Read any public Telegram channel from your own code
Channel metadata, message history, user profiles and Telegram's own recommendation graph — over MTProto, not the Bot API. No bot token. No phone number.
Rated 5 out of 5 by 5 reviewers on RapidAPI, 73 subscriptions to date, read 16 Sept 2026.
curl --request GET \
--url 'https://telegram155.p.rapidapi.com/v1/contacts/search?q=crypto' \
--header 'x-rapidapi-host: telegram155.p.rapidapi.com' \
--header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_KEY'The index above is ours
Everything on this site comes out of the same API we sell. Once a week we resolve 5,177 public channels, store what came back, and publish the aggregates — 5,904 observations so far.
It is the shortest honest answer to the only question that matters when you are buying channel data: does it work, and on what. Read how we measure, then check any figure against a run of your own.
What one key gives you
| Endpoint | What it returns |
|---|---|
/v1/contacts/search | Search Telegram's public directory by keyword — the way you find channels in the first place |
/v1/usernames/{username} | Resolve any public @username to a channel or user |
/v1/channels/{id} | Full channel: description, subscriber count, linked discussion group |
/v1/channels/recommendations | The channels Telegram recommends alongside — a similarity graph you cannot get any other way |
/v1/peers/{id}/history | Message history, with replies and discussion threads |
/v1/users/{id} | Full public user profile, and profile photos |
MTProto, not the Bot API: a bot only sees channels it has been added to. This reads any public channel, the way a logged-out visitor would.
Where the channels are
Eight of 20 topics by channel count. All of them.
What it costs
The free tier is 2,500 calls a month and takes no card. Paid plans start at $14.99 a month for 80,000 calls, and go up to 700,000 — all four tiers side by side.
Start on the free tier
2,500 calls a month, no card. No bot token and no phone number.