How to post to a Telegram channel from n8n

Post to a Telegram channel from n8n, step by step

About seven minutes, on the free plan. You need a Telegram channel or group where you can add an admin.

1. Create a free PostWire account

   Open postwire.io/dashboard.html, type your email and press Create my free account. PostWire emails you a link to confirm the address; connecting accounts and publishing unlock once it is confirmed. No password and no card (free plan: 1 business, 10 posts a month, 5 AI drafts a day (about 20 a month), 2 networks per post, 3 scheduled posts at a time — every network connects free, no card).

2. Create a bot and make it an admin

   In Telegram, message @BotFather, send /newbot, pick a name and copy the token it gives you. Then open your channel or group and add that bot as an admin, so it is allowed to post there. Messages appear under the channel's name.

3. Connect Telegram

   In the dashboard open Accounts, press Connect on Telegram and paste the Bot token and Your channel as @yourchannel (a private channel or group goes by its numeric id, which starts with -100). Before saving, PostWire asks Telegram whether that bot can reach that chat, so a mistyped channel or a bot that is not an admin yet is caught right there, with the fix.

4. Copy your API key

   In the dashboard, open API & MCP and press Copy key on the API key card. It is sent as Authorization: Bearer pw_live_… (the X-API-Key header also works). Keep it server-side.

5. Install the PostWire node

   In n8n: Settings → Community nodes → Install, enter n8n-nodes-postwire (version 0.4.3 on npm on Oct 28, 2026), then add a PostWire API credential with the key and press Test, which checks the key at once. Where community nodes cannot be installed, the HTTP Request node further down does the same job.

6. Configure Post → Publish

   Networks: Telegram (add Discord, Bluesky or LinkedIn to send the news there too). Content: Smart Distribute: Write a Native Post per Network, with the Idea from the previous node (e.g. {{ $json.title }} — {{ $json.link }}): the Telegram draft is clear and direct, with light formatting, links welcome and no hashtags. To send your own words, set Content to Same Text on Every Network. Media: None, or URL / Binary File for one photo or one video, which the text then captions. Options → Dry Run checks everything without publishing.

7. Or one HTTP Request node

   POST to the REST API with header Authorization: Bearer pw_live_…. per_platform.telegram.text is the message; photo_url or video_url (a public https link) turns it into a photo or video post with that text as the caption:

   POST https://postwire.io/api/post
   Authorization: Bearer pw_live_…
   Content-Type: application/json
   
   {
     "platforms": ["telegram"],
     "per_platform": { "telegram": {
       "text": "New on the blog: {{ $json.title }}\n\n{{ $json.summary }}\n\nRead it: {{ $json.link }}"
     } },
     "photo_url": "{{ $json.image }}",
     "idempotency_key": "{{ $json.guid }}"
   }

8. Read the result, or schedule it

   The result lists Telegram with ok, the message id and its link: https://t.me/yourchannel/123 for a public channel, https://t.me/c/…/123 for a private one (it opens for members). To publish later, use Post → Schedule with When: At a Specific Time (up to 365 days ahead) or In the Next Free Queue Slot (or POST /api/schedule with run_at). A scheduled post is sent by PostWire's servers at its time, whether or not n8n is running then.

With an RSS trigger, put the item's guid in Options → Idempotency Key (or idempotency_key): PostWire refuses a second post with the same key for 24 hours, so a re-run never posts the same article twice. A whole workflow, from the trigger to the post, is laid out in n8n social media automation.