Pricing a Digital Product in Stars Without Losing Margin
Pricing a Digital Product in Stars Without Losing Margin
Here is the mistake almost everyone makes on their first Stars product.
You want $20. You look up the Star price, see roughly $0.02, divide, and charge 1,000 Stars.
You will receive about $13.30.
You did not price a $20 product. You priced a $13 product and told yourself a comforting story, because you converted using the rate your customer pays rather than the rate you receive. Those are different numbers, and the difference is a third of your revenue.
The only conversion rate that matters
There are two rates, and you must use the right one:
- What your customer pays: ~$0.0135–$0.0199 per Star, depending on how they topped up
- What you receive: ~$0.0133 per Star
Price against the second. Always. The first is your customer's problem and outside your control; the second is your actual revenue.
Stars to charge = your target net ÷ 0.0133
| Your target net | Stars to charge | What a mobile buyer likely pays |
|---|---|---|
| $5 | ~375 | ~$7.50 |
| $10 | ~750 | ~$15.00 |
| $20 | ~1,500 | ~$29.85 |
| $50 | ~3,760 | ~$74.80 |
| $100 | ~7,520 | ~$149.60 |
That right-hand column is uncomfortable, and it should be. It is the real price of your product to a customer who tops up in small in-app amounts, and pretending otherwise doesn't make it go away.
Now adjust for bundles
Raw conversion gives you a starting number. Bundle boundaries tell you where to land it.
Stars are sold in fixed bundles — 100, 500, 1,000, 10,000 in-app. Your customer cannot buy 375 Stars. They buy 500, or they buy 100 five times at a much worse rate.
So round your price down to sit comfortably inside a bundle, never just above one.
| Raw conversion | Bad choice | Good choice | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 375 | 375 | 350 | Leaves room inside a 500 top-up |
| 520 | 520 | 500 | 520 forces a second bundle for 20 Stars |
| 1,050 | 1,050 | 1,000 | Lands exactly on the bundle instead of $15 past it |
| 3,760 | 3,760 | 3,500 | Round numbers read as prices, not conversions |
The rule: never price just above a bundle boundary. A product at 1,050 Stars forces a customer holding 1,000 to buy another bundle for the sake of fifty Stars. Some will. Many will simply not buy, and you will never know why.
Round numbers sell better than converted ones
A price of 1,483 Stars tells your customer you ran a spreadsheet. 1,500 tells them it's a price.
Stars are a currency your customer is still learning to feel. Round numbers — 100, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,500 — anchor far better than precise ones, and the few Stars you give up buys clarity that converts.
Build the hold into your pricing
Stars are locked for 21 days, with a 1,000-Star minimum before any payout. If your product is priced at 200 Stars, you need five sales before a withdrawal is even theoretically possible, then three weeks on top.
For a new bot, that argues for at least one product priced at 1,000 Stars or more. Not because higher prices are better, but because it shortens the time until money actually moves — and a business where revenue is real feels very different from one where it is a number on a screen.
Subscriptions: annual wins twice
For recurring access, annual pricing beats monthly on both sides of the transaction.
For your customer: one larger top-up costs meaningfully less per Star than twelve small ones. A monthly subscriber topping up 100 Stars each month pays $0.0199 per Star all year. The same subscriber buying once at the 10,000 tier pays $0.0135. Same subscription, ~32% less real money.
For you: twelve months of revenue arrives at once, clearing the minimum immediately and shortening the average hold dramatically.
Price annual at roughly ten months' worth. The discount is real for the customer, and it costs you far less than the fee difference it saves them.
When to raise prices
Two signals mean your prices are too low:
Refund rate near zero and no price complaints. Not evidence customers are happy — evidence you left money on the table.
Most sales come from customers who already had a Star balance. They are buying because the friction was zero, not because the price was right. Test higher.
And one that means the opposite: customers who top up specifically to buy your product, then never return. Your price forced an awkward top-up. Look at whether you are sitting just above a bundle boundary.
A worked example
You are selling a course. You want $40 net.
- Raw conversion: 40 ÷ 0.0133 = 3,008 Stars
- Round it: 3,000 Stars — clean, reads as a price
- Check bundles: 3,000 is well inside a 5,000 Fragment bundle and a 10,000 in-app bundle. No awkward boundary. Good.
- Your net: 3,000 × $0.0133 = $39.90 ✓
- What a small-top-up mobile customer really pays: ~$59.70 — worth knowing before you compare yourself to a competitor selling at $49 on a website
- Timing: one sale clears the 1,000-Star minimum. First payout ~21 days after the first sale.
Then add an annual or bundle tier at 10,000 Stars for the customers who want everything — it lands exactly on the cheapest in-app bundle, which is as close to a free gift to your buyer as Stars pricing allows.
Based on September 2026 rates. The withdrawal rate is not officially published by Telegram and bundle prices vary by region — recalculate against your own realised payout rate before setting prices you intend to keep.