A friend sends you a teddy bear, and a week later someone in your group chat shows off a frog worth more than a used car. Telegram gifts stopped being cute cards long ago. Some people send them for 15 Stars, while others trade rare versions for thousands of dollars.
However, the rules keep changing. So every couple of months the messenger adds something new: auctions, purchase proposals, crafting. Accordingly, last year's guides are outdated, and the question "why can't I sell this" stays unanswered.
Therefore, this guide covers how Telegram gifts work in 2026: the types, sending, keeping and converting them. Next, we explain NFT upgrades, selling options and popular scams.
What Telegram Gifts Are and Which Types Exist
First, each one is an animated piece you buy with Stars and send to a person, a channel or yourself. Next, the recipient decides: display, hide or convert back to Stars. Launched in autumn 2024, the feature added NFT pieces in January 2025.
Four groups exist. Accordingly, the group defines cost and available actions.
| Type | Where to get it | Price | What you can do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | shop, always available | from 15 Stars | give, keep, convert |
| Limited | shop or auction, fixed supply | hundreds of Stars and up | all of the above + upgrade |
| Premium-only | shop, subscribers only | depends on the drop | like limited, capped per user |
| Collectible (NFT) | upgrade or marketplace | set by the seller | wear as status, sell, move to blockchain |
So only limited drops gain value. For example, a basic rose never becomes an NFT.
How to Send a Gift on Telegram
First, top up your balance, since direct card payments are not accepted. The official @PremiumBot usually bids the lowest rate; our guide compares every option for Telegram Stars.
To a Friend or a Channel
- Open the person's profile and tap ⋮ (or ⋯ on iPhone).
- Choose "Send a Gift".
- Pick something in the shop.
- Add a message and tap "Send".
Instead, you may start from the chat: tap the paperclip and select "Gift". For channels, tap the present icon in the feed's bottom right corner. Then received presents appear on the channel's Gifts tab, giving followers a neat way to support creators.
Anonymously and With a Note
The send window has a text field of up to 128 characters and a "Hide my name" switch. Still, anonymity is partial: the recipient sees the sender, while profile visitors do not. What should you write? A short personal note beats templates, since the text stays forever.
To Yourself
You can also buy for your own account. First go to Settings, then tap "Send a Gift" and pick yourself at the top of the list. Collectors, for instance, build sets this way or grab limited drops before upgrading. Besides, the same menu offers subscription gifting; our Telegram Premium overview explains what it includes.
What to Do After Receiving One
Each present arrives as a chat message, not in a separate inbox. Then tapping opens the gift card.
Show or Hide Items on Your Profile
Saved presents live on the Gifts tab of your profile. Moreover, six can be pinned, appearing on your profile cover. Besides, collections let you group presents by rarity, theme or any other rule. To remove one from public view, open it and choose "Hide". Deleting is impossible, but hidden presents stay visible only to you.
Converting to Stars
Selling a basic gift, meaning converting it to Stars, is possible only within 7 days of receiving it. The payout is below the original cost, for example 21 Stars for a 25-Star rose. After that, selling it is impossible: the button disappears permanently. Also mind your account rating: buying raises it, while converting lowers it.
Re-gifting
Basic presents cannot be re-gifted, staying tied to the recipient. Collectibles, by contrast, move to another user or channel via the "Transfer" button. Sometimes transferring is free; otherwise a small fee appears beforehand.
Telegram NFT Gifts: How to Upgrade to a Collectible
Next, upgrading turns a limited drop into a unique digital piece. Model, backdrop and symbol are picked randomly from dozens of variants, plus a serial number. Accordingly, that combination drives the cost.
Steps:
- Open My Profile and go to the Gifts tab.
- Select a gift whose card shows "Status: Non-Unique", since only those qualify. Mostly these are rare, limited drops.
- Then tap "Upgrade" and pay.
Each drop has its own fee, so check it first. Givers can prepay it, and lately friends can cover it too. But upgrades are irreversible. A dedicated filter finds eligible presents quickly.
After that, a collectible gets a "Value" field with an estimated resale price. Wear it as an emoji status, apply it as a private theme or share it in stories.
Besides, 2026 brought crafting: combining up to four NFT lots into rare, epic or legendary models. So each extra piece raises success odds.
How to Buy Telegram Gifts and What They Cost
Today, new releases increasingly drop through auctions. Bidding runs across several rounds, and bid rank determines serial numbers. Meanwhile, losing bids get fully refunded. Certain releases require Premium or carry per-user caps. Need the subscription? Check our Telegram Premium price ranking by country.
Sold-out drops, by contrast, come only from other owners. Open "Send a Gift", switch to the Collectibles filter and sort by price, model, backdrop or symbol. Accordingly, launch-day buying remains cheapest. Rare serial numbers and unusual combinations, in the end, cost most.
