Pay an SMM panel with Telegram Stars: the card route, step by step

Open @panelhawk_bot, tap Add funds, choose an amount, and pay with Telegram Stars. The bot shows how many Stars the top-up costs and how many dollars of balance it buys before you pay, and the balance is credited as soon as Telegram confirms the payment. That balance then buys any of the 6,220 products in the shop, in the bot or on the website.

The rest of this page explains what Stars are, why they are the card route here, what they cost compared with USDT, and how an order goes through once the balance is there.

What Telegram Stars are

Telegram Stars are Telegram's own in-app currency for digital goods and services sold by bots and mini apps. You buy them inside the Telegram app, which handles the payment with the usual methods your phone or account supports: a bank card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. You then spend them in any bot that accepts them. The details of where and how Stars are sold are Telegram's, and telegram.org is the place to read them.

Two practical points matter for a buyer:

• Where you buy them changes the price. Stars bought from a desktop or the web cost less than Stars bought inside the iPhone or Android app, where Apple and Google take a cut. If you are about to buy a large number, it is worth doing it from a computer.
• The seller never sees your card. Telegram takes the payment and tells the bot that Stars arrived. We store the amount and Telegram's charge identifier, not a payment instrument.

Why PanelHawk takes Stars

We accept two ways to pay: USDT on the TRON network, and Telegram Stars. We are not a card merchant and we hold no card details, so Stars is the way to pay by card here. If you do not own crypto and do not want to set up an exchange account to buy one product, Stars gets you from card to balance without leaving Telegram.

Stars are not free for us to accept. Telegram keeps a share of every Star, which is why the top-up screen says plainly that USDT costs you less. Our published margin of 20% pays for three things: supplier prices moving between one reading and your order, the part of an order a supplier fails to deliver and we refund, and Telegram's cut on Stars. The price of a product does not change with the way you paid; what changes is how much a dollar of balance costs you to buy.

Topping up with Stars in the bot, step by step

1. Start the bot. Open @panelhawk_bot, press Start and pick your language. The menu has Catalogue, Search, Balance, Add funds, Orders and Support.
2. Open the top-up. Tap Add funds in the menu, or send /topup. The bot reminds you of the minimum, $5.00, and that a balance cannot be withdrawn.
3. Choose the amount. Tap one of the suggested amounts, or type your own in dollars and cents, like 12.50. The bot answers with the conversion for that amount, in the form “this many Stars = this many dollars”.
4. Pick Stars. Two buttons appear: Pay in USDT (TRON) and Pay with Telegram Stars, the second with its Stars price on it. Tap the Stars one.
5. Pay in Telegram's own screen. Telegram shows the invoice, titled “PanelHawk balance”, with the dollar amount it adds and the reminder that balance buys services here and cannot be withdrawn. If you do not have enough Stars, Telegram offers to sell you more there and then.
6. Get the receipt. When Telegram confirms the charge, the bot replies with the Stars received, the dollars credited and your new balance.

The balance is credited with the value of the Stars Telegram says it charged, not with the figure on the invoice link. If you save a link and pay it later, you still get exactly what you paid for, and a payment Telegram reports twice is credited once.

If you use the website

The website takes USDT directly; the Stars payment itself happens inside the bot, and the top-up page links you there. A Telegram account and a web account are one customer once they are connected: go to Settings on the website, choose Connect Telegram, press Start in the bot and confirm. From then on a Stars top-up made in the bot shows up on the website's balance, and an order placed in either place shows up in both.

Stars or USDT: which one to use

Both end in the same place, a balance in US dollars. They differ in what you need and what it costs. Everything below is how the two work on PanelHawk; the full USDT walk-through is in how to pay with USDT on TRON.

A rough rule: for a first small order, or if you have never bought crypto, use Stars. If you will top up often or in larger amounts and already hold USDT, the USDT route costs you less.

Placing an order in the bot

Once the balance is there, ordering is the same whichever way you paid. Say you want Telegram channel members.

1. Catalogue. Tap Catalogue and pick a platform, then a service: Telegram, then members, for example. You can also tap Search and type what you want. The same list is on the website under Telegram services.
2. Product. Each product shows its price per 1,000, its minimum and maximum order, whether it has a refill, whether it can be cancelled once it is with the supplier, and whether drip-feed is available. A page such as Telegram Members with a 30-day refill shows the same facts on the web. If those words are new, refill, drip-feed and the other SMM terms explains them.
3. Quantity. Tap a suggested quantity or type one. If it is outside the product's limits, the bot tells you the range it accepts.
4. Link. Paste the public link to the channel, profile or post. The bot checks that it looks like a link for that platform before going on, and shows the expected form if it does not. We never ask for a password, and a private account cannot be delivered to.
5. Confirm. The bot shows the exact amount that comes off your balance. Nothing else is charged. If the price moved between this screen and your tap, you see a new confirmation with the new figure instead of being charged something you did not see.
6. Placed. Tap Place the order. The bot replies with the order number and the amount taken, and messages you when the order ends, with anything refunded. Orders lists everything you have placed.

If your balance does not cover the order, the bot says how much you are short and offers a top-up for the difference, so you can pay with Stars and come straight back to the same order.

Prices are re-read from 34 panels every six hours, and on 893 products we sell under every other panel we track; the Telegram members price comparison shows the figures behind that for one product.

What happens to your money afterwards

A Stars top-up is a balance, not a deposit. It buys services on PanelHawk, it cannot be withdrawn, transferred to anyone else, or paid back to a card or a wallet, and it does not expire. That is said before you pay, on the invoice itself, so it should never come as a surprise.

What we do promise is this: if a supplier delivers only part of an order, the undelivered part is refunded to your balance automatically, counted from what the supplier reports. If an order cannot be placed at all, the whole amount comes back. While an order is still with us you can cancel it and the money returns at once; once it is with the supplier, cancellation depends on the product. Every order ends either delivered or credited back, and you are told which and why. The FAQ has the full wording.

We are a reseller, not the producer of the engagement, and we do not promise how long followers or members stay. Buying engagement can also break a platform's rules, so check the terms of the one you buy for and decide with that in mind. If you want the background on how a panel like this works, start with what an SMM panel is; if you want to see what is on sale first, the shop and the bot carry the same catalogue at the same prices.