Connect Telegram

What it is

Telegram is the fastest channel to get working. It needs one secret — the bot token that Telegram's own BotFather hands you — and there is nothing to paste anywhere afterwards. Agentency registers the delivery address with Telegram for you, so the channel is live the moment the token is accepted.

Two things are worth knowing before you start, because they surprise people:

• Private chats only. The chatbot answers one-to-one conversations with your bot. Messages sent in groups and channels are ignored on purpose, so adding the bot to a busy group will not produce anything.
• The bot is yours, not ours. You create it in Telegram, you own the name and the picture, and you can revoke the token at any time.

When you would use it

Use this as your first messaging channel, whether or not Telegram is your main audience. It takes about two minutes end to end, which makes it the cheapest way to see what your chatbot looks like on a real messaging app before you take on WhatsApp's or Meta's setup.

Where to find it

Open Dashboard → Chatbots → your chatbot → Integrations → Messaging and click the Telegram card.

Steps

1. Confirm the grid is not showing Coming soon or an upgrade notice, and set the chatbot to Active — see Activate or pause a chatbot.
2. In Telegram, open @BotFather and send /newbot, then follow the prompts to name your bot. If you already have a bot, send /token and pick it.
3. Copy the token BotFather replies with. It looks like a run of digits, a colon, then a longer string.
4. In Agentency, open Integrations → Messaging → Telegram, paste the token, and press Connect. The drawer's View official setup guide link goes to Telegram's own bot tutorial if you get lost in BotFather.
5. There is no callback URL step and no verification wait. The badge turns Connected straight away.
6. Open a private chat with your bot in Telegram and send a question your knowledge base can answer.
7. Confirm the reply, then find the thread in Conversations.

What you will see

The connect form is three numbered steps, one masked token field, the official-guide link, and a note that Telegram bots reply only in private chats.

Once connected, the badge reads Connected and the panel shows Connected as followed by your bot's Telegram username — a quick confirmation that you pasted the token of the bot you meant. Lifetime message and user counts sit below. Test connection re-checks the token with Telegram; Disconnect removes the connection.

There is no callback URL panel on this card, because there is nothing for you to paste. If you were expecting one because you had done Slack or WhatsApp first, nothing is missing.

How replies behave

• Long answers are split into Telegram-sized messages. Telegram is generous, so most answers arrive in one piece.
• Incoming text is trimmed after about 2,000 characters.
• Photos, stickers, and voice notes get a short reply saying the chatbot reads text only. Stickers are common on Telegram, so expect to see this during testing.
• Each answer spends message credits at your chatbot's live model rate (1X = one credit; see Message credits), the same as the website widget.
• A paused chatbot is silent. No error, no notice — nothing at all, which is deliberate rather than a bug.
• Messages sent while the channel was disconnected are dropped. Connecting deliberately discards Telegram's backlog, so your first real message after connecting is answered and yesterday's queue is not replayed at your customers.

Limits and plan notes

Telegram needs the same four gates as every other app on this tab: a plan with integrations, messaging enabled for this deployment, an Active chatbot, and a free slot under the connected-app cap shown on the Connected channels card. See Messaging channels availability.

The token is stored encrypted and never shown again. Reconnecting replaces it without using a second slot.

A Telegram bot delivers to one address at a time. Connecting here takes over whatever the bot was pointed at before, which means one Telegram bot cannot serve two chatbots — the most recent connection wins and the earlier one goes quiet. Create a second bot in BotFather instead.

Disconnecting asks Telegram to remove the delivery address as well as clearing the stored token, so the bot stops answering immediately and cleanly.

Common problems

The token is rejected.

Copy the whole thing from BotFather again, including the digits before the colon; a partial paste is the usual cause. The form checks the shape before sending, so a rejection here means the value is malformed rather than that Telegram refused it. If the token may have leaked, use BotFather's /revoke, then reconnect with the new token.

Connect succeeds but the bot never answers.

Three checks, in order. Is the chatbot Active? Does it have trained knowledge — see Chatbot readiness? And are you messaging it in a private chat rather than a group?

I added the bot to a group and nothing happens.

Working as intended. Group and channel messages are ignored; use a private chat.

The bot replies "I can only read text".

Someone sent a sticker, photo, or voice note. Send a typed question.

Answers stopped after I connected the same bot elsewhere.

Telegram delivers to one address per bot, and the newest registration wins. Reconnect here, or use a separate bot.

Do visitors need the public link as well?

No. Telegram users just talk to the bot. Keep the public link for web visitors — see Share a hosted link.