What it costs
What it costs to run a bot for a shop or client bookings
In short
Running a finished Telegram bot for a shop or for client bookings costs $4.99 a month (or $47.99 a year — about $4 a month): that covers the server, around-the-clock operation, restarts after a crash and logs. There is nothing extra to pay for a domain, a certificate or traffic. Building the bot is not part of that sum — this is the cost of running it, not of creating it.
A business bot is usually not a shop window but a receptionist: it answers at night, never forgets to book a client, and does not mix up orders. The question that stops people earliest is what it costs per month once you count running it rather than building it.
Let us be straight about the expenses: what the price includes, what you pay for separately, and when a bot stops being cheap.
Separate building from running#
These are two different sums and they get mixed up constantly. Building is one-off: you write the bot yourself, take a ready template, or hire someone. Running is monthly: for the bot to answer clients it has to live on a computer that is always on. The “this is expensive” conversation is almost always about the first sum, while the second is what scares people.
Work out the running cost#
Around-the-clock operation is the Pro plan: $4.99 a month, $47.99 a year (about $4 a month), or $1.49 a week if the bot is seasonal. That price covers the server, building the project from your code, restarts after a crash and logs. There are no separate bills for traffic or certificates.
Check the bot does not need extras#
A booking or ordering bot needs neither a domain nor a website: clients arrive through a t.me link and talk inside Telegram. Payments can go through Telegram itself or a link to your own checkout. If the bot does have a web part — an admin panel, say — an HTTPS link is issued right away, and your own domain can be attached on Pro.
Do not save on reliability#
A bot taking orders differs from a toy bot in one way: its silence costs money. So two things matter more than the price — that a crashed process comes back up on its own, and that you learn about a failure before your clients do. Your account shows whether the bot was up over the last day, how many errors there were, and what it wrote to the logs, which is enough to catch a problem the same day.
Plan for keeping the data#
Orders, bookings and conversations live in the bot database. It belongs in the project persistent folder — then updating the code does not erase the history, and the data can be downloaded at any time. This is where cutting corners on a platform costs the most: a lost booking database means lost clients, not a technical detail.
Budget for a second bot and a test copy#
The plan is paid once per account, and every extra project is a slot at $3.99 for 30 days. That covers two common cases: a separate bot for a second location, and a test copy where you try changes before your clients see them. No second server needed for either.
Running a bot for a small business costs about a cup of coffee a month, and that already includes the server, non-stop operation and an eye on failures. Upload your bot to Netrun and watch how it behaves in production — the first 3 days are free.
Common questions
How much does it cost to run a Telegram bot for a business?
Running a finished bot costs $4.99 a month or $47.99 a year, roughly $4 a month. The price covers the server, around-the-clock operation, restarts after a crash and logs. Building the bot is a separate, one-off expense.
Does the bot need a domain and a website?
No. Clients arrive through a t.me link and talk inside Telegram. A domain is only needed if the bot has a web part such as an admin panel or a storefront. In that case an HTTPS link is issued right away, and your own domain can be attached on the Pro plan.
Can the bot accept payments?
Yes, through Telegram itself or a link to your own checkout — hosting requires nothing extra for that. Payment provider keys are stored as project secrets and never live in the code.
What happens to orders if the bot crashes?
A crashed project restarts by itself, and the data lives in the persistent folder, surviving both crashes and code updates. Your account shows whether the bot was up over the last day and whether there were errors, which lets you notice a problem before your clients do.
Do I need a separate plan for a test copy of the bot?
No. The plan is one per account, and a test copy is simply another project — a slot at $3.99 for 30 days. Trying changes on a copy costs less than fixing a live bot in front of clients.
What if the business is seasonal and the bot is not needed all year?
Then weekly billing at $1.49 with auto-renewal switched off fits well. The bot works through the season, and out of season it can simply stay stopped: code, settings and data are kept.
Can I host a Telegram bot?
Yes. Upload the bot code and provide the token from BotFather (Telegram itself gives it to you when you create the bot) — Netrun starts the bot, and no VPS or manual setup is needed. On the free plan the bot runs for 3 days so you can check everything; to keep it running around the clock, switch to the Pro plan.
Is my data kept when I update the code?
Yes, as long as your data lives in persistent storage. For a regular project that is the /data folder: anything your app saves there stays in place when you update the code or restart, and you can browse and download the files on the "Data" tab. If you described the services yourself in docker-compose, persistent storage means the named volumes from your file, and such a project has no /data folder. Files written outside persistent storage are created from scratch on the next deploy. Your project link stays the same either way.
How do I know my app is doing fine?
The Monitoring tab shows what is happening with your app right now: how many requests are coming in, how fast it replies, and whether any replies were errors — and below that, processor, memory and disk load. Everything refreshes every minute. The Pro plan adds the whole day: whether the app ran without interruptions, which hour it went down and how fast it replied. Bots and background scripts get no incoming requests — nobody comes to them by link — so for them we only show uptime.
What are slots and how do they work?
A slot adds one more project on top of your plan — it is about how many projects you have, not how they run. You can buy a slot on any plan, and each slot renews separately, independently of the plan. A slot does not turn on around-the-clock work: to keep a bot running beyond 3 days you need the Pro plan, while a slot is what you need once you have more than one project.