A Telegram bot for your business: what it does, and when it's not the right choice

A Telegram bot takes orders and bookings, answers frequently asked questions and sends notifications, around the clock and without a dedicated app. But in France, 18% of people use Telegram, against 73% for WhatsApp. So a bot for your customers pays off if your audience is already on Telegram; as an internal tool for the owner, it is useful to almost any business.

Below we go through what the bot can do, who it is worth it for, when it is better to choose something else, and what it costs. The sources are listed at the end.

What the figures show in France

The audience matters more than the technology. Here is how messaging apps are used in France, according to Osmova, which draws on the Baromètre du numérique 2026 (Arcep, Arcom, CGE, ANCT, Crédoc; a June 2025 survey of 4,145 people aged 12 and over):

Source: Osmova, based on the Baromètre du numérique 2026.

The takeaway is simple: most of your customers in France are on WhatsApp, a minority on Telegram. That doesn't make the bot useless, but it tells you who it is for.

Another way to read it: more than half of WhatsApp's users (38 out of 73) use it every day, against less than a third of Telegram's (5 out of 18). So look at the gap between use and daily use. A customer who has Telegram doesn't necessarily open it every day: an ordering or booking bot has to be useful on demand, not only through messages you send.

Five concrete uses for a business

A bot can do five useful things:

1. Catalogue and ordering. A cart, order confirmation, payment. The customer browses the products and orders without leaving the conversation.
2. Booking and appointments. Time slots, reminders. The customer picks a free slot and gets a reminder before the appointment.
3. Answers to frequently asked questions, with complex questions passed on to a person. The bot answers the recurring questions at once; if it doesn't know, it hands over.
4. Customer notifications. Order status, promotions: only to those who subscribed. Everyone gets only what they asked for.
5. An internal bot for the owner. A new request from the website, a new order, a daily summary. It works even if your customers aren't on Telegram.

The fifth use doesn't depend on your customers' audience, only on yours: it is what makes a bot useful even when Telegram isn't their messaging app.

Who a customer bot makes sense for

A bot for your customers makes sense when they are already on Telegram:

• communities and clubs;
• online schools;
• events;
• a tech and crypto audience;
• Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking customers;
• B2B with regular customers;
• delivery with regular customers.

In these cases the bot asks nothing new of your customers: it sits where they already are. The order, the booking or the question happens in the conversation, with no form to fill in and no account to create on a site.

When it isn't the best choice

If your clientele is broad and local (a restaurant, a salon), the base should be a website with booking, a Google Business Profile and WhatsApp. A Telegram bot can be added as a complementary channel, but it shouldn't be the main one.

Better to say it plainly: we would rather advise you against a bot than deliver a tool your customers won't use. In that case the owner's internal bot, described above, is often still a good idea: it saves you time without asking anything of your customers.

Taking payments in the bot

The official Telegram documentation distinguishes two cases:

• Physical goods and services: payment goes through a payment provider, for example Stripe. Telegram takes no commission: you pay only the provider's.
• Digital goods and services inside the bot: only with Telegram Stars.

The question to ask yourself is therefore simple: do you sell a physical product or service, or digital content? The answer decides which payment method is possible in the bot.

Mini Apps: a storefront inside Telegram

Telegram lets you open a full interface inside the app: a shop with a catalogue and a cart, for example. The experience is like a website's, with nothing to install. It is an option to consider when the catalogue is wide enough that simple buttons in a conversation start to feel cramped.

A bot doesn't sell on its own

A bot is only worth something if your customers find it. You have to show it:

• a QR code at the till and on the packaging;
• a link in your Instagram profile and on your website;
• a button in your email signature.

Personal data and the GDPR

A few simple rules:

• collect the minimum of data;
• send messages only if the customer has consented;
• provide a clear command to unsubscribe.

These rules apply to every notification: the customer must be able to stop receiving them as easily as they asked for them.

Our price

A bot starts at €390: up to 10 commands or screens, an admin right inside the bot, deployment. Timeline: 1 to 3 weeks. The server costs from €5 a month. This price is a starting point: the exact price is given after a short, free brief.

Options: online payment +€290, an AI assistant +€490, integration with a CRM or an external API +€290.

Calculate the price of your bot or see our bot development service.

How to start

Choose a single use, for example only appointment booking. That limits the budget and the setup time, and you quickly see whether your customers use it. Let it run for a month, measuring what gets used, then extend the bot to other uses. That way you pay only for what is really used.

Sources

• Osmova, “Messaging apps in France” (based on the Baromètre du numérique 2026: Arcep, Arcom, CGE, ANCT, Crédoc; June 2025 survey, 4,145 people aged 12 and over): osmova.com.
• Telegram, payments documentation for bots: core.telegram.org/bots/payments.