Telegram Ads cost: how to plan your campaign budget

The bid is only one part of a Telegram Ads budget. Its minimum depends on the market, the targeting and the format. The reseller's fee is not part of the media spend: it is paid separately. Below, a first test budget is built from those parts.

How the price is formed: a CPM auction

Telegram Ads charges for impressions. You name a CPM, the price for a thousand impressions, and the platform runs an auction among the advertisers who want the same placements. The platform's terms describe it as an automated system that determines the best offered CPM. The auction is first-price: the winner pays the bid it entered.

Here is what that means for reach. An ad is not shown in channels where another advertiser's bid is higher, so a bid below the competing bids in a channel simply gets no impressions there. That is why the media part of the plan starts from the bid you enter.

Floors and format markups

The lowest bid your account accepts depends on the market, the targeting and the format, and topic-specific conditions may apply as well. There are two floors. One applies to broad targeting: topics, interests, subscribers. The other to narrow targeting: specific channels, bots, search keywords. Both differ by market. Telegram publishes no rate card for euro accounts, and the floors reported by resellers have been revised several times since 2021. Read the floor in your own account before planning around any published number.

The format is the other lever. An image, a video or branding raises the floor by a fixed percentage. The markups stack and are counted from the floor, not from the bid you type. The markup raises the minimum itself; it is not a charge taken on top: at equal bids, an ad with an image and an ad without one collect the same impressions.

The percentages were checked in August 2026; confirm the markup that applies in your account. Subscriber targeting is grouped with channel lists, so for subscriber targeting the table shows the higher markup.

How to size a first test budget

Work the figure forward from impressions in four steps.

1. Choose a planned number of impressions. In a first test the conversion rate is still unknown, so the volume comes from the sum you are willing to spend on the measurement, not from the result you want; after the first test you have your own rate and size the next run from it.
2. Check the minimum for the selected targeting and format. If you calculate it from a base minimum, apply the format markup once, then choose the bid you will enter.
3. Calculate the media spend: planned impressions divided by 1,000, multiplied by the bid.
4. Keep the fee and the amount the account requires you to deposit on separate lines. Set the test period separately.

A worked example with placeholder numbers illustrates the calculation. Suppose your account shows a base minimum of 1.20 euros for topic targeting before the image markup; that is a placeholder, not a current rate. You add an image, which carries a 50% markup on that targeting. With the image, the minimum becomes 1.80 euros. A test of 200,000 impressions at that bid comes to 360 euros of media spend.

That is not the amount you pay: the fee comes on top, quoted by the reseller when the account is opened. The minimum deposit does not add to this: spend is taken from the balance you top up. But if your figure is below the minimum, you still have to deposit the minimum. Swap in the figure your account shows and the steps stay the same.

The figure is a ceiling on spend rather than a forecast: at the minimum bid some impressions may not be won, and then you spend less. It also says nothing about significance: decide in advance how many impressions or joins you need before drawing conclusions. A daily budget limit per ad keeps a test from overspending in one day.

The service fee, and how Adstat shows spend against results

Accounts opened through a reseller, ours included, carry a service fee on top of the media spend. Adstat's service fees are customized based on the total budget. Ask what the fee covers and how it is calculated, and confirm the account-opening and funding terms before you fix the amount. Keep two things apart: the minimum budget is a funding condition of the account, while the media spend is what the impressions cost.

Once the test runs, Adstat lets you compare spend and results for each ad. The statistics table shows each ad with spend, impressions, CPM and the cost per click and per action, down to 5-minute intervals for recent days. Spend and delivery are therefore visible the same day; whether the result is conclusive depends on the volume you set in advance.

Automated rules, called strategies, watch those numbers for you. A rule can stop an ad when its cost per action over the last hours exceeds your limit, or add budget when it stays under. For channel campaigns, invite links created inside the service report joins and unsubscribes per ad and a CPS adjusted for unsubscribes. This requires the invite bot to be a channel administrator and Create invite link to be enabled during ad setup. The platform's own statistics do not show that adjustment.

Questions and answers

What should I ask the reseller for when checking the amount to pay?

Ask for three things separately: the media budget for the planned impressions, the fee or the way it is calculated, and the funding terms of the account. Then compare the estimated media spend with the advertising budget you have.

What happens to the money left in a stopped ad?

The unused ad budget can be returned to the account's available balance and fund the next ad. That is the documented route for an ad that is stopped and deleted. There is a second route: budget is released from the On Hold status after at least ten minutes of inactivity.

Whether the balance itself can be paid back is a different question. Under Telegram's terms an unspent balance cannot be withdrawn, transferred to another account or refunded, and it is forfeited after three years of continuous inactivity. The owner of an account opened through a reseller can request the remaining balance back. In our own practice that request is settled net of the commission.

Can I lower the bid after launch?

Yes. The CPM can be raised or lowered after launch. A bid that spends too fast can therefore be lowered without recreating the ad. Targeting stays fixed once the ad is created.

Why does reported spend differ from my estimate?

The estimate assumes a planned impression count and a fixed bid. Compare actual impressions and CPM over the same period: a change in either explains the difference. Check the service fee separately, because it sits outside the media spend.

What a CPM looks like in different countries

Telegram publishes no country rates, so any figure for a specific market is an estimate. Industry sources give two reference points. A table of minimum CPMs by country, published by a reseller in July 2026, starts at 0.30 euros for Egypt and 0.70 euros for Malaysia and Morocco. A country guide from another service, dated April 2026, puts the average CPM in Egypt at about 1.40 euros. Those are published figures for specific dates, not a platform tariff and not your account's minimum.

Start from the minimum your own account shows and test delivery and cost on your own targeting.

What to do first

1. Check the minimum for the selected targeting and format in the account; if you calculate from a base minimum, apply the format markup once.
2. Choose a planned number of impressions, calculate the media spend from your bid, and keep the fee and the funding requirement on separate lines.
3. Set a daily limit for the test, then compare ads over the same period by cost per action, or, for channel campaigns, by CPS adjusted for unsubscribes, before you raise the budget.