A store inside Telegram
Browse, search, wishlist, and cart, with coupons and referral credit. Checkout is a Telegram Stars invoice, and customers can also request a quote for custom work.
Built
Product / commerce
Shop Bot
Sell digital products inside Telegram, paid in Stars and delivered once per payment.
Shop Bot is a Telegram store for digital products. Customers browse, pay in Telegram Stars, and receive files, license keys, and memberships without leaving Telegram, while the merchant's staff stock, fulfill, refund, and support from the same bot. Every payment is recorded on a ledger before anything is delivered. Each merchant gets a dedicated instance: their own bot, database, files, backups, and Stars revenue. A managed white-label service is planned.
At a glance
- Who it is for
- Creators and businesses that sell digital products—downloads, software license keys, and memberships—to customers on Telegram.
- What it does
- Run a complete store inside a Telegram bot: catalog, cart, Stars checkout, delivery on payment, refunds, memberships, and support, with every payment on a ledger.
- How it is reached
- Customers shop in the bot, and the merchant's staff run the store from the same bot's admin commands. There is no ApexAPI or ApexMCP surface.
- Where it stands
- BuiltNot publicly hostedNot yet priced
- Next step
- Discuss Shop Bot What is proven
See an order
Checked before the charge. Recorded before delivery.
Every purchase follows the same path: a signed invoice, a check before Telegram charges, a receipt on the ledger, then delivery exactly once. This is that path for one invented store.
Built Checkout, payments, and delivery
- 01CheckoutA customer has a design template and a desktop app sold with a license key in 🧺 Cart, and taps ⭐ Checkout. One key is reserved for this order, so nobody else can buy it while the invoice is open.Reserved
- 02InvoiceThe bot sends a Telegram Stars invoice for the cart total. Its payload names the order and is signed, so it cannot be altered or used to pay for another order.Sent
- 03Pre-checkoutBefore charging, Telegram asks the bot to approve the payment. The bot checks that the payer owns the order, the currency is Stars, the amount is the exact unpaid total, and the reserved key is still held.Approved
- 04ChargeTelegram takes the Stars from the customer's balance and reports the payment to the bot.Paid
- 05ReceiptThe payment is written to the ledger before anything is delivered, under Telegram's own charge identifier, so a repeated report is recognized as the same payment.Recorded
- 06FulfillFulfillment runs once: the template is granted to 📁 My Files and the reserved key is assigned to the order.Fulfilled
- 07DeliverThe customer gets a ✅ order-ready message with the key and finds the template in 📁 My Files. A message that fails to send is retried.Delivered
If the customer asked for a refund. Had the customer asked for a refund, a staff member would preview it and confirm, the Stars would go back through Telegram, and the template's access and the key would be revoked. A revoked key is never sold again.
What Shop Bot covers
A whole store, not a payment button.
Sell digital products where customers already are, take payment in Telegram Stars, and deliver exactly what was paid for, once, with a record of every charge, delivery, and refund.
Stars payments on a ledger
Each invoice is signed and checked again before Telegram charges. Every charge becomes a receipt before anything is delivered, and a reconciler settles what a crash or outage interrupted.
Built
Delivery on payment
Files arrive in My Files with expiring, download-limited access. License keys are reserved at checkout, never sold twice, and encrypted at rest.
Built
Memberships
Recurring 30-day Stars subscriptions open a members-only category. Members cancel or resume renewal themselves and keep access until the period they paid for ends.
Built
Refunds that revoke access
A refund returns the Stars through Telegram and revokes the order's files and keys; refunds Telegram makes on its own are recorded too. A revoked key is never resold.
Built
Run the store from Telegram
Staff stock products, manage keys and plans, look up orders and customers, answer support tickets, export sales, and send opt-in news, all from admin commands in the same bot.
Built
Telegram Stars payments
Every charge on a ledger before anything ships.
The store decides whether a charge may happen before Telegram takes it, records it before it delivers anything, and settles anything a crash or outage interrupted.
Built
- 01
Invoice
Checkout sends a Telegram Stars invoice for the exact order total, with a signed payload naming the order.
- 02
Pre-checkout
Telegram asks first. The store approves only the order's owner, paying in Stars, the exact unpaid total, with stock and coupon still held.
- 03
Charge
Telegram charges the customer's Stars and reports the payment to the bot.
- 04
Receipt
The charge is committed to the payment ledger before anything is delivered.
- 05
Fulfill
Fulfillment holds a lease and delivers the order once; a repeated update from Telegram cannot deliver it twice.
- 06
Reconcile
A reconciler finishes what a crash or outage interrupted, and hands staff what it cannot settle, with the reason.
Stars only
Telegram Stars is the only way to pay. There is no card processor, crypto gateway, or payment webhook, and no inbound payment endpoint.
