Telegram Ads vs TikTok Ads: Which Is Better in 2026?

Quick Comparison: Telegram Ads vs TikTok Ads

Telegram figures here are measured on accounts we operate. TikTok facts come from TikTok’s own help and policy pages, linked in the sections below.

Metric	Telegram Ads	TikTok Ads
Price with a source	€2.97 CPM, €0.34 per click (our Euro accounts, 3 Oct 2026)	No reliable public benchmark — see the cost section
Minimum	0.1 TON minimum CPM on self-serve TON; Euro accounts through Adsly from a €500 ad budget	$50 a day per campaign, $20 a day per ad group
Audience	Over 1 billion monthly users (March 2025)	More than 1 billion monthly users (TikTok, September 2021)
Where the ad appears	Channels, bots and search results	The video feed
Targeting	Country, language, topic, device, subscribers of chosen channels, or specific channels, bots and search	Demographics, audience targeting, interests and behaviours, device, automated Smart targeting
Ad format	160 characters of text and a button, optional photo or video	Video in the feed; image carousels
Creative effort	One sentence of copy	A video or a set of images
Crypto	Not a prohibited category; no licence upload	Decided market by market; where allowed, a local licence plus TikTok’s permission
Gambling	Prohibited by Telegram’s guidelines	Only certified, licensed advertisers in specified markets

Audience — What People Are Doing When the Ad Arrives

Both platforms report more than a billion monthly users. Telegram passed 1 billion in March 2025, and TikTok said in September 2021 that more than 1 billion people come to it every month (TikTok). Neither figure tells you who is on the other end of your ad, and we publish no age or gender split for either platform, because we have none that is measured.

What differs, and what you can check for yourself, is what people are doing when the ad arrives.

On Telegram the ad sits inside a channel the reader subscribed to, in a bot they opened, or in search results. They came to read. Where our own single-country campaigns run shows where advertisers find that audience: Russia is by far the largest market on our Euro accounts (163M impressions), and on TON accounts the USA (14.8M) and India (12.0M) lead between 22 August and 3 October 2026.

On TikTok the ad is a video between other videos, in a feed an algorithm chose. People came to be entertained, which is why a product that demonstrates well on camera does well there and a line of text does not.

The practical takeaway: an offer that has to be read belongs on Telegram, and an offer that has to be seen belongs on TikTok. They are rarely alternatives for the same job.

Creative Requirements

Telegram Ads is text first: up to 160 characters and a button, with an optional photo or video (Telegram guidelines). Gimmicky capitals, emoji and line breaks get an ad declined, so the craft is one clear sentence. Writing twenty variants takes an afternoon, and Adsly Pro Panel can generate variants with AI and launch them in bulk.

TikTok Ads is video first. In-feed ads run as regular video ads of up to 10 minutes, vertical 9:16 recommended, or as Spark Ads, which promote an existing organic post (TikTok ad specifications, Spark Ads). If you have no video, Carousel Ads show a set of images in the feed (TikTok). Either way you need footage or imagery made for a vertical feed.

For a solo marketer or a team without video production, Telegram is the faster start: the idea is live as soon as the text passes review, and on our accounts over 98% of 13,199 campaigns had a moderation decision within three hours (September 2026).

Cost Comparison

Telegram Ads: measured on our own accounts

All campaigns with spend on accounts we operate, as of 3 October 2026. Each account type is billed in its own currency, and the three are never converted into each other.

Account type	CPM	CTR	Cost per click	Impressions
Euro	€2.97	0.85%	€0.34	261.4M
TON	0.90 TON	2.18%	0.040 TON	862.5M
Stars	395 Stars	3.08%	12.8 Stars	10.4M

The country moves the price more than anything else. On Euro accounts a thousand impressions cost €0.20 in Uzbekistan, €0.25 in India, €2.22 in Brazil, €2.68 in Russia and €2.92 in Turkey. Western Europe and the US we have measured only on TON accounts, in TON: Britain and Germany 0.27 TON per thousand impressions, the USA 0.39 TON. Stars accounts are open only to channel and bot owners spending Stars their channel earned. Full tables are in the benchmark report.