So how much do Telegram gifts cost in practice? Basic ones run 15–100 ⭐, limited ones several hundred at launch. Resale NFT pieces range from roughly a thousand to hundreds of thousands. Releases arrive without long notice, so collectors follow the official channel or notification bots.
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Converting a basic item | within 7 days, below the purchase price |
| Gift message | up to 128 characters |
| Pinned items on a profile | up to 6 |
| Marketplace range | 125 to 100,000 Stars |
| Marketplace fee | 20% in Stars, 10% in TON |
| Crafting a new model | 1 to 4 collectibles |
| Blockchain export | 2FA password, after a waiting period |
How to Sell Telegram Gifts
Selling depends on type. For example, basic presents allow only conversion to Stars within 7 days, and after that they cannot be sold at all. Collectibles, meanwhile, have three exits.
On the Built-In Marketplace
First open it on your profile, then tap "Sell" and set an amount between 125 and 100,000 ⭐. Afterwards, the listing appears on the marketplace with an "on sale" badge on your profile. The app keeps a 20% fee, leaving 80% for you. TON listings carry a 10% fee instead.
Through a Purchase Offer
Alternatively, buyers can make a proposal via ⋯ on its card, in Stars or TON. The app compares each bid against the estimated value. Once accepted, ownership transfers automatically. Since this official route protects direct deals, prepayment arrangements in private messages are unnecessary.
Via the TON Blockchain
Finally, you can export a collectible to a TON wallet: Transfer, then "Send via Blockchain". Afterwards, list it on NFT platforms like Fragment or Getgems. But two-step verification is required. Besides, purchases and upgrades trigger a waiting period, usually two to three weeks, and the exact date shows in the Transfer window. Accordingly, this route suits expensive NFT lots needing a wider buyer pool.
How to Make Money With Telegram Gifts
Earning here means reselling: get items below market and pass them to someone who wants that exact model right now. Profit comes from three moments: launch-day purchases, landing a rare backdrop, and closing fast with someone hunting for a specific model. But nothing is guaranteed, since collection values drop as quickly as they climb.
What You Keep After Fees
So run the numbers first. For example, a hypothetical lot purchased at launch for 500 ⭐ plus a 300 ⭐ upgrade means 800 invested.
| Scenario | Sale price | You receive | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace, paid in Stars | 1,500 ⭐ | 1,200 ⭐ (minus 20%) | +400 ⭐ |
| Marketplace, paid in TON | 1,500 ⭐ equivalent | 1,350 ⭐ equivalent (minus 10%) | +550 ⭐ |
| Collection value drops | 900 ⭐ | 720 ⭐ | −80 ⭐ |
Accordingly, TON listings pay more and deliver crypto: coins land on your TON balance, ready for withdrawal. That explains why resellers keep part of their stock priced in TON.
Where to Sell Telegram Gifts: Trading Groups
Meanwhile, the marketplace shows thousands of listings, and one lot easily gets lost. Active sellers therefore look for customers in trading groups. Every day, members post requests like "need a bear, up to 900 ⭐" or "who sells a Santa hat", and whoever answers first wins. To start, find 10–20 such groups by searching "gifts", "nft gifts" or "buy sell".
That is what a quick deal looks like: someone posts a request, the seller replies within a minute, then the deal moves to DMs. However, buyers only notice sellers whose posts show up in the feed regularly. Posting in 20 groups every day by hand is unrealistic, so sellers automate the broadcast.
Automating Group Sales With GramGPT.io
- Find the groups. "Search parser" finds communities by keywords, while "DB Parser" searches GramGPT's own base of 2.5 million channels and chats without any Telegram accounts. Our parser review shows how to build that list. Keep only groups whose rules allow sale posts to avoid reports and bans.
- Launch Chat Broadcast with AI uniqueness. In the First message block choose AI for each chat and describe the offer: which gifts you sell, the tone and a call to DM you. The AI drafts a separate text that fits every group’s topic, so no two ads in the feed look alike.
- Attach media. The message chain accepts a photo, video, GIF, sticker, voice note, video note, document, inline post with buttons or a repost. For example, show an upgraded gift on video and add a “Message the seller” button under the post.
- Move the talk to DMs. Pick NeuroDialogs as the auto-responder, so AI answers questions about backdrop, number and price.
- Close officially. The buyer sends "Offer a Deal", then you accept, and ownership transfers automatically.
The key element is AI-driven uniqueness. Moderators and anti-spam bots quickly ban identical ads, whereas wording tailored to each group reads like a real seller’s post. Besides, the module keeps pauses between messages and groups, while AI protection watches the account’s health. Our chat broadcast review walks through every setting.
Here is the result: an AI-written gift sale post in a themed group.
