Build Your First Telegram Bot with Python

A Telegram bot is one of the most rewarding beginner Python projects: with a few dozen lines of code you build something that really works and that you can show your friends. This is the same path I used for bots with real users — like the Price-Watch Bot in my portfolio.

Prerequisites

• Python installed (installation guide)
• A Telegram account

Step 1: Get a token from BotFather

In Telegram, open the official @BotFather bot and:

1. Send /newbot
2. Give it a display name (e.g. “My First Bot”)
3. Give it a username ending in bot (e.g. my_first_1234_bot)

BotFather replies with a token that looks like:

7412345678:AAHfXw3v9tK2mQ...

This token is the key to your bot — never share it and never commit it to GitHub.

Step 2: Install the library

Inside a virtual environment, install the most popular Telegram bot library:

pip install python-telegram-bot

Step 3: A bot that says hello

Create bot.py:

from telegram import Update
from telegram.ext import Application, CommandHandler, MessageHandler, filters, ContextTypes

TOKEN = "put-your-token-here"

async def start(update: Update, context: ContextTypes.DEFAULT_TYPE):
    await update.message.reply_text("Hi! I'm your first bot 🤖")

async def echo(update: Update, context: ContextTypes.DEFAULT_TYPE):
    await update.message.reply_text(f"You said: {update.message.text}")

app = Application.builder().token(TOKEN).build()
app.add_handler(CommandHandler("start", start))
app.add_handler(MessageHandler(filters.TEXT & ~filters.COMMAND, echo))

print("Bot is running...")
app.run_polling()

Run it:

python bot.py

Now find your bot in Telegram and send /start — it answers! Send any other text message and it echoes it back.

Understanding the code

• CommandHandler("start", start) — when a user sends /start, the start function runs
• MessageHandler(filters.TEXT & ~filters.COMMAND, echo) — every text message (except commands) goes to echo
• run_polling() — the bot keeps asking Telegram’s servers “any new messages?”

Step 4: A real feature

Let’s add a /dollar command that (for now) returns a fixed number:

async def dollar(update: Update, context: ContextTypes.DEFAULT_TYPE):
    await update.message.reply_text("USD today: 100,500")

app.add_handler(CommandHandler("dollar", dollar))

The natural next step? Fetching the real price from a website — which is exactly the topic of Web Scraping with Python.

Exercise

Add a /help command that lists the bot’s commands, and add a condition to echo so a special reply comes back when the user sends “hello”.