When the database is down
A charge that cannot reach the ledger goes to a signed recovery journal on disk, and is fulfilled only after it matches Telegram's own transaction record. An edited or torn entry is skipped and reported.
A person for the exceptions
A payment the store cannot settle on its own waits in a queue where staff retry, refund, or resolve it, and each of those actions is audited.
Delivery
Files, keys, or both, once the payment is recorded.
What a customer paid for is granted by the order itself, so delivery can be checked, restored, or revoked later.
Built
Files
Staff upload a product file to the bot. After payment the customer finds it in 📁 My Files, with an expiry and a download limit; staff can restore downloads for an order.
License keys
Staff stock keys as text or as a file, and the bot deletes the message that carried them. Keys are encrypted at rest, duplicates are skipped, and staff are alerted when stock runs low.
Files and keys together
An item can deliver a file, a key, or both: an installer with its license key, for example. The product page shows when only a few are left, then that it is sold out.
Custom work and reviews
Customers can request a quote for custom work, which staff answer with a one-off Stars invoice, and can review what they bought.
Memberships
Recurring Stars subscriptions for members-only files.
A membership is a 30-day Telegram Stars subscription tied to one members-only category. Every charge, the first and each renewal, goes through the same ledger as any other payment.
Built
- 01
Join
A customer joins a plan from the bot's Membership screen with a 30-day Telegram Stars subscription. The link is bound to that customer; a forwarded link fails.
- 02
Claim
While the membership is live, every file in the plan's members-only category is theirs at no extra charge, through the same expiring, download-limited access.
- 03
Renew
Each renewal is a new receipt on the ledger and extends access by one period, at the price the member joined at.
- 04
Cancel or refund
Cancelling renewal keeps access to the end of the paid period. Refunding a period returns its Stars, revokes what it unlocked, ends access, and stops the renewal.
A membership unlocks files; license keys are not part of a membership. A plan's new price applies to new members only.
Running the store
Your staff run the store from Telegram.
Staff accounts get admin commands in the same bot customers shop in. There is no separate console to learn, and staff never need server access.
Built Telegram operator
Catalog and stock
Categories and items, product files, photos, titles, descriptions, prices in Stars, and license-key stock.
Orders and payments
Order lookup, refunds that revoke access, restored downloads, and the queue of payments that need a person.
Memberships
Plans, their prices, withdrawing a plan from new members, and each plan's recent members, charges, and Stars.
Customers and support
Support tickets, an audited customer lookup, and deleting a customer's non-payment data on request.
Reports
Sales for a period and a bookkeeping export of paid orders, safe to open in a spreadsheet.
News
Broadcasts to customers who opted in, previewed first, with an unsubscribe button on every message.
For example
/additem- Create an item in a category with its price in Stars. It stays hidden until you publish it, and cannot be published before it has something to deliver.
/upload- Attach the product file: send the file with the item number as its caption.
/refund- Preview a refund, then confirm it. The Stars go back and the order's files and keys are revoked.
The complete command list lives in the bot's /help, shown to staff accounts.
One store, one instance
Every merchant gets a store of their own.
A store is not a tenant in a shared database. Each one is a separate deployment, so the merchant's bot, data, and revenue stay theirs.
Built
Dedicated by design
Each store runs as its own deployment with its own bot, database, cache, files, secrets, and backups. Nothing is shared between merchants, so one store's data or incident never reaches another.
No open doors
The bot fetches its updates from Telegram. It publishes no inbound port, payment webhook, or public endpoint; its only HTTP endpoint is an internal readiness check.
Encrypted at rest
Stored product copies and license keys are encrypted, and files reach a customer only through a validated purchase or membership.
Signed buttons
Every inline button carries a signed payload, so a forged button press is rejected before it reaches the store, and staff actions also require a staff account.
Your store's identity
Your bot's name, description, and photo, and your store's name, support contact, refund policy, and terms and privacy links.
Close without breaking purchases
A store can be closed to new sales while everything already bought, support, refunds, and payment reconciliation keep working.
Operations and recovery
Built to be operated, not just deployed.
A store that takes payments has to survive outages, bad deploys, and lost hardware without losing a receipt. Each of these has been rehearsed, not just written down.
Built
Health that reaches you
The bot checks its own health every few minutes and messages its operators when a check stays red, and again when it recovers. An operator menu in Telegram shows health, smoke tests, logs, and evidence, and runs an audited reconciliation.
Backups proven by restore
Every deploy takes a backup first. Daily backups, and a weekly drill that restores the newest one, check that a backup really comes back.
Rollback without restore
Database changes only ever add, so the previous release runs on the newer database and a rollback never needs a restore that could erase payments taken since.
Recovery that was rehearsed
Database and cache outages, a payment taken while the database was down, a read-only disk, rollback, restore, and rebuilding a store from one backup have each been drilled against a simulated Telegram.
Your customers, your revenue
What Shop Bot will not do.
