Short version: Gatefather is software, not a middleman. Your money flows to your processor. Your subscribers live in Telegram. We automate the door between them.
Gatefather is the software that turns any Telegram channel into a paid subscription — handling invite links, payments, renewals, and kicks automatically.
No. If you did, we'd be insulted.
Same bring-your-own-processor architecture, but we take 0% of your transactions, ship CCBill and crypto support on day one, and treat every major rail as first-class. 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, PayPal, 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. Gatefather handles the rest from our dashboard.
A flat monthly fee per creator account. No per-transaction fee, no hidden cuts. See the Pricing page for tier details.
CCBill, Stripe, PayPal, NOWPayments (crypto: BTC / ETH / USDT / LTC / more), and Telegram Stars. Connect one or several.
Email hello@gatefather.xyz with the processor name and your use case. If it has a standard webhook + subscription API (most majors do — Square, Authorize.net, Braintree, Paddle, etc.), we can usually add it within a couple of weeks. Pro tier and above get priority on new integrations.
Gatefather 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). Review your processor's policy before onboarding.
Your payment processor does. Chargebacks debit your account directly — we don'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 is pinned 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 we revoke their channel access on the next hourly sweep. Failed renewals trigger a configurable dunning window with reminder DMs before revocation.
Yes. One bot can gate multiple channels. 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.
We run a watcher. If the bot process is unresponsive, the platform spins up a replacement and re-registers the webhook. Your subscribers don't notice.
On your own Postgres database. We recommend Neon (free tier) or any hosted Postgres. The Gatefather platform plane never sees your subscriber list.
Your Stripe/CCBill/PayPal accounts keep running. Your Telegram bot keeps working. Your Postgres DB with the subscriber list is yours. You'd lose the automation but walk out with the books under your arm.
Every processor webhook is verified against its signing secret (HMAC for CCBill/NOWPayments, Stripe's construct_event, PayPal's signature check). 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 Gatefather. We'll publish a migration guide closer to launch with CSV import for subscriber data.
Email hello@gatefather.xyz or message @gatefather_bot on Telegram. Tell us about your creator profile and audience size. We're onboarding in small waves to keep quality high.