Telegram Channel Lookup — Subscribers & Channel Info API

Paste a list of public Telegram channel usernames and get each channel's live profile — title, verified badge, description, subscriber count, media counts and its most recent messages. This reads t.me/s/<channel>, Telegram's own server-rendered public preview, so there's no bot token, no API key, no login, and no JavaScript to execute.

Who it's for

Built for anyone who needs to qualify Telegram channels in bulk without joining them. Trust-and-safety and OSINT analysts use it to check whether a handle pulled from a report is a real, verified channel and how large its audience actually is. Growth and affiliate marketers screen influencer and crypto channels before paying for a placement — subscriber count, recent activity and the verified badge arrive in one row, so a dead or fake channel is obvious before money moves. Sales teams cleaning lead lists run their Telegram handles through it and keep only the ones that resolve. And because it reads Telegram's own public preview pages, there's no bot to register and nothing to install: paste handles, get a table.

Why this one

• No bot token and no phone number. Telegram's own public preview is server-rendered HTML. You don't register a bot, join the channel, or authenticate as a user.
• You don't pay for handles that don't resolve. A private channel, a deleted one, a user account, or a typo comes back found: false and is never billed.
• Subscriber count both ways. subscribersRaw keeps Telegram's own 11.1M string; subscribers gives you 11100000 as a number you can sort and compare.
• Recent messages included. The latest posts come back with the profile, so a single lookup tells you both how big a channel is and whether it's still active.
• Handles with or without @. @telegram and telegram both resolve.

What you get

One row per input handle. Field names are frozen — a Clay column or an agent that maps the schema today can keep reading it next month.

Field	Type / format	Description
query	text	The handle exactly as submitted, including any leading @.
found	boolean	Whether the handle resolved to a real public channel. Gates billing — false rows are never charged.
scrapedAt	date (ISO 8601)	When the lookup ran.
data.title	text	Channel display name.
data.username	text	The normalized handle, without @.
data.verified	boolean	Whether Telegram shows the verified badge.
data.description	text	Channel bio as shown on the preview page.
data.subscribers	number	Subscriber count parsed to an integer — 11.1M becomes 11100000.
data.subscribersRaw	text	Telegram's own abbreviated string, e.g. 11.1M.
data.photosCount	number	Photos counter, where the channel publishes one.
data.videosCount	number	Videos counter, where the channel publishes one.
data.linksCount	number	Links counter, where the channel publishes one.
data.recentMessages	array	The latest posts Telegram renders on the preview — roughly the most recent 20. Each carries text, date and views.

What t.me/s/ can and can't see

Everything this actor returns comes from t.me/s/<channel> — the preview page Telegram itself renders for public channels, the one you see when you open a channel link without the app. That boundary defines the actor:

It can see: the channel's title, bio, verified badge, the photo/video/link counters, and roughly the latest 20 posts with their view counts — everything Telegram chooses to show a logged-out visitor.

It can't see: private or invite-only channels (no preview exists), groups and user accounts (different page types entirely), comment threads, member lists, or anything older than the preview window. All of those come back as found: false — free, but also not proof the thing doesn't exist behind the login wall.

One subtlety worth knowing: subscribers is parsed from Telegram's own abbreviated display string, so it's exact below 1,000 and rounded above — 11.1M can only ever become 11100000. Rank and bucket with it; don't chart day-over-day deltas from it.

Price

$4 per 1,000 results, plus a $0.005 start fee. Misses (found:false) are never charged.

You're billed per handle that resolves to a real public channel. A private channel, a deleted one, a user account, or a typo costs nothing, no matter how many are in the list. Run 1,000 handles and, at the live FREE-tier per-row price, that's roughly $4 if every one resolves — less in practice, since dead handles are free, and cheaper still on paid Apify tiers. Nothing is rented monthly and nothing expires: the bill is the resolved rows, full stop.

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the items field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~telegram-channel-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"items":["durov","telegram"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

1. Paste your handles into items — one per line, with or without a leading @.
2. Run the actor. Each handle is fetched from t.me/s/<channel> in parallel up to maxConcurrency.
3. Read the dataset. Each row carries the channel profile in data, or found: false if the handle isn't a real public channel.
4. Filter to found: true before you export if you only want live channels.

Common ways teams use this:

• Verify a channel is authentic before trusting or citing it, using verified and subscribers together.
• Track competitor subscriber counts by re-running on a schedule and diffing subscribers.
• Check whether a channel is still active by reading the dates on recentMessages rather than assuming a big follower count means a live channel.
• Screen handles from a lead list in bulk, keeping only the ones that resolve.
• Shortlist channels by reach in a niche by running a candidate list and sorting on subscribers.

