Read any public Telegram channel from your own code
Channel profiles, subscriber counts, message history with views and forwards, and the channels Telegram recommends next to each one — 19 endpoints on one RapidAPI key. No bot token, no phone number, and nothing to keep alive between the 2,500 free calls a month.
Rated 5 out of 5 by 5 reviewers on RapidAPI, 78 subscriptions to date, read 20 Sept 2026.
{
"count": 430,
"messages": [
{
"id": 460,
"date": 1787771554,
"views": 1206173,
"forwards": 3658
},
{
"id": 459,
"date": 1787771544,
"views": 1072118,
"forwards": 2805
}
]
}Telegram's recommendations, drawn as a map of 4,948 channels
Telegram puts a short list of similar channels next to every one of them, and we drew it for the 4,948 indexed channels that have one. 3,456 join into a single continent and the rest sit on 59 islands. One call to /v1/channels/recommendations returns that list for any public channel.
@moscowmap@AETemp@oinformanteofPersian-languageEducation and languagesSecurity and privacy
- 3,456 channels joined into one continent
- Persian-language, 234 channels on 2 islands
- Education and languages, 96 channels
- Security and privacy, 70 channels
- 55 smaller islands, 1,092 channels between them
Every figure on this site comes out of the API we sell: once a week we resolve 5,205 public channels and publish what came back, 11,891 observations so far. How the 4 numbers above are measured.
What one key gives you: 19 endpoints
MTProto, not the Bot API: a bot sees only the channels it was added to, and none of the 5,205 here needed that. They read any public channel the way a logged-out visitor would: @username in, JSON out, and 0 setup on Telegram's side.
/v1/contacts/searchSearch Telegram's public directory by keyword — the same search that seeded this index of 5,205 channels
/v1/usernames/{username}Resolve any public @username to a channel or user in 1 call, with no membership anywhere
/v1/channels/{peer_id}Full channel: description, subscriber count — the median here is 15,988 — and the linked discussion group
/v1/channels/recommendationsThe channels Telegram recommends alongside — the similarity graph behind all 4,948 mapped channels, and you cannot get it any other way
/v1/peers/{peer_id}/historyMessage history, with replies and discussion threads
/v1/users/{peer_id}Full public user profile, and profile photos — the 1 endpoint here about people rather than channels
6 shown here, 13 more in the reference. The full OpenAPI 3.1 document.
What people build with it
OSINT and monitoring
Resolve any public channel by username, pull its history, and watch subscriber counts move week to week — 11,891 observations so far. No bot has to join anything: all 19 endpoints read what a logged-out visitor sees.
Market research
Search the directory by keyword, walk the recommendation graph outward, and get every channel in a niche with the size of its audience — the graph here links 4,948 of them.
AI agents
19 GET endpoints and an OpenAPI 3.1 document an agent reads straight off the site — enough for Claude, Cursor or n8n to use Telegram as a tool.
Where the 5,205 channels are
The eight largest of 20 topics in the index, by channel count. All topics.
What it costs
Free
$0 a month
- 2,500 calls a month
- 50 lookups a month
Enough to wire it up and watch a handful of channels daily.
Pro
$14.99 a month
- 80,000 calls a month
- 100 lookups a day
A working monitor over a few thousand channels.
UltraRecommended
$29.99 a month
- 250,000 calls a month
- 350 lookups a day
Daily tracking at directory scale.
Mega
$79.99 a month
- 700,000 calls a month
- 1,200 lookups a day
Production monitoring and archival.
2,500 calls a month, no card. No bot token and no phone number. What counts as a lookup, and what counts as 1 call.
Common questions
Can I read Telegram channels without a bot?
Yes. This API uses MTProto, so all 19 endpoints read any public channel by @username — no bot token, no phone number, and no need for the bot to be a member.
What data does the Telegram API return?
Channel metadata and subscriber counts, message history and replies, user profiles and photos, global search across public channels, and Telegram's own channel recommendations — 19 endpoints in all, every one a plain GET.
Is there a free tier?
Yes — 2,500 calls a month, no card.
Start on the free tier
2,500 calls a month, no card. No bot token and no phone number.