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Getting Started

How to create your first membership bot in InviteMember

Yury Smykalov avatar
Written by Yury Smykalov
Updated over a month ago

It's easy to get started with InviteMember.

In this tutorial, we'll create a membership bot for a business called Daily Yoga Workouts (not a real project, just an example). 

If you want to skip the tutorial and check out the result, here you go: @YogaMemberBot.

Create Project

To begin, open @InviteMemberBot in Telegram. Click START.

The bot will send you a welcome message, and then you'll see the Add project button. Click it.

Send your project name to the bot. That's what your clients will see when they open your membership page or bot.

Well done! Now that you've given your project a name, you'll be asked to add your first resources. 

Add Resources (Telegram Channels & Groups)

The first time you do a project, you'll be able to connect a channel or group to your project:

Channels are great for content delivery (newsletters, signals, videos, podcasts, etc.) Groups are great for communities (mastermind groups, QA, support groups, etc.).

You can have multiple channels and groups managed by one membership bot!

Add your channels and groups in InviteMember

After you've named your project, you'll be asked what would you like to create first.

Select either you want first, a Paid Telegram Channel or a Paid Telegram Group.

Just click the Connect Channel/Group button to add your groups or channels. You can connect any private group or channel you already have, or create a new one. Note: you can connect more resources later.

Keep in mind, existing members of a group or channel can't be managed by the bot, unless they exit the resource and join again through your membership bot or page.

More info about adding Telegram Channels:
How To Add a Telegram Channel

More info about adding Telegram Groups:
How To Add a Telegram Group

Please contact @InviteMemberSupportBot if you need any assistance.

Add a Subscription Plan

After adding your first Telegram Channel or Group, you'll need to create a Subscription Plan. A subscription plan defines what your customers will get, how much, and how often they will pay. 

The first thing you'll be asked to do is to name your plan and set its duration period.

After selecting the period, you'll select what resources will be available for your plan.

Check the resources you want and select Done.

Finally, set a currency and price for your plan.

Great! Now that your project has its first resource and that you've started creating your first subscription plan, it's time to add a payment option.

Add a Payment Option

InviteMember supports many payment providers, including Stripe, PayPal, Skrill, and CoinPayments.

You can see the full list of our payment providers in this article:

What Payment Options Are Available?

For new projects, we recommend using our test modes (Stripe Test, PayPal Test, Razorpay Test, Skrill Test, and Paystack Test). These payment methods allow you to test how your bot works without a real credit/debit card.

Now you'll see your project menu for the first time, in here you can edit it, add more resources, create more subscription plans, and add more payment options:

In this tutorial, we'll connect Stripe in test mode:
How To Add Stripe (Test Mode)

Once you're ready to start receiving payments, you'll have to disconnect any Test Mode payment option and connect them in Live Mode.

Once you've connected a payment option, you'll connect your membership bot.

Create a Telegram Bot with BotFather

Why do you need this

Membership pages and bots are your business storefront. Your membership bot will be a small application that lives inside the Telegram ecosystem. It will have a name, a username/link, and a profile picture and will appear just like a real person in the user's contact list.

Select Telegram Bot and then "Set Telegram bot".

Register a new bot

Open @BotFather in Telegram and send /newbot command. Pick your bot name and username:

@BotFather will send you a unique string called API token:

Keep this token secret!

Now we're ready to make your membership bot alive! Just paste the token you got from @BotFather in the @InviteMemberBot chat:

InviteMember will check your token and will register itself as your Telegram Bot backend. Now, your bot is alive!

Customize your bot

If you wish to customize your bot (set profile picture, about, and description), please follow this tutorial:
How To Create a Telegram Bot

My new bot doesn't reply

After creating your bot in BotFather, if you launch it — it will do nothing until you send its API token to the InviteMemberBot. Why? Because your newly created bot doesn't have a backend (server) yet.

Check your membership bot

Now that you've added a payment option and your project is ready, you can open your membership bot and click START

It will show your project's name and description, and the buttons for your subscription plans:

Try clicking the button with the subscription plan name. The bot will show you the benefits of this particular plan and let you subscribe with the payment methods you added:

For example, Click Credit/Debit Card (TEST MODE). The bot will generate an invoice and send you a button:

Click this button, and a payment webpage will show up. We added Stripe Test for this bot, and now we can check the bot with a test card (4242 4242 4242 4242, expire: any, CVV: any):

After the payment, @YogaMemberBot will send you a confirmation message with the buttons to join the channels/groups you paid for:

At the same moment, the project owner will receive a notification.

Now it's time to build your bot! Please contact us at @InviteMemberSupportBot if you need any help.

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