How to run a giveaway in a Telegram channel
Open the channel profile, tap Edit, then Statistics and Boosts, Get Boosts via Gifts and Create Giveaway, and prepay Premium or Stars: Telegram draws the winners. To raffle your own prize for free, with an entry button, use a giveaway bot.
Telegram has a built-in giveaway. Open your channel's profile, tap Edit (the pencil on Android), then Statistics and Boosts, and on the Boosts tab choose Get Boosts via Gifts > Create Giveaway. You prepay Telegram Premium subscriptions or Telegram Stars, set the end date and the conditions, and Telegram draws random winners among your subscribers and delivers the prizes. To raffle a prize of your own for free, with a Participate button and a subscription check, use a giveaway bot such as Randomize Bot (@randomized).
Built-in giveaway or a bot: which do you need?
The two tools solve different problems. Telegram's giveaway is a paid way to reward subscribers and collect boosts for the channel. A bot is a free way to pick a winner for a prize you deliver yourself. As of September 2026 they compare like this:
| Telegram giveaway | Giveaway bot | |
|---|---|---|
| Prize | Premium or Stars, plus an optional prize of your own | Whatever you promise |
| Cost | Prepaid by you | Free or with a free tier, for the bots in our catalog |
| How people enter | Automatically, by being subscribed when the draw happens | By tapping the bot's entry button or link |
| Subscription check | Built in, for your channel and any channels or groups you add | Works only if the bot is an admin of each channel |
| Extra filters | Only new subscribers, selected countries; admins are left out | Depends on the bot: anti-fraud, captcha, comment contests |
| Who draws | Telegram | The bot |
| Results | A results message from Telegram in the channel | Depends on the bot: a report participants can open, open source code |
| Bonus for the channel | Boosts | None |
Pick the built-in giveaway when Premium or Stars suit your audience, or when you want the channel to level up. Pick a bot when the prize is a product, a book or a service, or when you don't want to pay for the draw itself.
How do I start a giveaway on iPhone, Android or desktop?
The owner and the admins of a channel can create a giveaway, and groups have the same screen. Telegram's announcement says channels of any level can start one. Labels below are as of September 2026.
iPhone and iPad
- Open the channel and tap its name at the top.
- Tap Edit, then Statistics and Boosts, and open the Boosts tab. If that item isn't there, go back and tap More (⋯) > Boost Channel: it opens the same Boosts screen.
- Tap Get Boosts via Gifts.
- Choose Create Giveaway and the prize: Telegram Premium or Telegram Stars.
- Fill in the settings from the next section, tap Start Giveaway and pay.
Android
- Open the channel and tap its name at the top.
- Tap the pencil icon, then Statistics and Boosts. If the channel has statistics, switch to the Boosts tab; otherwise the Boosts screen opens right away.
- Tap Get Boosts via Gifts, choose Create Giveaway and the prize.
- Fill in the settings and tap Start Giveaway.
Telegram Desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Open the channel and click ⋮ in the top-right corner.
- Choose Boosts, then click Get Boosts via Gifts.
- Choose Create Giveaway, fill in the settings and click Start Giveaway.
The App Store and Google Play limit how much you can buy at once. For a bigger giveaway, Telegram points to Premium Bot (@PremiumBot), which sells at a lower cost and opens in Telegram Web, Desktop and the direct Android version, and to Fragment for thousands of Premium subscriptions. A giveaway paid there waits under Prepaid giveaway on the same screen until you set it up.
Which settings can you choose?
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Quantity of prizes and Duration of Premium subscriptions | How many Premium subscriptions you give away and for how long. Each one gives the channel 4 boosts for the length of the subscription |
| Stars to distribute and Number of winners | For a Stars giveaway: the prize pool, split equally among the winners. The channel gets boosts for one year |
| Add Channel or Group (Add Group or Channel on Android and desktop) | Extra channels or groups people must join. The app shows how many you can add; a private one can be joined only through an invite link |
| All subscribers or Only new subscribers | The second option leaves out everyone who was already subscribed when the giveaway started |
| from all countries | Tap it to limit the giveaway to selected countries. Telegram goes by the country of the participant's phone number |
| Additional Prizes | A line describing your own prize, shown next to Telegram's. You deliver it yourself |
| Date when giveaway ends | When Telegram draws the winners |
| Show Winners | Lists the winners in the results message instead of only counting them |
How do subscribers take part, and how are winners announced?
