In this article
A giveaway can hand out Stars instead of subscriptions. The prize is a balance, split among however many winners you choose, drawn by Telegram exactly as any other giveaway is.
Giving away a currency rather than a thing changes who enters, and that is the part to think about before choosing it.
What you will be able to do
- check_circle Run a giveaway with Stars as the prize.
- check_circle Choose between a balance and a subscription.
- check_circle Split the amount sensibly between winners.
- check_circle Know what a Star prize does not do for the channel.
The prize pool is set as an amount and a number of winners before the post goes up.
toll A balance is not a present
A subscription prize is a specific thing with an obvious value: the winner gets a better version of the app for some months. A Star prize is a spending balance, and the winner has to find something to spend it on.
That difference shows up in who enters. A subscription attracts people who use Telegram and want more of it; a currency attracts people who count prizes in money, which is a larger and much less loyal crowd. If the point of the contest was to find readers, the first is doing more work.
Where a Star prize genuinely fits is a channel whose readers already spend Stars — somewhere with paid posts, a shop, mini apps or gifts in circulation. There the prize is immediately useful and lands as a credit rather than as a voucher.
One structural difference is worth knowing before choosing. Subscription giveaways also bring boosts to the channel, since a gifted subscription carries them; a Star prize does not. Anybody running a giveaway partly to reach the next level should know they have chosen the option that does not help with that.
Four decisions
The first one decides whether this is the right kind of contest at all.
balance What your readers can use
call_split More winners, smaller amounts
groups The crowd a currency brings
trending_down The number two weeks later
Stars suit a channel with something to spend them on. Otherwise the prize attracts the wrong crowd.
settings Running one
- Ask whether your readers spend Stars That answers the format question.
- Set the pool and the number of winners Favouring more winners.
- Make each prize enough to buy something In your own channel ideally.
- Consider limiting it to existing subscribers As a reward rather than a lure.
- Set the country limits To where the channel makes sense.
- Measure a fortnight later Not on the day of the draw.
This page brings people in with a prize. The curriculum step is what happens next: posting frequency, notification hygiene, and the habits that decide whether the people who arrived are still reading a month later.
At a glance
- 1Star giveaways
Give Stars as the prize in a channel giveaway.
- 2Different crowd
Currency prizes attract prize hunters more than readers.
- 3No boosts
Star prizes don't add channel boosts.
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