Best Telegram API for channel data
A Telegram channel's public preview needs no login, no bot token and no account. The catch is that it is two different pages, and they do not agree on precision.
What to require of any vendor here
- Ask which page it reads for the subscriber count. The full channel page spells the count out; the posts preview only prints it abbreviated. A vendor reading the preview and presenting the result as exact is publishing precision the page it read does not have.
- Ask how it tells a channel with no public post history apart from one that does not exist at all. The preview page answers the same redirect for both, and the two are told apart only by an anchor on the page it redirects to — a vendor that treats every such redirect as "not found" would misreport a real, private-about-its-posts channel as nonexistent.
- Ask whether post view counts come back exact. The public post page only prints them abbreviated, the same way the preview does for subscribers — a precise number there is not read, it is guessed.
Where the number actually lives
We read tgme_page_title from public page, logged out — existence anchor, not the subscriber count field. Handle format: Telegram username: letters, digits and underscore, 5 to 32 characters, starting with a letter.
Our endpoints for this platform — 3
telegram/profile— Public profile on telegram, with the exact follower count.telegram/profile/posts— Recent posts from a public Telegram channel. followers is always null here (the t.me preview page calls this count "subscribers" and only prints it abbreviated).telegram/post— One Telegram post by channel and numeric id. views is always null here — the page this reads only prints it abbreviated.
Shape, parameters and the errors each one returns are in the endpoint reference.
What the alternatives cost
We do not restate competitor prices here. The vendor pages carry them — 39 of them — each price read on that vendor's own page, with the date we read it. Readings run from 2026-09-05 to 2026-10-03.
A price copied into a second place is a price that will disagree with itself the first time a vendor changes one. Verify on their page before deciding — we are an interested party.
Reading telegram yourself is the part above. Reading it through one call is the part we sell.