After you pay, Telegram posts an announcement in the channel with the prizes, the conditions and the Winners Selection Date. There is nothing to press to enter: everyone who meets the conditions on that date is in the draw. The LEARN MORE button under the post explains the rules and tells each subscriber whether they are taking part. According to Telegram's API documentation, three groups are left out:
- admins of any channel or group included in the giveaway;
- people who were subscribed before the start, if you chose Only new subscribers;
- people whose phone number is from a country outside your list.
On the end date Telegram picks the winners at random. Premium winners get a private message with a gift link that activates the subscription, and Telegram notes that someone who already has Premium can still win and pass the gift to a friend. Stars winners receive their share as a prize from the channel. Then a results message appears in the channel: with Show Winners on, it names the winners; otherwise it gives their number. If fewer people qualify than there are prizes, the unused gift links or Stars are forwarded to the channel's admins.
Two details matter when you add a prize of your own. Deleting the announcement doesn't cancel the giveaway, so the winners are still drawn on the date. And a Premium gift link doubles as proof: the documentation notes that anyone can check which account received it, so ask the winners of your extra prize to send you their links.
When do you need a giveaway bot?
Telegram's giveaway can't raffle only your own prize, has no entry button and always costs money. Giveaway bots cover exactly those cases. A bot can attach a button to the post it publishes, so readers join the draw with a tap, and it checks their subscription before counting the entry. To see who is subscribed, the Bot API needs the bot to be an admin of the channel, so add it to every channel in your conditions.
We haven't run these bots ourselves; the facts come from their catalog cards.
| Bot | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Randomize Bot (@randomized) | A quick "subscribe and win" draw, up to about 10 winners | Free |
| RandomGodBot (@RandomGodBot) | Large draws with up to 100 winners; open source code | Free |
| Best Random Bot (@BestRandom_bot) | Closing entries and posting the winners on schedule, with no admin online | Free |
| Random Beast (@randombeast) | Screening bot-like accounts before they enter; no ads | Free |
| GiveShareBot (@GiveShareBot) | A detailed report any participant can open to check the draw | Free; captcha and participant export are paid extras |
| TgGrow (@tggrowbot) | Contests among commenters or by reactions, with Excel export | Free |
Randomize Bot is the most used of the six, with about 3.4 million monthly users on its card. If you are torn between the first two, read Randomize Bot vs RandomGodBot.
How do I run a bot giveaway without trouble?
- Add the bot as an admin to each channel in the conditions and switch off the rights its instructions don't ask for. How to add a bot to a channel shows where those switches are.
- Write the rules in the post: the prize, the end date, how the winner is picked and how you will contact them.
- Announce the result in the channel, and share the bot's public report if it has one.
- Deliver the prize yourself. Never ask a winner to pay a fee or send a login code to receive it: that is how fake giveaways work.
- Remove the bot's admin rights when the giveaway is over, unless you plan another one soon.
Rules for prize draws differ between countries, so check the ones that apply to you before promising something valuable.
What if the giveaway doesn't work?
- No Statistics and Boosts on iPhone. The item appears only once Telegram opens statistics for your channel, which depends on its size. Use More (⋯) > Boost Channel instead.
- No Get Boosts via Gifts button. You aren't an admin of the channel, or giveaway purchases aren't available to your account. Ask the owner to create the giveaway.
- No Boosts item on desktop. Desktop shows it to the owner, to admins who can post stories and in channels with statistics. Use the phone app.
- The app offers Reduce Quantity. The store can't sell that many subscriptions in one purchase. Lower the number or pay through Premium Bot.
- A subscriber says they aren't in the draw. Ask them to tap LEARN MORE under the announcement: it names the reason, such as admin rights, joining before the start or country.
- Nobody can join one of the extra channels. It is private. Post its invite link in your channel.
- The bot can't check subscriptions. It isn't an admin of that channel yet.
Ready to pick a bot? The giveaway bots rating ranks all six, and the channel owner toolkit adds scheduling and moderation tools. After the draw, track subscriber numbers with a tool from the channel analytics rating to see whether the new readers stayed.
