Two ways to advertise on Telegram
Russian speakers in Dubai read Telegram channels for news, housing, visas and recommendations. You can reach them through two very different channels:
- Telegram Ads, the official platform. You buy sponsored messages that appear in public channels and pay per thousand views. Telegram runs the auction, reviews the ad and shows statistics.
- Direct post buying. You agree with a channel admin on a post in the feed, pay a fixed fee and check the result yourself.
The first gives you control and statistics with a 160-character limit. The second gives you a full post with photos and the admin's voice, but no official numbers. Most businesses that sell to Russian speakers in Dubai end up testing both.
We found no reliable figure for the number of Telegram users in the UAE, and neither did one reseller that studied the market. Telegram's own page says 1 billion users worldwide generate 1 trillion views a month in public channels (Telegram Ads).
Telegram Ads: what the official rules say
Telegram publishes its rules on two pages: the platform guide and the ad guidelines. The points that matter for a Dubai business:
| Rule | What Telegram says |
|---|---|
| Where ads appear | Public channels with 1,000+ subscribers |
| Ad text | Up to 160 characters, no line breaks or bullet lists, at most one link in the text |
| Price model | You set a CPM; the minimum is 0.1 TON per 1,000 views |
| Destination (TON account) | A Telegram channel or bot; external sites are not allowed |
| Language | The ad, the destination and the targeted channel must use the same language |
| Changes after launch | Text and CPM can change; targeting cannot, so you create a similar ad |
| Revenue share | 50% goes to the owners of channels where ads run |
One detail to watch: the documentation says you pay in Toncoin, while the Telegram Ads landing page now names the currency "Gram". We could not find an official note explaining the change, so check what your account accepts before you top it up.
The language rule matters for a Russian-language campaign. A Russian ad must lead to a Russian channel or bot and run in Russian-language channels. Mixing an English landing channel with Russian copy breaks rule 4.7 of the guidelines.
Targeting Russian speakers in the UAE
Until August 2026 a TON account could only target named channels, bots and search queries. Audience targeting by country and language belonged to Euro accounts sold through resellers. According to Adsly and telegram-ads.com, since 22 August 2026 TON and Stars accounts have the same form: country, city or region, language, topic, device and followers of named channels, with exclusions.
For a Dubai business this means one ad set can target users in the UAE with Russian as their app language, or followers of specific Dubai channels. Telegram has not described this change on its own help pages, so treat it as resellers' reports and check the form in your account. Two limits reported by Adsly: you cannot combine named channels with a language filter, and TON-funded ads do not run in Russia, Ukraine, Israel or Palestine. The second limit does not affect an audience physically in the UAE.
What Telegram Ads cost in the UAE
Telegram does not publish country prices. The only UAE measurement we found comes from a reseller's own accounts, so read it as one company's data.
| Account type | UAE CPM | CTR | Period and volume | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Euro | €1.42 | 1.36% | 3 Oct 2026, 295,000 views, 8 accounts | Adsly |
| TON | 3.79 TON | 2.65% | 22 Aug – 3 Oct 2026, 2.7 million views, 10 accounts | Adsly |
Adsly itself warns against converting TON into euros: the rate moves daily, and the two account types buy different inventory. On the same TON table the UAE sits near the top, above Saudi Arabia (1.21 TON) and Britain (0.27 TON).
Entry thresholds: sources disagree
Entry costs depend on how you buy, and the published figures don't match:
| Route | Entry threshold | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Direct from Telegram | €2 million, of which €1 million is a deposit | Magnetto |
| Reseller Euro account | from €250 | Magnetto |
| Reseller Euro account | €500 budget plus commission, €650 total | Adsly |
| Reseller USD account | 500 USDT reserve per new country, CPM from 1 USDT, daily budget from 10 USDT | AdsGram |
| Self-serve TON account | 20 TON minimum first top-up | telegram-ads.com |
All five are resellers or their blogs. Telegram's own page states only the 0.1 TON minimum CPM. Each reseller adds a commission, so compare the total you pay, not the headline.
Buying posts in Dubai channels
Here the honest answer is short: nobody publishes price statistics for Russian-language channels about Dubai. Admins set prices themselves and change them by season.
The few public numbers point in different directions. A marketplace listing for one Dubai chat on Qrooto shows 8,000 roubles for a "1/24" post, meaning one post that stays at the top for 24 hours (Magnetto explains the format). One Dubai consultant writes that a post in a large themed Dubai channel costs USD 500–3,000. Neither figure is a market average.
So price each post against what it delivers:
- Ask the admin for screenshots of channel statistics: average views per post over the last month, not subscribers.
- Divide the price by expected views and multiply by 1,000. That gives you a CPM you can compare with Telegram Ads and with Meta.
- Ask where the audience lives. A channel "about Dubai" may be read mostly from Russia, which is useless for a salon in JLT.
- Agree in writing on format (1/24, 1/48, no deletion), the date and the link.
- Ask for the admin's NMA permit number.
For example, with made-up numbers: a post at AED 400 that averages 5,000 views costs 400 ÷ 5,000 × 1,000 = AED 80 per 1,000 views. If the admin's numbers give you a CPM several times higher than other channels you can buy, negotiate or skip.
Permits and ad labels
Since 1 February 2026 an individual who publishes ads from the UAE needs a permit from the National Media Authority. The NMA service page covers ads on social media accounts, websites "or other modern digital platforms", paid or free. The NMA texts we read do not name Telegram, but an admin in Dubai who sells posts in a channel fits that description. The permit is free for residents for the first three years and then costs AED 1,000 a year, according to Pinsent Masons.
What follows for you as the advertiser:
- The NMA advertiser guide requires permit holders to show the permit number on their accounts and advertise only through registered accounts. Check both before you pay.
- If you post about your own business in your own channel, you don't need the permit: the UAE Media Council lists that exemption.
- Article 33 of the Media Law's executive regulations requires ads to be clearly separated from editorial content and commercial relationships to be disclosed. A paid post should look like an ad, with a label.
- Federal consumer protection law requires consumer advertising in Arabic, with other languages allowed alongside. We found no guidance on how that applies to a Russian-language Telegram post; our Advertiser Permit guide covers the fines.
How to measure what works
Telegram channels give admins views and joins, and Telegram Ads shows views and the number of people who joined your channel or started your bot. The money question stays open unless you mark every link.
- Website links. Add UTM tags with the Google Analytics URL builder: source = channel name, medium = telegram, campaign = offer. One link per channel.
- Bot links. Telegram's guidelines allow start parameters in bot links. Give each channel its own parameter, and the bot records where each lead came from.
- TON Telegram Ads lead only to Telegram channels, bots and Mini Apps. If you need traffic to a website, Adsly and AdsGram say only Euro or USD reseller accounts allow external links.
- Count leads, not clicks. A bot that asks for a phone number gives you cost per lead per channel after two weeks.
If you also advertise to the same audience on Instagram, compare the cost per lead across both. Meta's UAE prices are in our guide to what Meta ads cost in the UAE, and agency retainers in how much SMM costs in Dubai.
