The question "how much does Telegram outreach cost" is almost always asked the wrong way. The subscription price is the smallest line in the calculation and the only one visible on vendor websites. What you should be counting is the cost of a meeting: it includes the software, the infrastructure and the time of the person who replies to leads.
What makes up the cost
| Line item | What it is | Order of magnitude per month |
|---|---|---|
| Platform subscription | Sending, inbox, CRM, account control | $49 - $349 in Meliora, depending on the plan |
| Telegram accounts | The pool you send from, plus reserve | Paid separately, depends on geo and supplier |
| Proxies | One per account, otherwise the pool is not independent | Paid separately |
| Audience scraping | Credits for collecting the database from chats and channels | Included in the plan: 2,000 to 15,000 credits |
| People | Replies, qualification, booking meetings | The main line of the calculation |
The first four items are a couple of hundred dollars. The fifth can be ten times bigger than all of them combined, and it is the one most often forgotten.
The funnel: from touch to deal
Market benchmarks for Telegram outreach: 55-65% read rate, around 10% replies from the leads you touched. Below is a calculation on conservative values.
| Step | Value | How it was derived |
|---|---|---|
| Leads in the database per month | 1,000 | Scraped and cleaned |
| Touches in the sequence | 3 | Intro, case study, offer |
| Total sends | about 2,600 | Those who reply drop out of the sequence |
| Read | 55-65% | Market benchmark |
| Replies | about 100 | 10% of leads |
| Relevant replies | about 30 | A third of replies, the rest are rejections and "not now" |
| Meetings | 12 | Roughly 40% of relevant replies reach a call |
| Deals | 1-2 | At a 15% meeting-to-deal conversion |
The key line here is not "12 meetings" but "100 replies". A hundred conversations a month have to be handled by somebody, and if there is nobody to handle them, the channel hits a wall made of people rather than of Telegram limits.
A worked example
Assumptions: the Pro plan, a pool of five accounts with proxies, and one person spending 2-3 hours a day on replies. The last line is the one to replace with your own number - what an SDR costs varies by market more than anything else here.
| Line item | In this example |
|---|---|
| Pro subscription | $169 |
| Accounts and proxies, 5 of each | about $45 (assumption, depends on geo) |
| Software and infrastructure | about $215 per month |
| Part-time SDR, 2-3 hours a day | about $1,500 (assumption) |
| Total with people | about $1,715 per month |
| Meetings per month | 12 |
| Cost per meeting | about $143 |
If the person is already on the payroll and simply moves part of their time to this channel, only software and infrastructure count - about $215, which is roughly $18 per meeting.
When the channel pays off
The threshold fits in one line:
break-even = channel cost ÷ (average deal size × meeting-to-deal conversion)
At $1,715 of cost, a $5,000 average deal and a 15% conversion, one meeting brings on average $750 of expected revenue, so the channel breaks even on the third meeting out of twelve. That is by revenue. By margin the threshold is higher: at a 50% margin you need roughly five meetings.
Compared with hiring
A fully loaded in-house SDR costs $4,000-7,500 a month depending on the market, plus 3-4 months to the first result. A channel on a platform costs an order of magnitude less and launches in an evening, but it does not replace a salesperson: someone still has to run those hundred conversations. The right comparison is not "platform instead of a person" but "how many people do you need for the same flow".
When not to bother
Honest stop factors:
- A low deal size. With an average deal under $500 the maths almost never works out: you need too many meetings.
- A narrow database. If there are five hundred relevant contacts in the entire market, the channel will produce a result once and end. Outreach likes volume.
- Nobody to reply. A hundred conversations a month without a dedicated person turn into overdue replies, and a lead answered a day later has usually cooled off.
- No offer. Outreach amplifies what already exists. If the offer does not work on warm traffic, it will not start working on cold.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Telegram outreach cost per month?
The platform subscription runs from $49 a month on Light to $349 on Premium. Accounts and proxies are paid separately and add roughly $45 for a pool of five. The full cost of the channel including a part-time person handling replies is about $1,700 a month.
How many leads does Telegram outreach produce?
With 1,000 relevant contacts a month and a three-touch sequence the benchmark is about 100 replies and about 12 meetings. The spread is wide: precision of the database and the first message decide everything.
What is cheaper, cold email or Telegram?
Per message sent, email is cheaper. Per reply, Telegram usually wins in markets where it is the working messenger: the message lands where the person already works and people answer more readily. But Telegram punishes spam harder, so it requires warm-up and limits.
Does the number of messages affect the subscription price?
In Meliora, no: plans differ in the number of connected accounts, team seats and scraping credits. Sending messages consumes no credits.
How fast does the channel pay off?
At a $5,000 average deal and a 15% meeting-to-deal conversion the channel breaks even on the third meeting of the month, which usually means the first full month of work. The first two or three weeks go into warming up accounts, so sales really start in month two.