Connect Your Telegram Bot
Create a bot via @BotFather, paste its token into Subscriby, and activate the connection that powers everything.
The Connectors page
The bot is your project's first connector. The project's Connectors page lists it with its state and health, lets you verify, disconnect or uninstall it, and is where other connectors are installed from.
By the end of this page, you'll have a Telegram bot created with @BotFather and connected to your Subscriby project — ready to onboard members, enforce access, and handle payments.
A Telegram bot is the interface your subscribers interact with. They start with /start, pick a plan, go through payment, get invited to your private channels. Behind the scenes, Subscriby controls the bot via the token you provide. One bot per project.
What you need
- A Telegram account with access to @BotFather (everyone does — it's a public official bot).
- Your Subscriby project created. See Creating a project.
- About five minutes.
Create a bot with @BotFather
Open @BotFather in Telegram
Open Telegram and search for @BotFather — the official Telegram bot for creating other bots. Tap Start if you haven't chatted with it before.
Send /newbot
Send the command /newbot.
Pick a display name
BotFather asks for a display name. This is the human-friendly name that shows up in chat headers — e.g. "Pro Chess Club Assistant". Send it.
Pick a username
BotFather asks for a username. This is the @handle. It must:
- End in
bot(e.g.pro_chess_bot). - Be unique across all of Telegram.
- Use only letters, numbers, and underscores.
Copy the HTTP API token
BotFather confirms creation and sends you the HTTP API token — a string that looks like 123456789:ABCdefGhIJKlmNoPQRstuVWxyz. Copy it somewhere safe. This is the credential Subscriby will use to control your bot.
Treat the bot token like a password. Anyone with it can control your bot.
Never paste it into public channels, screenshots, or support chats. If you
accidentally leak it, send /revoke to BotFather to get a new token, then
update Subscriby.
Connect the bot to your project
Open All Projects
Open Subscriby and navigate to All Projects from the sidebar.
Choose Connect Telegram
Find the project row, click the Actions (three-dots) menu, and choose Connect Telegram. The same modal opens from the project's Connectors page through Connect on the Telegram row.
Paste the token
A modal appears with a single input: Bot token. Paste the token you copied from BotFather.
Activate the bot
Click Connect.
Subscriby calls the Telegram API with the token, confirms the bot exists, and registers it with your project. You'll see a success toast; the row's Connection column turns Connected, the project flyout (Actions → View Project) shows the bot's Public Link, every project page's header gains an Open Bot button, and the project's Connectors page lists the installation with its state and health.
Recommended post-connection setup
After activation, a few minutes of BotFather tuning goes a long way:
Set a profile picture
Send /setuserpic to BotFather, pick your bot, and upload a square profile picture. Members will see it in the chat header.
Set a short description
Send /setdescription — a short sentence shown before users press Start. Make it concise and outcome-oriented: "Join our premium chess community with exclusive games, tactics, and live analysis."
Set the about text
Send /setabouttext — the longer About section shown on the bot's profile.
Set the command menu
Send /setcommands if you want Telegram's native command menu to show built-in commands. Subscriby typically sets useful defaults automatically, but you can override from BotFather.
Managing a connected bot
View bot status
On All Projects, the Connection column says Connected or Disconnected and the Connectors badge counts the connectors the project runs; the flyout shows the bot's Public Link. The project's Connectors page shows the installation's state and health and when it was last checked, lets you Verify it on the spot, and runs the Connector Doctor across every channel and group the bot manages.
Reconnect with a new token
If you regenerated a token via BotFather's /revoke, Disconnect the bot and Connect it again with the new token: disconnecting only wipes the stored credential, so resources, plans, members and their access stay in place and members don't notice the swap.
If the bot itself was taken away by Telegram rather than its token revoked, do not paste a new token here. Open Disaster Recovery → Replacing a lost bot instead: it connects the new bot, gives you the announcement and the member email, and on Growth can fail over to a registered standby bot in one click. Reconnecting from either place re-registers the webhook and the command menu.
Disconnect a bot
If you need to stop operations — e.g. migrating to a new bot or closing the project temporarily:
Open Actions → Disconnect Telegram
On All Projects, click Actions → Disconnect Telegram, or click Disconnect on the Telegram row of the project's Connectors page.
Confirm disconnection
Read the warning and confirm.
Disconnecting has serious consequences.
- The bot stops responding to new users.
- No more renewal reminders, trial nudges, or notifications.
- Subscriby can't kick / ban expired subscribers from your Telegram destinations.
- Existing recurring charges may still process at the payment-provider level until you cancel them — disconnection at the bot level doesn't cancel the subscriptions themselves.
If you just need a break, deactivate the project (flip Active off) instead — it stops the bot from processing new work while keeping everything wired up. See Creating a project → Active toggle.
Common problems
Related
- Resources — what the bot manages access to.
- Subscription plans — what the bot sells.
- Sharing your project — getting the bot link in front of your audience.
- Telegram integration — deeper look at the platform-level mechanics.
- Disaster Recovery — what happens when the bot, a channel or your account becomes unreachable, and the standby bot that makes it one click.
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