Telegram API: Post to Telegram Channels via API

The official Telegram API

Every Bot API call is an HTTPS request to https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/METHOD_NAME, with parameters as a query string, form data or JSON. Text posts use sendMessage, photos use sendPhoto, and albums use sendMediaGroup with 2 to 10 items. Formatting is set with parse_mode as Markdown or HTML. To post in a channel, the bot must be an administrator of it.

What posting requires

1. Create a bot with @BotFather and copy its token.
2. Add the bot as an administrator of the channel with permission to post messages.
3. Call sendMessage, sendPhoto or sendMediaGroup with chat_id set to @channelusername, or the numeric chat ID for a private channel.
4. Keep the token secret; anyone with it can post as the bot.

Cost: Free. Bots can message users at no cost. Only paid broadcasts, which let a bot exceed the free rate of about 30 messages per second, cost 0.1 Telegram Stars per message over the free amount.

Official limits

Common gotchas

• Captions on photos and videos stop at 1,024 characters, a quarter of the text-message limit, so long announcements with an image need two messages.
• Bots can upload files up to 50 MB only; larger videos have to be compressed or linked.
• Only one message per second is advised per chat, and 20 per minute in a group, so bursts of posts need throttling on your side.
• Being an admin is not enough in a channel; the bot also needs the right to post messages.
• Posting at a set time means running your own job runner that stays online and retries failures.

Post to Telegram via API

curl -X POST https://api.publora.com/api/v1/create-post \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-publora-key: sk_YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "content": "*Weekly digest #42*\n\n- _New:_ export to CSV\n- Faster search\n\nRead more: [changelog](https://example.com/changelog)",
    "platforms": ["telegram-1001234567890"],
    "scheduledTime": "2026-10-09T08:00:00.000Z",
    "platformSettings": {
      "telegram": {
        "disableNotification": true,
        "disableWebPagePreview": true
      }
    }
  }'
# { "success": true, "postGroupId": "...", "scheduledTime": "2026-10-09T08:00:00.000Z" }

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.publora.com/api/v1/create-post",
    headers={
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "x-publora-key": "sk_YOUR_API_KEY",
    },
    json={
        "content": "*New in the shop this week*\n\nFour new prints, available until Sunday.",
        "platforms": ["telegram-1001234567890"],
        "scheduledTime": "2026-10-09T18:00:00.000Z",
        "mediaUrls": [
            "https://example.com/prints/1.jpg",
            "https://example.com/prints/2.jpg",
            "https://example.com/prints/3.jpg",
            "https://example.com/prints/4.jpg",
        ],
        "platformSettings": {"telegram": {"protectContent": True}},
    },
)
print(response.json())  # {'success': True, 'postGroupId': '...', 'scheduledTime': '...'}

Or let an AI agent post

Connect any MCP client to mcp.publora.com:

• “Format this week's updates as a Telegram post with a bold title and bullet points, and schedule it to my channel for Monday at 08:00 UTC as a silent message.”
• “Schedule these four image URLs as one album in my Telegram channel tomorrow at 18:00 UTC with a short caption.”
• “Post this launch note to my Telegram channel, LinkedIn page and Bluesky account on Thursday at 12:00 UTC.”