Add the LaunchPass bot to your Telegram group or channel, make it an admin, and connect your Telegram in the LaunchPass setup flow. Takes about 10 minutes.
If you get stuck at any point, we can walk you through it on a screenshare call or over email. Book a call at calendly.com/launchpass-experts/help or email [email protected].
What you need
A Telegram group or channel (it doesn't need to have any content or members yet, it just needs to exist)
Owner or admin access to that group or channel
That's it. You don't need a LaunchPass account ahead of time. One gets created for you during setup when you connect Telegram.
Groups let members talk to each other and hold up to 200,000 people. Channels are primarily one-way broadcasts (though you can link a discussion group for comments) with no member limit. If you're not sure which to use, start with a group.
If you already have a Telegram group or channel with members in it, that works too. Existing members stay when you connect LaunchPass. They won't be removed unless they cancel a subscription. New members will need to pay through your LaunchPass page to join.
Step 1: Add the LaunchPass bot
Open this link in your Telegram app: https://t.me/Launchpass_bot
Hit "Start" to add the bot to your contacts. That's it for this step.
If the link doesn't work for some reason, you can search for Launchpass_bot in Telegram's search bar. Make sure you're in the global search (not searching within a specific chat) and type the name exactly with the underscore.
Step 2: Make the bot an admin
Open your group or channel in Telegram, tap the name at the top to get into settings, then go to Administrators and add a new admin. Search for "LaunchPass bot" and select it.
The bot needs two permissions:
Ban Users so it can remove members who cancel or miss a payment
Add New Members (may appear as "Invite Users via Link" on some Telegram versions) so it can generate invite links for paying members
Those two are required. You can leave other default permissions on, but those are the two that matter.
On desktop the flow is the same: open the group or channel, click the name, go to Administrators, add the bot.
Step 3: Make your group or channel private
Your group or channel needs to be private for paid access to work. If it's public, anyone can find and join without paying.
Go into your group or channel settings and look for Group Type (or Channel Type). Switch it to Private.
If you see a public link like t.me/yourname, that means it's still set to public. Switch to private before continuing.
Step 4: Connect Telegram in LaunchPass
Go to launchpass.com and sign up (or log in if you already have an account)
Click "Create New" or "Add Community" and pick Telegram
Click "Connect Telegram" and authorize in the popup
Pick your group or channel from the dropdown
If your group doesn't show up in the dropdown, check three things: the bot is an admin (not just a member), the group is private, and you've refreshed the LaunchPass page after making those changes.
Step 5: Connect Stripe
If you haven't connected a payment processor yet, LaunchPass will prompt you to connect Stripe. You can create a Stripe account during this step if you don't have one. This is how you get paid — LaunchPass routes subscriber payments through your Stripe account directly to you.
Step 6: Set up your invite page
This is where you choose what to charge and how to describe your community.
Write a short description of what members get access to. Set your price. You can do monthly, annual, one-time (lifetime), or offer a free trial.
If you turn on a free trial, the member gets Telegram access right away. If they don't convert when the trial ends, they're removed from the group.
LaunchPass generates a unique invite link for each paying subscriber. Links are tied to their subscription, so sharing a link with someone else won't give that person free access.
About auto-kick: When this is on, LaunchPass removes members who cancel or miss a payment. You want this on for most paid communities. You can set a grace period if you want to give people a few extra days before removal.
Important: how removal works in Telegram
When the bot removes someone, Telegram treats that as a ban. This is how Telegram works at the API level, not something LaunchPass can change. The ban stays in place so cancelled members can't rejoin through a shared invite link.
This means if someone cancels and later wants to resubscribe, you need to unban them first. To do that on mobile: tap the group name, then Edit, then Permissions, then scroll to Removed Users. Find the person and unban them. On desktop, look for the same section under Manage Group > Removed Users.
After unbanning, their new invite link will work normally.
The subscriber's side: when a banned person tries to use an invite link, they see an error like "You can't join this group because you were removed by an admin." If a resubscribed member contacts you about this, unbanning them is the fix.
Step 7: Publish and test
Click Publish. Your signup page is live.
Before sharing it, run a quick test: subscribe through your own page with a real payment method, check that you get an invite link (by email or the member portal), click it, and make sure you land in the Telegram group. If you want, cancel the test subscription and confirm the bot removes you.
Your signup URL will look like launchpass.com/your-community.
Managing members
LaunchPass handles the routine stuff automatically: adding people when they pay, removing them when they cancel, generating invite links.
You can see your active subscribers in the LaunchPass dashboard or in Stripe. You can still manage your Telegram group normally too, posting announcements, pinning messages, moderating, whatever you'd do without LaunchPass.
If you want to sell access to multiple groups or channels, add the bot as admin to each one, make each one private, and create a separate invite page for each in LaunchPass.
Common issues
"I can't find the bot in Telegram" Use the direct link: https://t.me/Launchpass_bot. If you're searching by name, make sure you're in global search and type Launchpass_bot exactly, with the underscore.
My group doesn't show in the LaunchPass dropdown The bot needs to be an admin (not just a member), with Ban Users and Add New Members permissions, and the group needs to be private. Refresh the LaunchPass page after making changes.
New subscribers can't join Check that the bot has the "Add New Members" permission and the group is still private. If the person had a previous subscription and got auto-kicked, they're probably still banned in Telegram. Unban them first (see "how removal works in Telegram" in Step 6), then the invite link will work.
Cancelled members aren't being removed Confirm the bot has "Ban Users" permission and auto-kick is turned on in your LaunchPass settings. If you set a grace period, removal happens after the grace period, not immediately.
Someone resubscribed but can't get back in The bot banned them when it removed them last time. Go to your group settings, find the banned users list, and unban them. Their new invite link should work after that.
Need help?
We can help with any part of this, whether it's the initial setup, connecting Telegram, or figuring out how to structure your community. Screenshare call or email, whatever works.
Book a call: calendly.com/launchpass-experts/help Email: [email protected]
We usually reply within 24 hours on business days.