Telegram Stars for Sellers

Telegram Stars payments are how digital goods are bought inside Telegram — and almost nobody selling through them publishes the honest math. This page does: what a Star is worth to you as a seller, what the platform keeps, how long the hold lasts, and a calculator to price your digital products with the take already included.

The short version: one Star pays the seller $0.013. A buyer's 1,000 Stars cost them about $19.99 in the app stores. The difference — roughly 35% — is the platform's take, and it exists on every digital-goods sale made inside Telegram. Price accordingly.

How Stars payments work

Stars are Telegram's currency for digital goods and services: a buyer purchases Stars (in-app through Apple or Google, or via Fragment's web interface), then pays them to your bot for a course, a subscription, a paid community, a file — anything that doesn't ship in a box. The flow for the buyer is one tap; for you it arrives as a completed order in the cabinet.

The split of the same $19.99 across the chain:

Stage	Who	Amount
Buyer buys 1,000 Stars (in-app)	pays Apple/Google	~$19.99
Store commission on that purchase	Apple/Google keep	~30%
Telegram's share of the flow	Telegram keeps	its part of the remainder
Seller receives the payout	you	~$13.00 ($0.013 × 1,000)

The exact numbers move a little depending on where the buyer bought their Stars (Fragment web purchases cost the buyer less, so more of the value survives), but the order of magnitude is stable: the seller-side rate is $0.013 per Star, and the all-in take versus the buyer's price is around 35%.

The honest math: 35% platform take

Sellers price digital goods the way they would price them anywhere — cost plus margin — and then discover the take. The arithmetic that prevents the surprise:

• your course should net you $30 → price it at ~2,300 Stars, not 2,000;
• your monthly community at $9 net → ~1,000 Stars per month;
• a $4.99 file → ~575 Stars.

The rule of thumb: divide your target net by 0.65 (or multiply by ~1.54) and round up to a clean Stars number. That is the whole secret — but only if you apply it before publishing prices, not after the first payout.

Why so high? The chain has two tollbooths, not one: the app stores take their standard in-app purchase commission when the buyer buys Stars, and Telegram's policy routes all digital-goods payments inside the apps through Stars. Physical products escape both — they use card providers through Telegram's payment integrations instead, which is the payment gateway story.

Withdrawal rules and the 21-day hold

Money you earn in Stars does not land instantly:

• earned Stars accumulate in your bot's balance;
• withdrawal converts Stars to TON at the current rate, $0.013 per Star;
• recently earned Stars can be held for up to 21 days before they become withdrawable — an anti-fraud measure that applies to every seller;
• payouts then arrive in TON, convertible to fiat on any exchange.

For a new store this means: the first month's Stars revenue is partly deferred. Plan cash flow around it — the hold is on recent earnings, not on your whole balance forever.

Stars calculator: what you actually receive

The calculator on this page prices the realistic scenario: orders per month, average order in dollars, the platform take applied. Set your numbers, see the net, and only then publish your prices. The same math applies whether the goods are courses, presets, e-books or access to a closed channel.

When Stars make sense (and when not)

The honest split:

Stars fit — digital goods sold inside Telegram to an audience that lives there: courses, guides, presets, paid communities, subscription drops. The 35% take is the price of a checkout that converts at messenger speed, with zero setup and zero chargebacks. When the alternative is losing the buyer to a landing page, the take buys a working funnel.

Stars don't fit — high-margin physical products (use card providers), buyers outside Telegram, or goods priced so thin that 35% kills the unit economics. If your margin can't absorb the take, the answer is not Stars — it's a different channel, not a different price.

The full map of rails — Stars, providers, crypto — with fees and timing side by side is in the guide on how to accept payments on Telegram. The shorter payment methods hub compares the rails without the guide’s depth, and the digital vs physical decision guide prices both models on a $10 example. To try the flow with a real digital product, the free plan has Stars checkout included; a test purchase costs you nothing but the take on one order.