- Telegram Stars is the only way to pay: no card, crypto, or outside checkout, and no link out of Telegram to pay.
- Nothing is delivered before its payment is on the ledger, and one payment is never delivered twice.
- Customers get news only after opting in. Consent is checked again before every message, and every broadcast carries an unsubscribe button.
- Staff can delete a customer's data on request; payment records, refunds, and the audit trail stay.
- A merchant's Stars stay in the merchant's own bot. ApexAi's planned subscription is billed apart from the store and never touches them.
Roadmap
Where Shop Bot is going next.
Product direction, labelled by state. None of it is part of what Shop Bot does today, and the managed service has no sign-up, plan, or price.
Roadmap
- The store in eight languages—English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Arabic, and Turkish—with a language choice for each customer and the merchant's own wording where they want it.In development
- A managed white-label service: ApexAi hosts, updates, backs up, and operates a dedicated store for each merchant under the merchant's own bot and brand, as a subscription billed apart from the merchant's Stars sales.Planned
Foundation already in place: every store is already a dedicated instance with its own bot, data, and backups, and a store can be closed to new sales without touching what its customers already bought.
What the managed service is planned to mean for a merchant Planned
Your bot, your brand
Each store runs under the merchant's own bot, name, and branding, as its own instance.
Your customers and revenue
Merchants keep their products, their customers, and the Stars their customers pay.
Store administration only
Merchant staff run their store from Telegram and never get server, source, or repository access.
Operated by ApexAi
Updates, backups, monitoring, and recovery are ApexAi's job, store by store.
Status and pricing
Built and running. Real Stars still to come.
ApexAi runs its own store on the current build, with its catalog not yet open, so nothing can be bought there. Every part below is built and verified; what remains is a purchase and refund with real Stars.
| Area | State | Proven so far | Still to prove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkout and Stars payments | Built | Product tests; drills against a simulated Telegram, including a payment taken while the database was down. In ApexAi's store, checkout up to Telegram's invoice. | A purchase paid with real Stars. |
| Delivery of files and keys | Built | Product tests; delivery and download drilled against a simulated Telegram. | Delivery after a real Stars purchase. |
| Refunds | Built | Product tests; refund, revocation, and Telegram's refund notice drilled against a simulated Telegram. | A refund of real Stars. |
| Memberships | Built | Product tests. In ApexAi's store, plans managed and a subscription link created, not paid. | A real subscription and its renewal. |
| Running the store from Telegram | Built | Product tests; staff and customer screens walked through in ApexAi's store. | Nothing outstanding. |
| Operations and recovery | Built | Drills; daily backups and weekly restore drills running for ApexAi's store; a health alert and its recovery message delivered. | Nothing outstanding. |
- Product
- Built
- Telegram operator
- Built
- Hosted service
- Not publicly hosted
Shop Bot's store, Telegram Stars payments, delivery, refunds, memberships, and Telegram administration are built and verified, and ApexAi runs its own store on the current build with its catalog not yet open. No real Stars payment has been taken yet. The managed white-label service for other merchants is planned: there is no merchant sign-up, price, or hosted service.
- Payments, delivery, and refunds are verified by the product's tests and by recovery drills against a simulated Telegram. A purchase and refund with real Stars, including a membership renewal, has not been run yet.
- The store in eight languages is in development; machine-drafted translations need review by native speakers.
- Shop Bot is used inside Telegram. It has no ApexAPI or ApexMCP surface and no product plugin.
Not yet priced
Shop Bot keeps two kinds of money apart. Your customers pay you in Telegram Stars, and the Stars go to your own bot's balance. A managed service from ApexAi is planned as a separate subscription, billed outside the store; it is not priced, and nothing can be bought yet.
| Paid to | Covers | How it works | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| You, the merchant | Your customers' purchases | Customers pay your prices in Telegram Stars through Telegram, and the Stars go to your own bot's balance, not to ApexAi. Telegram's terms govern Stars and their withdrawal. | Set by you |
| ApexAi | The managed white-label service (planned) | Hosting, updates, backups, and operation of your dedicated store, billed as a subscription separate from your sales and never taken from your Stars. Plans are not set. | Not yet priced |
Final plans and public access details will be published before launch. Follow launch updates
Bring the products you want to sell on Telegram.
Shop Bot is not open to other merchants yet: there is no sign-up, price, or hosted service. Tell us what you sell and to whom, and we will tell you where Shop Bot stands for it.
Decide these before you open a store
Decide what you sell
Files, license keys, memberships, or custom work, and which products belong together in a members-only category.
Price in Stars
Choose your prices in Telegram Stars, and read Telegram's own terms for how a bot's Stars are withdrawn.
Write your policies
Terms, a refund policy, a privacy notice, and a support contact, which customers can open from the bot.
Name your bot
The name, description, and photo your customers will see in Telegram.