TikTok Ads: no benchmark we can stand behind

We looked for a TikTok CPM or cost-per-click benchmark that states its sample and its year, and did not find one reliable enough to print. Most of the figures that circulate in blog posts state no sample. One widely cited dataset shows the problem: the edition of Triple Whale’s TikTok benchmarks covering 2025 did not say how many advertisers it included, and its overall median CPM sat far above every one of the ten industry medians in the same report (archived copy, August 2026). So this page gives no TikTok price, and no “Telegram is N times cheaper” line either.

What TikTok does publish is its floor. A daily budget must exceed $50 at campaign level and $20 at ad group level, and a lifetime ad group budget must be at least $20 multiplied by the number of scheduled days — $620 for a 31-day run (TikTok Business Help Center).

What you can compare

• Entry. A self-serve TON account sets a minimum CPM of 0.1 TON (Telegram); a Euro account through Adsly starts from a €500 ad budget. TikTok needs at least $20 a day for a single ad group.

• Production. A Telegram ad costs a sentence. A TikTok ad costs a video, and that cost sits outside the media budget.

• What a click buys. On our Euro accounts in September 2026 a click cost €0.355 to a channel, €0.223 to a bot and €0.266 to a website. A channel subscriber gained that way is an audience you keep reaching without paying for the impression.

Targeting: Chosen Context vs Algorithm

Telegram targets by what people read. You pick users by country (229 options), language (71), topic (41) and device, reach the subscribers of channels you name, or place the ad in specific channels, bots and search results. Since 22 August 2026 the form is the same on Euro, TON and Stars accounts. There is no age, gender or lookalike option. Only Euro accounts can link to an external website; TON accounts link to channels, bots and Mini Apps, and TON-funded ads are not served in Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine.

TikTok targets by who people are and how they behave. Ads Manager offers demographics, audience targeting, interests and behaviours, device type and an automated Smart targeting option (TikTok Business Help Center). The algorithm then decides who in that audience sees the video, so you control the brief more than the placement.

For a niche with an obvious set of channels, Telegram’s control over context is the advantage. For a mass-market product whose buyers you cannot name in advance, TikTok’s algorithm is.

Policies — Crypto, Gambling and Finance

Both platforms publish their rules, and neither is the easy option across the board. As of 3 October 2026:

Category	Telegram Ads (guidelines)	TikTok Ads (advertising policies)
Crypto	Not listed as prohibited; guaranteed-return and get-rich-quick offers are (§5.7)	Decided market by market: exchanges may be allowed with a local licence and TikTok’s permission, and some markets allow no crypto ads at all
Gambling	Prohibited (§5.6), including betting, lotteries and tips or odds	Only certified advertisers with proof of licences, in specified markets
Binary options	Not named; deceptive financial products are prohibited (§5.7)	Not allowed in the US, the UK and the EU markets we checked
Get-rich-quick offers	Prohibited (§5.7)	Not allowed

Crypto

TikTok’s financial services policy is written market by market (TikTok, last updated September 2026). In the US and Canada cryptocurrencies appear among the products that may be allowed for licensed advertisers, while initial coin offerings do not. In the UK and most EU markets, exchanges and custodial wallets may be allowed if the advertiser is licensed locally and obtains permission through a TikTok sales representative, but ads for the currencies themselves are not. In Denmark, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco crypto ads are not allowed at all.

Telegram’s guidelines do not list crypto as a prohibited category and ask for no licence upload, though §5.7 still bans guaranteed returns and get-rich-quick promises. On our self-service Euro accounts the crypto vertical as a whole measures €1.91 CPM, 0.53% CTR and €0.358 per click (821k impressions, all countries blended, 3 October 2026).

Gambling

Here TikTok is the more permissive of the two on paper. It allows gambling ads only in specified markets where gambling is legal, and only after certification that requires documents proving the advertiser’s licences (TikTok gambling policy, last updated September 2026). Telegram’s guidelines prohibit gambling outright (§5.6). How operators run on Telegram regardless, and the two launch formats Adsly offers, is covered in the gambling policy guide.

