always in your documents, not in the bot. Your test replies count toward your monthly messages, so ten questions use ten of the free plan's 100.
Then share the link: on your website, in your Telegram channel's pinned post, in your email signature, and as the QR code at the till. People can also find the bot by its @username in Telegram search.
What a conversation looks like
Here is an example conversation we wrote for this guide; it isn't a recorded chat. The workshop is made up. It uploaded its price list and switched on handoff to its team. The assistant's replies follow the rules ChatPal's assistant runs on: short answers taken from the business's own information, no guessing, and a plain handover when the customer asks for a person.
Assistant: Hi! This is the Eastside Bike Workshop assistant. Ask me about repair prices, turnaround or opening hours. Please type your question: I can't read voice messages.
Customer: how much for a full service
Assistant: A full service is $85, parts extra, and covers gears, brakes, wheel truing and a chain clean. It's usually ready in 2 working days.
Customer: [photo of a bent front wheel] can you fix this?
Assistant: The front rim looks bent. Truing a wheel is $25, but whether this one can be trued or needs a new rim, the mechanic decides when they see it.
Customer: do you repair e-bike motors?
Assistant: I don't have information on e-bike motor repairs. The workshop team can tell you whether they take them.
Customer: ok can I talk to someone
Assistant: The team has your message and will reply here in this chat.
Each reply comes from something the workshop gave it. The prices are from the uploaded list. The photo is read (up to 4 photos per message), but the assistant doesn't promise what only a mechanic can judge. On e-bike motors it has nothing, so it says so and points to the team instead of inventing an answer. The last reply is the handover: the chat moves to the Handed off to a human view in Chats, the team gets an alert, and someone answers from ChatPal into the same Telegram chat. Handoff is off by default; it's the Hand off to a human when needed switch under Configuration, on the Handoff & leads tab.
When you need a developer instead
A no-code assistant covers the most common reason a business makes a bot: answering the same questions all day. With ChatPal it can also book appointments through Google Calendar, Calendly or Altegio, with free times as buttons the customer taps, and search a Shopify catalog. Everything else Telegram bots can do is built in code, on a server the developer runs.
| You want the bot to… | No-code assistant (ChatPal) | Developer |
|---|---|---|
| Answer questions from your site and documents, in the customer's language | Yes | Yes, built from scratch |
| Book, move or cancel appointments | Yes, with Google Calendar, Calendly or Altegio | Yes |
| Hand a chat to a person | Yes | Yes, built from scratch |
Have its own command menu (/prices, /track) | No | Yes |
| Take payments inside Telegram | No | Yes: Telegram Stars for digital goods, a payment provider for physical goods |
| Run a game, quiz or Mini App | No | Yes |
| Reply or moderate in a group, or post to a channel | No, private chats only | Yes |
| Message someone who has never opened the bot | No: Telegram doesn't allow it | No: Telegram doesn't allow it |
| Send promotions to people who started the bot | No, it replies to customers (plus booking reminders) | Yes |
| Read voice messages and videos | No, text and photos only | Yes |
If you need both, use two bots. Telegram delivers a bot's messages to one webhook address, and connecting the token to ChatPal sets that address, so a developer's code and ChatPal can't share one bot. Create a second bot in BotFather for the developer's project.
What it costs
Telegram charges nothing to create or run a bot. On ChatPal, Telegram is included on every plan, the free one too: Free has 100 replies a month for one assistant, Starter is $20 a month for 500, Standard $50 for 1,500 and Pro $120 for 4,000 (monthly billing, checked 20 October 2026; see pricing). Each reply the assistant sends counts as one, your own tests included, and new accounts get a one-time bonus of extra messages in the first month. A developer-built bot costs the developer's time plus a server to run it, and someone to keep it running after launch.
If you're comparing services before you create the bot, our list of Telegram AI bots for business sets the main options side by side, and the Telegram chatbot page shows how ChatPal works on Telegram next to the other channels.