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There are plenty of ways to monetize a channel in Telegram.

We conducted our own research and collected the most popular and interesting channel monetization models in Telegram. Here’s what we discovered!

It’s a very popular option, especially in Russia. Ads can be sold to:

other channels for cross-promotion
companies and brands

Usually, ads are sold p2p (channel admins make a contact and then settle an agreement), but there are also some automated ad exchanges.

The most popular model for paid subscription service in Telegram has two main parts:

public channel with large follower base
private channel (or a supergroup) with premium content (available for paid subscribers only)

In this model, the public channel is promoted (with ads, cross-promotions, content marketing and other strategies), while the private channel is what actually generates the profit.

Telegram doesn’t have a built-in paywall, so you have to use a third-party service to monetize: InviteMember — membership bot platform for paid Telegram channels and groups.

As a content producer, you can monetize through selling ads, paid subscriptions, or… donations.

In this model, you allow your followers to either tip you after each publication, or set up a recurring donation through Patreon.

Tipping is already very popular in WeChat and is gaining momentum in Telegram as we speak.

Paid subscriptions are not the only thing you can sell through your channel.

Basically, you can sell almost any product or service. Here are a couple of examples to showcase this in action:

a freelance designer can run a popular Telegram channel with design tips (and monetize the channel by selling gigs)
a SaaS company with a CRM product can run an educational Telegram channel about customer relations (and monetize the channel by selling SaaS subscriptions)
a toy brand can run a Telegram channel with toy-related content (videos, reviews, unboxing, etc.) and monetize by selling the toys

Similar to running a public page in social media, there are a variety of options available to marketers and brand owners.

This is very similar to the previous model. But in this case, you sell third-party products or services.

For example, there are some Telegram channels with sneaker deals.

They monitor online sneaker shops (this part can be automated) and if a price goes down significantly , they make a post in the channel. With an affiliate link, of course.

There is a guy from Canada who made an interesting experiment. He announced a pool of TON (Telegram Open Network) investors in his tech channel and raised $1.5M (in a form of applications, not real money transfers) in about 1.5 hours.

Then he made a post that there was no pool — he just wanted to check if he could raise money.

The experiment was quite successful! It’s amazing what you can do through technology and social interactions today.

It’s like selling ads, but in this case almost 100% of your posts are paid.

How can that be possible? A good example is niche job boards. Such job boards exist in a form of Telegram channels, allowing you to pay a fixed fee for a job post.

Such job boards can start with posting jobs from other websites (to have content while growing their audience). But then HR-managers will find them by themselves.

Overall, as you can see, there are a variety of monetization options available at your fingertips through Telegram. With the right strategy and a little patience, you can make an income right from your laptop anytime, anywhere.