When to Choose Telegram Ads

• The product lives in Telegram. A channel, bot or Mini App is one tap from the ad, with no landing page and no app switch.

• Crypto and Web3. Telegram asks for no licence upload, while TikTok decides market by market and wants a local licence plus its own permission where it allows crypto at all.

• You can write but not film. One sentence and a button is a complete ad.

• Small tests. A 0.1 TON minimum CPM on self-serve TON against TikTok’s $20 a day per ad group.

• You know which channels your buyers read. Naming them, or targeting their subscribers across Telegram, beats describing the same people to an algorithm.

• Markets we have measured as cheap. €0.20–0.25 per thousand impressions in Uzbekistan and India on Euro accounts; 0.27 TON in Britain and Germany on TON accounts.

When to Choose TikTok Ads

• The product sells on video. If a ten-second demonstration does more than any sentence could, the video feed is the right format.

• You already post on TikTok. Spark Ads promote an existing post, and the views, likes and follows stay on that post.

• You need demographic and behavioural targeting. Telegram has no age, gender or lookalike option.

• You want the algorithm to find the buyers. Smart targeting and interest signals reach people you could not have listed by channel.

• Licensed gambling in a certified market. TikTok has a certification route; Telegram’s guidelines prohibit the category.

Managing Telegram Ads at Scale

If Telegram is the platform you choose, the native interface becomes the bottleneck once you run more than a handful of campaigns. Adsly Pro Panel manages Euro, TON and Stars accounts in one place:

• IF/THEN automation rules — pause, restart or re-bid campaigns on conditions you set.

• Auto CPM — adjusts bids on channel and bot placements within limits you choose.

• AI text generation and AI Recreate — drafts ad variants, and re-submits declined ads with new text.

• Bulk operations — create and edit hundreds of campaigns at once.

• Hourly analytics — performance by hour, so you can find your own best hours instead of trusting a generic chart.

There is a free plan, and sign-up starts a 3-day Pro trial. Every account also keeps its own login on ads.telegram.org.

Stop managing Telegram Ads manually. ADSLY runs Telegram Ads for 200+ advertisers — and every new Euro cabinet is a World account covering every available country. All 3 cabinet types (TON, Euro, Stars). IF/THEN automation. Ad text optimization. Bulk edit 100+ campaigns in one click. Start free — 3-day Pro trial →

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheaper: Telegram Ads or TikTok Ads?

We can only give one side with a source. On our own Euro accounts Telegram Ads averages €2.97 CPM and €0.34 per click (3 October 2026). For TikTok we found no public benchmark that states a reliable sample, so we print no number. What is documented is the floor: TikTok requires more than $50 a day per campaign and $20 a day per ad group, while a self-serve TON account on Telegram sets only a 0.1 TON minimum CPM.

Do I need video for Telegram Ads?

No. A Telegram ad is up to 160 characters of text and a button; a photo or video is optional. TikTok’s in-feed ads are video, with Carousel Ads as the image alternative.

Can I advertise crypto on TikTok?

It depends on the market. TikTok’s policy lists cryptocurrencies among the products that may be allowed for licensed advertisers in the US and Canada, allows exchanges and custodial wallets in the UK and most EU markets only with a local licence and TikTok’s permission, and allows no crypto ads in markets such as Denmark, Egypt, Iraq and Morocco. Telegram’s guidelines do not list crypto as a prohibited category.

Which platform has better B2B targeting?

Telegram, when your buyers read identifiable channels: you can place the ad in those channels or target their subscribers. TikTok targets by demographics, interests and behaviour, which suits consumer products better than a narrow professional audience.

Should I use both Telegram Ads and TikTok Ads?

Only if you have two different jobs to do. Use Telegram to build a channel or bot audience among people who read about your topic, and TikTok to show a product on video to a broad consumer audience. If the offer needs reading rather than watching, the TikTok budget is better spent on more Telegram tests.