Skip to main content

What is Telegram Premium? Features, price, and how to sign up

Person holding an iPhone with the Telegram Premium order page showing.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

Telegram is a popular cloud-based messaging app that enables the exchange of messages, photos, and videos. It’s known for being one of the fastest messaging apps available for smartphones, like the iPhone 15 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24. It’s also highly secure because of its end-to-end encryption. Simply put, it’s one of the best messaging apps on the market.

That’s what Telegram is. But what is Telegram Premium? As you might expect, it’s an elevated version of the regular Telegram experience. Here’s the lowdown.

Recommended Videos

What is Telegram Premium?

Telegram app download.
Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto

If you are a Telegram user interested in accessing more features, you can subscribe to Telegram Premium, an optional service that unlocks extra benefits on top of the free tier.

When Telegram announced Telegram Premium in 2022, it described the service as follows:

“That’s why this month we will introduce Telegram Premium, a subscription plan that allows anyone to acquire additional features, speed and resources. It will also allow users to support Telegram and join the club that receives new features first.”

What do you get with Telegram Premium?

Screenshot showing Telegram Premium features.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

There are a lot of features included with Telegram Premium. Of these, a few are particularly noteworthy. With double the limits, you can share up to 30 chat folders with 200 chats and 100 invite links and follow up to 1,000 Telegram channels. Without Premium, you are limited to 500 groups and channels.

Additionally, you can add four accounts to any Telegram app, pin 10 chats in the main list, and reserve up to 20 public links. With double limits, you can also write a more extended bio for your account, have 10 favorite stickers, and 400 saved GIFs.

Download speeds are also faster with a Telegram Premium account. This means no more limits to how fast media and documents are downloaded. Meanwhile, hardcore Telegram users can upload larger files. Regular users are limited to 2GB file sizes, while Premium members can upload up to 4GB.

Telegram Premium offers access to stickers with full-screen effects, and additional premium stickers are added monthly. You can also use premium icons to customize your Telegram home screen. With a paid Telegram account, you can easily use unique animated emojis in messages and add captions. Emojis can also be added to your status.

Perhaps the biggest reason for using Telegram Premium is that no more ads exist. Those ads only show up in certain countries to begin with, but it’s nice to see them gone with a premium account.

Other Telegram Premium features include:

  • Advanced Chat Management
  • Animated Profile Pictures
  • Profile Badges
  • Real-Time Chat and Channel Translation
  • Unique Reactions
  • Voice Message Privacy Settings
  • Voice-to-Text Conversion
  • Voice-to-Text for Video Messages

The Telegram channel @Premium provides detailed descriptions of each feature and a complete list of premium stickers. It’s also the place to see new features as they are added.

How much does Telegram Premium cost?

Telegram Premium is available for $4.99 per month or $35.99 per year. By paying yearly, you’ll save $2 per month.

How to sign up for Telegram Premium

Screenshot showing how to sign up for Telegram Premium via the Telegram app.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends

To sign up for Telegram Premium, open the Telegram app and tap the Settings icon at the bottom right. Then, select Telegram Premium, choose “Annual” or “Monthly,” and tap the Subscribe button. You can cancel your subscription at any time.

Bryan M. Wolfe
Bryan M. Wolfe has over a decade of experience as a technology writer. He writes about mobile.
How much is Spotify Premium, and can you get a deal?
An iPhone with the Search section of the Spotify app on it.

Spotify gives you access to an incredible amount of music (more than 100 million songs), podcasts (6 million) and audiobooks (350,000) -- so it's no wonder the music streaming service has become culturally ubiquitous, with well over 239 million subscribers as of 2024. That's more than both Apple Music and Amazon Music.

If you want to get the best of Spotify, you'll want to sign up for a Premium account that, as of June 2024, for new subscribers, costs $12 a month for an individual membership. There are also subscription options for two people (Spotify Premium Duo, $17 a month), families (Spotify Premium Family, $20 a month), and students (Spotify Premium Student, $6 a month).

Read more
How to know if someone blocked you on WhatsApp
WhatsApp logo on a phone.

While it's still not won mass adoption in the U.S., WhatsApp is the world's most popular messaging app, and billions use it every day to chat with friends, family, local groups, and even businesses. But such an enormous user base means not every interaction is going to be positive, and that's why WhatsApp has a blocking system to prevent you from seeing messages you don't want to see.

It's entirely possible you've been blocked by a few people yourself -- but how would you know? Unlike blocking on social media sites like Twitter, WhatsApp doesn't let you know if you've been blocked, leaving you somewhat in the dark. However, there are a few ways to figure out if you've been blocked by a specific user, even if there's no list you can check to find out for sure.
Their WhatsApp profile pic and status aren't changing

Read more
WhatsApp finally lets you edit sent messages. Here’s how to do it
WhatsApp logo on a phone.

WhatsApp has announced a much-requested edit feature that lets you alter a message within 15 minutes of sending it.

“From correcting a simple misspelling to adding extra context to a message, we’re excited to bring you more control over your chats,” Meta-owned WhatsApp said in a blog post introducing the handy feature.

Read more