Input

{
  "items": ["telegram", "@durov"],
  "maxConcurrency": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

items is your list of public Telegram channel handles. A leading @ is stripped automatically, so @telegram and telegram are the same lookup, and you can mix both formats in one run. One dataset row comes back per item, and rows with found: false are never charged. maxConcurrency (default 5) caps parallel requests — keep it conservative, since this target has no browser fallback. proxyConfiguration routes requests through Apify Proxy, which is the default and is generally what you want for bulk runs.

Sample output

query	found	title	username	verified	subscribers	subscribersRaw	photosCount	videosCount	scrapedAt
telegram	true	Telegram News	telegram	true	11100000	11.1M	45200	196	2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z

A single row in full:

{
  "query": "telegram",
  "found": true,
  "data": {
    "title": "Telegram News",
    "username": "telegram",
    "verified": true,
    "description": "Do not open suspicious links...",
    "subscribers": 11100000,
    "subscribersRaw": "11.1M",
    "photosCount": 45200,
    "videosCount": 196,
    "linksCount": 812,
    "recentMessages": [
      { "text": "...", "date": "2026-08-15T09:00:00+00:00", "views": "1.2M" }
    ]
  },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z"
}

A handle that isn't a real public channel still returns a row, with no data, and is never charged:

{
  "query": "not-a-real-channel",
  "found": false,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-21T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Failed handles stay visible in the dataset on purpose — auditing which of 500 leads didn't resolve beats reverse-engineering it from a shorter output file.

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~telegram-channel-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"items":["durov","telegram"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~telegram-channel-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"items":["durov","telegram"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~telegram-channel-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"items":["{{value}}"]}, mapping the row's value into the items array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "Telegram Channel Lookup | Apify" — the agent will find and run this actor.

Tips

• Sort on subscribers, report with subscribersRaw. The number is for ranking; the raw string is what a reader recognizes.
• Don't diff subscribers daily on large channels. It's parsed from a rounded display string, so a channel sitting at 11.1M looks static for a long time. Weekly or monthly comparisons are meaningful; daily ones aren't.
• Check recentMessages dates, not just subscriber count. A channel with a million subscribers and nothing posted in a year is a dead channel.
• Private and invite-only channels are misses by design. t.me/s/ only renders public previews, so anything gated returns found: false — free, but not evidence the channel doesn't exist.
• Groups and user accounts aren't channels. Both come back as misses; this actor is channel-specific.

vs. alternatives

	What it costs	What you get	Trade-off
This actor (telegram-channel-lookup)	$4 per 1,000 resolved handles (less on paid tiers), $0.005 actor start, nothing for a handle that doesn't resolve	A flat channel profile per handle — title, verified, description, subscriber count, media counts and the latest posts — with no bot token or login	Public channels only, roughly the latest 20 messages, and subscriber counts rounded as Telegram displays them. Not a full message-history scraper.
truefetch/telegram-channel-message (791 users)	$0.00035 per result, $0.01 start, $0.0008 per media item	Deep message history and media downloads, billed per message	If you want the messages themselves at volume, this is the right shape and far cheaper per message. This is a profile lookup, not a message archive.
webfinity/telegram-channel-content-media-scraper (208 users)	$9/month rental	Unlimited runs for a flat monthly fee	Flat-rate rental beats per-row pricing above a certain volume. Below it, you're paying $9 for a handful of lookups.
Telegram's Bot API	Free	Official access to channels your bot is a member of	It requires a bot token and channel membership. This reads the public preview with neither, which is the whole point for bulk screening of channels you don't control.

(Prices quoted for other tools are their August 2026 list prices; confirm on their pages before deciding on cost alone.)

FAQ

Do I need a bot token, an API key, or a phone number? No. This reads t.me/s/<channel>, Telegram's own server-rendered public preview. No registration, no authentication, and no channel membership.

What counts as "found"? The handle must resolve to a public channel with a rendered preview page. Private channels, deleted channels, groups, user accounts and typos all return found: false and are never charged.

Why is subscribers a round number? Telegram displays large counts abbreviated — 11.1M — and that string is all the preview page carries. subscribers is that string parsed to an integer, so it's exact for small channels and rounded for big ones. subscribersRaw preserves the original.

Can I get more than ~20 messages of history? Not from this actor — the preview page is all it reads. For deep message archives, a message-focused scraper (billed per message) is the right shape; this is a profile check.

Does this work for groups or user profiles? No. Both return found: false. The actor is specific to public channels.

Does the channel owner know I looked? No. Reading the public preview is an ordinary page view, the same as opening the channel's link in a browser — no join, no read receipt, nothing visible to the owner.

Can an AI agent use this? Yes. It's exposed through the Apify MCP server, so a Claude or Cursor agent with that MCP connected can run a handle list and read the rows back without integration code.

Related actors

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• Podcast Lookup — show and episode data from Apple Podcasts by name or id.
• Apple App Store Lookup — iOS app metadata and reviews by app id.