How to check a Telegram channel for bots
Only the owner can see a channel's subscriber list, so nobody can count bots from the outside. Bots still give themselves away: they do not read posts, react, or comment. Here is what to check yourself in 10–15 minutes and which numbers to compare against.
1. Calculate reach (ERR)
ERR shows what share of subscribers sees a post. Take 10–15 posts older than two days, sort their views, and pick the middle value: that is the median. Divide it by the subscriber count and multiply by 100.
Skip fresh posts: they are still collecting views. The median is safer than the average, because one viral post pushes the average up.
Compare the result with channels of the same size. Small channels almost always reach a larger share of their audience than big ones, so there is no single norm.
| Subscribers | Channels | Median ERR | Reactions per 100 views |
|---|---|---|---|
| under 5K | 332 | 45.3% | 3.04 |
| 5K–20K | 218 | 16.5% | 1.07 |
| 20K–100K | 197 | 11.6% | 1.04 |
| 100K+ | 141 | 11.9% | 0.86 |
2. Compare reactions with views
Count reactions per 100 views. Real readers react unevenly: one post collects plenty of reactions, another almost none.
Be careful when posts with thousands of views have one to three reactions, or when every post shows the same number of identical emoji. If reactions are turned off in the channel, this sign cannot be checked.
3. Read the comments
If comments are open, scroll through them under several posts. The number of comments says little; what they say matters.
- A live audience asks questions about the post, argues, and replies to each other.
- Bots post generic praise from accounts with no photo or name, and the same phrases repeat under different posts.
- Another sign is emoji and stickers unrelated to the post.
4. Look at subscriber growth
Subscriber charts are available in public Telegram channel analytics services. A live channel grows smoothly or gains subscribers on days when it ran ads.
Be careful if thousands of subscribers arrived within a few hours with no ads or mentions in other channels on those days. A sharp drop after such a jump is also a bad sign.
5. Ask the admin for statistics
The channel owner can open Statistics in Telegram: where subscribers came from and how many people view posts. Ask for a screen recording rather than a screenshot, which is easy to fake.
Checklist before paying for an ad
- ERR across 10–15 posts older than two days, compared with channels of the same size.
- Reactions per 100 views: no thousands of views with almost no reactions.
- Comments: a real conversation, not template phrases from empty accounts.
- Subscriber chart: no sharp jumps without ads.
- A screen recording of the channel statistics from the admin.
Frequently asked questions
No. Only the owner can see the subscriber list. From the outside you can estimate how much of the audience does not read or react, using reach, reactions, and comments.
No. Reach also drops in live channels: the audience lost interest, posts come out too often, or the channel stopped growing long ago. Look at several signs together, not at one number.
Not necessarily: views can be inflated too. If reach is clearly higher than for channels of the same size while reactions and comments are almost absent, take a closer look.
In the TG Inspector catalog: a channel page combines reach, reactions, view spread, and comment makeup into a cleanliness index. If the channel is not in the catalog, add it — it is free.