How to create a store in Telegram: step by step, no developer
An online store in Telegram is easiest to build as a mini app: the catalogue, cart and checkout open from a button in your bot’s menu, a card payment opens the till’s payment page — YooKassa or T-Bank — and then returns the buyer to the app, and the order reaches your Telegram. Here is how to create such a store from a template, where its products come from, how payment is connected and what it costs.
A channel, a bot or a mini app
The most common first store in Telegram is a channel with posts captioned “price and orders by DM”. It works while there are ten products and a few orders a day. Beyond that orders get lost in conversations, and a buyer comparing two products scrolls back through the feed.
A store bot that sends products as messages fixes some of that, but choosing among fifty items in a chat is still awkward. A mini app is a shop front with sections, filters and a cart that opens over the chat. The channel stays: announcements and new arrivals live there, and the link to the bot with the store is pinned on top.
The catalogue: where products come from
Products are rows of a table inside the app: name, price, photograph, section, description. The catalogue draws itself from it, so a new product is a new row rather than a new screen. Rows are edited in the editor or right inside the published app from a phone.
If the range is already kept in Excel or a Google Sheet, there is no retyping. An Excel or CSV file is imported into the app’s table. A Google Sheet is connected by link — a private one through a service account — and only after the app’s first publish. Such rows refresh on a schedule and at every publish, and they are edited in the sheet itself, not in the editor or the app.
How many products fit depends on the plan: Start allows up to 2,000 rows in the app’s tables, Pro up to 20,000, Studio has no plan ceiling. A long list can be split into portions with a “Show more” button in the list’s settings. One table holds up to 5,000 rows.
The cart and the order
The cart is kept for the buyer and survives a reload: close the app in the evening, open it in the morning, and the choice is still there. That needs a connected bot — its signature is how the app identifies the person.
A placed order reaches your Telegram at that moment and stays as a table row where its status is changed. If orders need to travel on — to a CRM, a warehouse sheet, a couriers’ chat — a webhook passes them to n8n, Make, Zapier or your own server.
Card payments
Card payments are connected through your own till — YooKassa or T-Bank: the keys from their cabinet are entered once in the Publish dialog. The money reaches you directly, your till issues the receipt, and we take no percentage of sales. Until a till is connected no payment is created, so the store can be assembled and checked in advance. The caption under the Pay button in the template is a permanent hint about the till; remove or rewrite it.
YooKassa can be connected by a company, a sole trader or a self-employed person; T-Bank by a sole trader or a company with a T-Bank business account. Each has its own document requirements. The till is Russian, so a buyer with a card from a bank abroad cannot pay through it, and taking Telegram Stars inside the app is not available yet. Without a till, checkout can become a request paid on delivery: keep the “Submit a form” action on the button and remove “Take payment”.
What it costs
Assembling the store and seeing it work is free with no time limit. The first publish opens three days of trial, then a plan: Start is 1,290 ₽ a month (or 1,000 Telegram Stars) and includes one app. The commission on payments is your merchant account’s, under its contract; we take nothing from sales.
There is no server, domain, certificate or developer among the costs. The app lives at the address it is given, and the same store opens in MAX without being rebuilt.
Step by step
- 1Create a bot with @BotFather via /newbot and copy the token.
- 2Open the builder and take the Online store template.
- 3Fill the products table by hand or from an Excel file, and set the sections and checkout fields for your own range.
- 4Connect a till — YooKassa or T-Bank — in the Publish dialog, or remove “Take payment” from the checkout button for payment on delivery.
- 5Paste the bot token, publish and place a test order from a second account.
- 6If products are kept in a Google Sheet, connect it after the first publish.
Other questions
- Can a store in Telegram be created for free?
- Assembling and checking it, yes — free with no time limit. For the store to open for buyers it has to be published: three days of trial from the first publish, then a plan from 1,290 ₽ a month. We take no percentage of sales; only your merchant account charges a commission.
- Do I need a registered business to open a store in Telegram?
- Card payments need a status: YooKassa works with companies, sole traders and the self-employed, T-Bank with sole traders and companies holding a T-Bank business account. Without a till, checkout becomes a request paid on delivery. Check the tax side of selling with an accountant.
- Does a Telegram store need a bot?
- Yes. The store opens from a button in your bot’s menu, orders reach you through the bot, and its signature identifies the buyer so the cart is not lost. The bot is created with @BotFather in a minute, and the platform sets the menu button.
- Will the store work in MAX?
- Yes, it is the same project and the same address. In MAX the address is pasted by hand in the partner cabinet, and publishing there is open to companies, sole traders and self-employed people resident in Russia; moderation takes up to 48 hours on business days.