Controller Bot
Tool · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Controller Bot is an assistant for the owner of a Telegram channel. It assembles a post in full — text with markup, a photo, link buttons and reaction counters underneath — and then publishes it immediately or at an appointed time, can delete the post on a timer, edit what has already been published, and show how many people joined and left over a week.
Its own description in Telegram is short: «Awesome bot for channel owners that helps you to create rich posts, view stats and more».
Before reading the instructions it is worth knowing the state of the sources — the last section is about that, and it matters more than the usual note on freshness.
How it works: two bots, not one
The arrangement here is unusual, and without it nothing else makes sense.
Controller Bot publishes nothing itself. You register your own publisher bot with @BotFather, hand its token to the service — and the administrator of the channel becomes your bot, not the service. That is why a post is assembled inside your own bot, where the service redirects you, while editing an already published post is done in the service itself, to which the post is forwarded.
The same explains the warning the service issues when connecting: «не подключайте боты, которые используются в других сервисах (Manybot, Chatfuel и другие)» — do not connect bots already used in other services. One bot, one controller; a token has no two masters.
And the same is the main thing to weigh before starting. Telegram's documentation calls the bot token a complete key of control: «Keep your token secure and store it safely, it can be used by anyone to control your bot». By handing over the token you hand over the bot entirely. It is worth remembering separately that a bot added to a group as an administrator receives all messages — privacy mode does not apply to admins.
Connecting
The order given by the instruction is this:
- Open the service, press «Каналы» (Channels) → «добавить новый канал» (add a new channel) → «подключить нового бота» (connect a new bot).
- Go to @BotFather, send
/newbot, enter the bot's name and username. - Forward @BotFather's reply to the service or send the token itself.
- Add the created bot as an administrator of the channel: «Manage channel» → «Administrators» → «Add administrator».
- Forward any message from the channel to the service — or send the channel's @username or its id.
Then the service asks for the time zone, and asks for it by city name, not by offset: «Отправьте сообщение с названием вашего города, чтобы в дальнейшем корректно публиковать отложенный пост» — send your city so that scheduled posts go out on time.
Finally, when you create the first post, the service redirects you to your publisher bot, where you press «Start» once more and choose the markup: /markdown or /HTML.
Assembling a post
Three things attach to the text.
A photo. Attached as a file or a link; if you picked the wrong one, it can be detached again.
Reactions. These are the bot's own counter buttons under the post. The limit is stated outright: «лимит реакций на 1 пост 6 шт.» — six reactions per post. It is worth remembering that Telegram has long had reactions of its own; these are different things, and the instruction does not discuss how they relate.
URL buttons. The input format is given verbatim: «Название кнопки 1 – ссылка 1» — a button title, a dash, a link, one button per line. Such buttons are a native platform feature: Telegram's documentation describes «Inline Keyboards that are shown directly below their relevant messages», and pressing them sends no message into the chat.
Album support arrived after the instruction was written — the developer announced it on 11 August 2020. How albums are assembled is described nowhere.
Publishing
Three actions are offered before the post goes out: set a deletion timer, publish, schedule.
The deletion timer is set in hours and can be switched off again. The instruction names no bounds for the value.
Immediate publication is confirmed twice: the service asks again which channel exactly it is sending to.
Scheduled publication means choosing a day and typing a time; when moving an already created post, the day is chosen with the buttons «Today», «Tomorrow», «The day after tomorrow».
Editing
There is a distinction here that is easy to miss.
A published post is edited by forwarding it to the service. It is the text that gets edited: «Вы редактируете текст. Форматирование: html. Отправьте текст, чтобы изменить ваше сообщение».
A scheduled post cannot be rewritten. Only viewing, changing the time and deleting are available for it — editing the contents is not among the actions. If you no longer like the text of a scheduled post, you delete it and assemble it again.
Statistics
The statistics show subscribers joining and leaving over a week and over a month; they can be viewed or forwarded onward.
Post views are not there — and should not be: Telegram counts those itself. «Each post in a channel has a view counter. Views from forwarded copies of your messages are also included in the total count».
Several channels and several administrators
There can be several channels: the service asks which channel to write to, both when creating a post and when going through the scheduled ones.
The service pulls the channel's administrator list by itself — twice a day; previously this was done with an «Update Data» button.
There is also a re-connection rule that is easy to trip over: a channel already added to the service can be added again only if the previous managing bot is no longer an administrator of the channel.
What is known about money
Nothing. Neither the instruction, nor the developer's channel, nor the bot's own description says a word about tariffs, subscriptions or paid features. Nor does that entitle anyone to call the service free — only to say that the price is written down nowhere.
The state of the sources: required reading
Usually this section is a caveat. Here it matters more than the instructions.
The instruction was written in December 2017. The 2025 edit, judging by its content, added a warning rather than updating the description: the screenshots and the order of buttons are from the Telegram of those years, and the paths inside the client have changed since.
The service's updates channel has been silent since 16 July 2022 — that is the date of the last entry. More than four years without a single announcement.
