The short version: Gatepilot is software, not a middleman. Your money flows to your processor. Your subscribers live in Telegram. We just automate the part between them.
Gatepilot is the software that turns any Telegram channel into a paid subscription — handling invite links, payments, renewals, and kicks automatically.
Same BYO-processor architecture, but Gatepilot takes 0% of your transactions, ships CCBill and crypto support on day one, and treats every major rail as a first-class citizen. You pay a flat monthly software fee, not a cut of every subscription.
No. We're software only. Money never flows through us — subscribers pay your Stripe, CCBill, NOWPayments, or Telegram Stars directly. That's what keeps us out of money-transmitter licensing and keeps our fees flat.
No. Creating a bot via @BotFather takes three minutes. Gatepilot handles the rest from our web dashboard.
A flat monthly SaaS fee per creator account. No per-transaction fee, no hidden cuts. Specific tiers will be published at launch.
CCBill, Stripe, PayPal, NOWPayments (for crypto: BTC / ETH / USDT / LTC / more), and Telegram Stars (Telegram's native in-app currency). Connect one or several.
Email hello@gatepilot.vip with the processor name and your use case. If it has a standard webhook + subscription API (most major ones do — Square, Authorize.net, Braintree, Paddle, and others), we can usually add it within a couple of weeks. Creators on Pro tier and above get priority on new integrations.
Gatepilot itself is content-neutral software. You and your subscribers interact through Telegram under Telegram's terms. Your payment processor sets the acceptable-use policy for cards you run through them. You are responsible for complying with your processor's terms and any applicable local laws (e.g., 2257 recordkeeping in the US, age verification in the UK/EU). Creators should review their chosen processor's policy before onboarding.
Your payment processor does. Chargebacks debit your account directly — Gatepilot doesn't sit in the flow. We surface them in your dashboard so you can respond in time.
On successful payment, the bot calls Telegram's API to generate a single-use invite link that expires in 24 hours and pins to that one user. When the subscription expires or the user cancels, the scheduler removes them from the channel automatically.
They retain access until the period they paid for ends, then Gatepilot revokes their channel access on the next hourly sweep. Dunning for failed renewals gives them a configurable grace period before revocation.
Yes. One bot can gate multiple channels — additional channel IDs are a comma-separated env variable. Each can have its own pricing tiers.
Yes. Each plan has a configurable trial length. The bot creates the subscription in TRIAL state, grants access immediately, and converts it on the first successful charge.
On your own Postgres database. We recommend Neon (free tier) or any hosted Postgres. Gatepilot's platform plane never sees your subscriber list.
Your creator Stripe/CCBill accounts keep running. Your Telegram bot keeps working. Your Postgres DB with the subscriber list is yours. You'd lose the automation but retain every dollar of infrastructure.
Every processor webhook is verified against its signing secret (HMAC for CCBill and NOWPayments, Stripe's construct_event). Missing secrets fail closed — requests are rejected rather than accepted. Duplicate deliveries are deduped via a unique constraint so processor retries don't cause double charges or double grants.
Under 30 minutes if you already have a Telegram channel and a payment processor account. Most of it is setting up your @BotFather bot and connecting credentials in the dashboard.
Your existing subscribers keep their current access until the cycle expires, then they renew through Gatepilot. We'll publish a migration guide closer to launch with CSV import for subscriber data.
Email hello@gatepilot.vip or message @gatefather_bot on Telegram. Tell us about your creator profile and audience size — we're onboarding in small waves to keep support quality high.