Stars in a Telegram channel: the owner switches the reaction on and gets 100%
The Star reaction appears only once paid reactions are enabled in the channel settings. The owner gets 100% of the stars and converts them into Toncoin or ads.
- Social media and AI
- Mechanics breakdown
- ≈ 8 minutes
Half of the questions about Stars in a Telegram channel sound the same: “why can’t they be sent”. The platform’s answer is written in one line of the announcement: paid reactions are switched on by the owner in the channel settings; until they do that, there is no Star reaction under the posts. Further on, the same post says that the owner receives 100% of the stars sent, that a post shows a leaderboard of senders, and that stars are converted into Toncoin or into ads with a 30% discount.
Where the Star reaction is switched on and why it cannot be sent without that. How much the owner receives and who sees the senders. What stars are converted into. How stars are charged for a channel subscription. How stars differ from the platform’s ads. Eight minutes of reading.
The owner switches the reaction on
The line of the announcement that answers “why can’t they be sent”.
Let us start with where the Star reaction comes from.
Users can now directly support their favorite channels and content creators by sending them Telegram Stars using a new Star reaction.
Telegram Blog · “Super Channels, Star Reactions and Subscriptions”, 14.08.2024
The reaction is called a Star reaction, and outwardly it is one of the reactions under a post. The difference is that it is paid and that it is off by default. The owner switches it on, and the post names the path exactly.
To turn on Star Reactions on your posts, go to Channel Settings > Reactions > Enable Paid Reactions.
Telegram Blog · the same post
Hence the answer to the most frequent question. If subscribers complain that stars “can’t be sent”, look first at your own channel settings: paid reactions are most likely switched off.
Open any of your posts and look at the set of reactions under it. If there is no star among them, paid reactions are not enabled. They are switched on in the channel settings, in the “Reactions” section.
100% to the owner and a leaderboard of senders
Who gets the stars and who sees who sent them.
Next, where the stars that were sent go.
Channel owners receive 100% of the stars — and can convert them into Toncoin cryptocurrency rewards or subsidized ads.
Telegram Blog · the same post
The number here is the main thing: one hundred percent. The platform keeps no share of the reactions; what happens next, at conversion, is described in the next section. The post itself, meanwhile, gets a new element.
Each post with star reactions shows a leaderboard with the top senders, but users can opt out of appearing there if they prefer more privacy.
Telegram Blog · the same post
So the Star reaction is public by default: under the post there is a leaderboard of those who sent the most. The sender can hide their name themselves, at the moment of sending. The channel owner does not control this leaderboard.
The announcement names no follower threshold for Star reactions. That sets them apart from the platform’s ads, which do have a threshold, and that is covered below.
Toncoin or ads with a 30% discount
Two ways to turn stars into something useful.
Received stars have two exits. The first is described like this.
Telegram charges next to zero commission when developers or channel owners use their stars to receive rewards in Toncoin.
Telegram Blog · the same post
Toncoin is the cryptocurrency of the TON network, and the reward from the platform’s ads arrives in it too. The rate of a star to Toncoin and to ordinary money is not named in the post, nor is the waiting time, so they are not here either.
The second exit is ads for your own channel, and it has a number.
If content creators decide to reinvest stars into promoting their channel with Telegram ads, we will subsidize such ads with a further 30% discount.
Telegram Blog · the same post
The 30% discount applies to ads paid for with stars through the official ad platform. So stars put into ads are worth more than stars converted into Toncoin, by exactly that discount.
Converting stars into Toncoin and then buying ads with it means losing the discount. If the plan is to invest in promoting the channel anyway, it pays to keep the stars as stars.
A paid subscription via a link
The second way to take stars: monthly, for entry into the channel.
The same post describes one more mechanic built on stars.
Content creators can now make special invite links that allow joining a channel in exchange for a monthly payment in Telegram Stars.
Telegram Blog · the same post
The fee is monthly, in stars, via a special link. The size of the fee is not named in the post: the owner sets it when creating the link. The path is described exactly.
To create a paid link, go to Channel Settings > Channel Type > Manage Invite Links > Create a New Link and enable Require Monthly Fee.
Telegram Blog · the same post
The mechanic lives in invite links, that is, in the private side of a channel. What a private channel loses compared with a public one, the platform describes separately, and it is worth reading before moving entry to a fee.
The same post also names a third form: paid photos and videos inside the channel. The announcement gives fewer details about it than about reactions and subscriptions, so here it is only mentioned.
Stars versus the platform’s ads
Two sources of income that are often confused.
A Telegram channel has two official sources of income from the platform, and they work differently. The first is the platform’s ads: they pay the owner half of the revenue, but only to public channels with 1,000 subscribers, and in a number of countries the ads are not shown at all.
Stars are built differently on three points. The reader pays, not the advertiser. The owner receives 100%, not a share. There is no follower threshold and no list of countries in the Stars announcement.
There is also a third mechanic, unrelated to stars: boosts for a Premium subscription giveaway. Boosts raise the channel’s level; they bring no money, and they should not be confused with stars.
For a channel with a Russian-speaking audience that is not shown the platform’s ads, stars remain the only official way to receive money from readers inside Telegram. The announcement sets no follower threshold for them.
Switching-on order and three mistakes
What to do so that stars start coming in.
First: enable paid reactions. Channel settings, “Reactions”, “Enable Paid Reactions”.
Second: check any post. The Star reaction should appear under it, and after the first sends, a leaderboard of senders next to it.
Third: decide where the stars go. Conversion into Toncoin with next to zero commission, or ads for the channel with a 30% discount.
Fourth: if you want paid entry, create an invite link with a monthly fee in the “Manage Invite Links” section.
Open the channel settings and the “Reactions” section. If paid reactions are switched off, not one subscriber will be able to send a star, however much they want to. Switch them on and check a post.