The domain controller.bot no longer belongs to the service. As of 17 August 2026 controller.bot serves an unrelated single-page advertisement in Spanish, and the www subdomain answers with error 521. That address cannot be cited as the service's site.
The web version was closed on 26 March 2020 by the developer: «Controller Web has been closed». If it turns up in some instruction, it is a withdrawn feature.
And the main point. The author of the instruction placed a warning at its top: «controllerbot после 24.02.2022 публиковал незаконные сообщения в каналах без ведома их владельцев. Будьте внимательны и используйте его на свой страх и риск» — that after 24 February 2022 the bot published unlawful messages in channels without their owners' knowledge, and that it should be used at one's own risk. We have not verified this claim and found neither confirmation nor refutation of it in other open materials. But it concerns control over someone else's channel, and the service is handed the token of an administrator bot — precisely the capability in question. We cannot pass over it in silence.
What follows practically: the bot's page in Telegram answers, but it cannot be confirmed from open sources that the service is working and maintained today. Before trusting it with a channel, it is reasonable to test the bot on an empty channel rather than a live one.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
an assistant for a Telegram channel owner: assembling a post, buttons and reactions under it, scheduled publishing, a deletion timer, editing what is published, subscriber statistics
Its own description in Telegram: «Awesome bot for channel owners that helps you to create rich posts, view stats and more»
source, checked 2026-08-17
the service does not post itself — your own bot does: it is created in @BotFather, its token is handed to the service, and it is that bot which becomes the channel's administrator
Hence a post is assembled in your bot, while editing a published one happens in the service itself
source, checked 2026-08-17
Getting started
the order: «Channels» → «add a new channel» → «connect a new bot» → create a bot in @BotFather with /newbot → forward @BotFather's reply or the token itself to the service → add your bot as an administrator of the channel → forward any message from the channel to the service
The service's instruction warns separately: «не подключайте боты, которые используются в других сервисах (Manybot, Chatfuel и другие)» — do not connect bots already used elsewhere
source, checked 2026-08-17
the time zone is set by city name: the service asks for a city so that scheduled posts go out on time
Verbatim: «Отправьте сообщение с названием вашего города, чтобы в дальнейшем корректно публиковать отложенный пост»
source, checked 2026-08-17
Account and access
contact with the developer goes through @ControllerSupportBot; announcements are in the @ControllerUpdates channel
Its own description: «Use this bot to contact the devs of @ControllerBot»
source, checked 2026-08-17
What you can publish
the markup is chosen before the post is typed: /markdown or /HTML
The choice is offered by your publisher bot at first launch
source, checked 2026-08-17
Features
a photo, reactions and URL buttons attach to a post; buttons are given as lines of the form «button title — link», one button per line
A photo can be detached again if the wrong one was picked
source, checked 2026-08-17
three actions before a post goes out: set a deletion timer, publish immediately, schedule
Immediate publication is confirmed twice: the service asks again which channel it is sending to
source, checked 2026-08-17
the deletion timer is set in hours and can be switched off again
The bounds of the value are not printed in the instruction
source, checked 2026-08-17
viewing, changing the time and deleting are available for a scheduled post
Editing the text is not among the actions the instruction names for a scheduled post
source, checked 2026-08-17
a published post is edited by forwarding it to the service; it is the text that is edited
The service's reply verbatim: «Вы редактируете текст. Форматирование: html. Отправьте текст, чтобы изменить ваше сообщение»
source, checked 2026-08-17
album support was announced by the developer on 11 August 2020
Verbatim: «Added album support. - Added the Chinese Language»
source, checked 2026-08-17
the channel's administrator list is pulled in automatically, twice a day; previously this was done with an «Update Data» button
Announced on 16 March 2020
source, checked 2026-08-17
Platforms
Telegram
The service exists only inside Telegram
source, checked 2026-08-17
Analytics
the statistics show subscribers joining and leaving over a week and over a month; they can be viewed or forwarded onward
Post views are not included: Telegram itself counts those
source, checked 2026-08-17
Limits and restrictions
no more than six reactions per post
Verbatim: «лимит реакций на 1 пост 6 шт.»
source, checked 2026-08-17
Restrictions
a channel already added to the service can be added again only if the previous managing bot is no longer an administrator of the channel
Announced on 27 November 2019
source, checked 2026-08-17
the service's web version was closed on 26 March 2020: the developer explained it by a 99 per cent fall in posts made from the web
Verbatim: «Controller Web has been closed»
source, checked 2026-08-17
the service is handed your bot's token, and Telegram's documentation calls the token a complete key of control: «it can be used by anyone to control your bot»
The platform's own rule, not our judgement
source, checked 2026-08-17
a bot added to a group as an administrator receives all messages: privacy mode does not apply to admins
Verbatim: «bot admins always receive all messages»
source, checked 2026-08-17
Languages
Turkish (26 March 2020) and Chinese (11 August 2020) were added to the interface
The developer never published a full list of languages
source, checked 2026-08-17
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