Tiny Shops has two ways to sell in Telegram. Pay-per-view is a chat sale: one photo or one video, locked until the buyer pays Stars in the thread. A Mini App is a storefront: a catalog, a cart, and checkout. They answer different jobs. Opening the wrong one is how a creator ends up looking for orders that this sale never creates.
The chat sale is Telegram paid media. The storefront is the Telegram shop builder. The mechanics of the locked file are in how Telegram paid media works.
The difference in one table#
| Pay-per-view (chat) | Mini App | |
|---|---|---|
| What you sell | One photo or one video per message | A catalog of products |
| How the buyer pays | Telegram Stars, 1–25000 | Stars for digital goods in the Mini App; cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay for physical goods |
| Where it happens | The inbox thread, on your Telegram Business connection | A Mini App on your bot |
| After payment | The bubble unlocks. No storefront order is created | An order in the dashboard |
| Reply limit | 24 hours after the customer’s last message | The shop stays open |
| Documents, zips, license keys | Refused, priced or free | You deliver the file yourself in chat after a paid Mini App order. Tiny Shops does not host the download |
Choose pay-per-view when the product is the file in the chat#
Use the chat format when all of these are true:
- You already have the buyer in a Telegram conversation.
- The thing for sale is one photo or one video, not a shelf of products.
- The price is Stars, and a card form would only add a step.
- You can add the bot under Telegram → Business → Chatbots.
You attach the file in the inbox, set the Stars price, and send. The buyer pays in the thread. Stars for that chat are credited to your bot’s balance. Tiny Shops does not hold them and does not take a cut of the send.
The shop is free until 100 contacts. After that, Starter is $9.99 a month, Pro from $29, Scale from $79. The plan follows the contact count, not the Stars.
Choose a Mini App when you need a shop, not a bubble#
Use the Mini App when any of these are true:
- Buyers should browse more than one product.
- You ship a parcel, or you take cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
- You want promo codes, cashback, referrals, or broadcasts to the bot’s users.
- You want the sale to show up as an order.
A chat pay-per-view purchase will not appear in that orders list. If your next question is “where is the order?”, you wanted the Mini App.
Digital goods inside a Mini App still belong on Stars. Mixing a digital item onto a card checkout in the same Mini App can get the app hidden from phone users. That rule is separate from paid media and is covered in Stripe for parcels, Stars for digital.
What the chat format will not stretch to#
- A PDF, a zip, or a license key, priced or free.
- A live photo, or an album of up to ten items, even though
sendPaidMediaallows them. Tiny Shops sends one photo or one video. - A card payment for the file.
- A refund button for the Stars.
- A reply after 24 hours of silence from the customer, until they write again.
Tools that belong to the Mini App — products, orders, checkout, a custom domain — stay in the dashboard and are marked as available when you create a full Mini App. They are not how a chat sale is configured. Leaving them visible and locked is deliberate: the chat format does not pretend those screens apply to a single paid photo.
You can want the other format later#
Picking the chat format does not delete the Mini App as a later shop. Picking a Mini App does not stop you opening a chat shop for pay-per-view. They are two formats because the buyer jobs are different: unlock this file, or browse this store.
If the next message should cost Stars, start with paid media. If the buyer should wander a catalog, start with the shop builder.
