Telegram Statistics 2026: Users, Premium, Revenue

Telegram statistics 2026: the key numbers

Telegram has “significantly over 1 billion” monthly active users, according to a post by founder Pavel Durov on March 19, 2025, the most recent official user count as of November 11, 2026. Telegram Premium had over 15 million paid subscribers in May 2025, more than 500 million users opened Mini Apps monthly by June 2024, and the company reported over $1 billion in revenue and $547 million in profit for 2024. India is its largest disclosed market, with 150 million users in Durov’s June 2026 count.

Almost every figure here comes from Telegram itself, mostly from Durov’s channel and the Telegram blog, because Telegram is a private company with no audited public reports. We mark each figure with its source and date, flag company claims, and leave out numbers we could not trace to an original source. Sources were checked on November 11, 2026.

How many people use Telegram?

Telegram reports monthly active users (MAU) in round milestones, not on a schedule. The milestones so far:

In the March 2025 post Durov called Telegram the second most popular messaging app in the world, excluding the China-only WeChat. That is his ranking, not an independent one. Since then he has referred to “our billion+ users”, most recently in an August 31, 2026 post, but without a new number. Third-party sites that quote 1.1 or 1.2 billion for 2026 are estimating; we found no Telegram source for those figures.

Daily use and engagement

• Daily users: half of the 900 million monthly users opened Telegram daily, Durov wrote on April 10, 2024. That implies roughly 450 million daily users at the time. It is the latest daily figure from Telegram itself.
• Time spent: the average user opened Telegram 21 times a day and spent 41 minutes in it daily, according to the March 19, 2025 post.
• Sign-ups: over 2.5 million new users signed up every day, according to the July 18, 2023 post.
• Channel views: users generate over 1 trillion views in channels every month, a figure in Telegram’s March 31, 2024 announcement and still on the Ad Platform home page on November 11, 2026.

Our DAU/MAU explainer shows how to read a daily-to-monthly ratio like Telegram’s 50%.

Telegram Premium subscribers

Telegram Premium is the paid subscription that removes ads and adds features. Its growth is one of the best documented series Telegram publishes:

Against 1 billion monthly users, 15 million subscribers is about 1.5% of the user base. That matters for channel owners in one direction: every Premium reader can switch Telegram ads off, so they add nothing to your ad share.

Mini Apps and Telegram Stars statistics

Mini Apps are web apps that run inside Telegram, and Stars are the in-app currency users spend in them and in channels. Telegram publishes few totals for either, so the table mixes platform figures with single-app examples Durov chose to highlight:

We found no official total for Stars bought or paid out, so we do not quote one. What Telegram does publish is the value of a Star to creators, which is the number that matters for planning:

• Paid posts: owners receive the equivalent of 0.013 USD in rewards per Star earned, under the Terms of Service for Content Creators.
• Ads: a Star is worth 0.02 USD of Telegram Ads credit under the same terms.
• Holds: Star rewards become available for withdrawal after 21 days, ad rewards in Gram after 2 days.
• Withdrawal minimum: Telegram’s API configuration reference listed 1,000 Stars as the minimum balance for a withdrawal when we checked on November 11, 2026.

The Mini App figures are old for a fast-moving market and describe a 2024 wave of tap-to-earn games. Treat them as a sign of reach, not of what a new Mini App will get. How to grow a Telegram Mini App covers getting users today.

Telegram users by country

Telegram does not publish a country breakdown. The one recent country figure from the company is India: on June 16, 2026, Durov wrote that a one-week ban ordered by India’s IT ministry “punishes 150 million ordinary Telegram users in India”. That makes India the largest market Telegram has put a number on.

Lists of the “top Telegram countries” on statistics sites are built from download estimates or survey panels, and they disagree with each other by tens of millions of users per country. We left them out. For advertising reach, the most useful official detail is regional: Telegram’s creator terms warn that ads and Stars may not be available in some regions, “which, at times, could represent a significant portion of your audience”, and its API has a per-region switch that hides ad revenue withdrawals where they are not enabled.

If your audience is concentrated in a few countries, your own channel statistics in the Telegram app tell you more than any global list. Tier 1, 2 and 3 countries explains why the country mix changes what an audience earns.

Telegram channel statistics

Telegram does not publish a total count of channels or groups. The official channel figures cover views, monetization and moderation:

The blocking numbers are large because they count spam, scam and illegal channels, many created only to be banned. They say nothing about how many legitimate channels exist. Third-party catalogs index millions of channels, but each covers only the channels it has found, so we do not quote a total.

Telegram revenue and profit

Telegram started monetizing in 2021 and does not publish audited results. The numbers below are Durov’s own statements or unaudited figures the press reported from documents shared with investors:

We found no full-year 2025 revenue figure from Telegram or a reputable outlet, so this table stops at the first half. On March 23, 2026, Durov wrote that Telegram had fully repaid the bonds it issued five years earlier. Note the scale of advertising: $125 million in six months is a small share of revenue next to Premium, which helps explain why Telegram keeps adding creator tools paid in Stars.

One naming change runs through these figures. The TON blockchain’s coin, Toncoin, was renamed Gram in June 2026 after Durov announced it on June 1, 2026. Older reports say Toncoin; Telegram’s ad rewards are now paid in Gram.

What the numbers mean for channel and Mini App owners

1. The audience is huge, the ad market is small. A trillion monthly channel views against $125 million of half-year ad revenue means ads are thinly spread. Telegram’s 50% share is welcome, but most channels will not live on it. Telegram ads for channel owners explains how the share works.
2. Telegram is pushing paid features. Premium, Stars, paid posts and suggested posts are where its money and its new tools come from. How to make money with a Telegram channel covers each one.
3. Your audience may not see ads. Premium readers can switch them off, and some regions get none. Check your own country mix before you count on ad income.
4. Mini Apps reach far, but the 2024 boom faded. The 500 million figure is two years old. Plan around your retention, not the platform total.
5. Company numbers are claims. Telegram’s figures are not audited. Quote them with their source and date, as in this page, and never as a promise to an advertiser.

For a channel-level view, How much do Telegram channels make? works through the income lines, and Discord statistics gives the same sourced treatment to Discord.

How to add Moonetix to your Telegram channel or Mini App

For readers who will never buy Premium or Stars, an offerwall lets them earn your points by completing offers, while you earn per completed offer.

1. Apply as a publisher at moonetix.com/register. Every application is reviewed by hand, and once you are approved, every app you add is live right away.
2. Add your Mini App, bot or companion website as an app and set the currency name and icon, conversion rate, user split, rounding and wall design.
3. Integrate. For a Mini App, follow Add an offerwall to a Telegram Mini App; for a bot, How to monetize a Telegram bot; for a channel, put the wall on a website with sign-in that your posts link to, using a link your server signs.
4. Credit only from the signed postback and remove points on a reversal, then use “Open as a test user” and “Send a test postback” in the app’s Integration tab before you announce it.

Honest limits: a channel cannot host the wall itself, end users must be at least 16 (with parental permission under 18), offers depend on each user’s country and device, and users on VPNs, proxies or data center networks are blocked. Never reward readers for interacting with Telegram’s sponsored messages. Moonetix for Telegram has the full setup.

Frequently asked questions