Asking who is coming in a Telegram group produces the worst possible data structure: forty replies of "in", "probably", "can't, sorry" scattered through a thread that keeps moving. By the time you count them, three people have changed their minds and nobody re-counted. The fix is not a stricter form — it is replacing the reply thread with a single card that tallies itself in place.
The pattern works because a card is ambient. It sits in the chat history at the position where the plan was announced, so nobody has to remember where the discussion happened. Anyone scrolling past sees the current headcount whether or not they were online when it was posted. That property does more for turnout than any reminder, because the marginal attendee is usually the one who forgot the plan existed, not the one who needed persuading.
Posting the card
Any group member types /event fri 19:00 Board game night. The bot parses relative and absolute formats: "in 2h", "at 19:00", "tomorrow 19:00", a weekday, or a full date like 2026-09-10 19:00. One thing to set first: times are read as UTC until you run /tz +2 (or your offset) once. Do it in the first session, or "at 19:00" means UTC's 7pm and half the group arrives an hour late in either direction.
Responding
The card shows three buttons — Going, Maybe, Can't — with names in each bucket. Tapping a different button moves you between buckets rather than duplicating your answer, which kills the classic "I said maybe but I meant yes" ambiguity. Buckets show up to 30 names before switching to a "+N more" count, which is plenty for most groups. Names come from display names, so a public @username is not required to appear.
Who can do what
Everything is open to any member: posting, listing with /events, and answering. Only /cancel 12 — cancelling event id 12 — is restricted to the event's creator, and there is no admin override. That sounds strict until you consider the alternative: an admin-cancellable event list is an attack surface in large groups. Cancelling marks the event cancelled rather than deleting it, so ids stay consistent for future /cancel and /events calls.
The free tier and when it runs out
Free covers 3 active events per group at once — enough for most communities, since events naturally expire. Pro removes the cap and adds an automatic reminder posted an hour before each event starts, for a one-time 150 Stars payment per group. The reminder is the meaningful upgrade; the cap is rarely the binding constraint.
Where RSVP cards fit in a group toolkit
The card pattern pairs naturally with the other ambient tools a group accumulates. A planning guide for Telegram events walks through the headcount workflow end to end, and the full RSVP bot walkthrough covers every command with worked examples. If your event has gift assignments attached, the Secret Santa setup guide shows how the draw happens after the headcount settles. For the hour-before reminder without Pro, the group reminders guide covers scheduled posts that work alongside the card. The santa bot page lists what the pairing costs, and the bot directory has the full fleet if your group needs more than one card type.
The broader point: a group's planning quality is mostly a function of how much state lives in the chat itself. Cards keep the state where the conversation is, and that is why they outperform forms, polls, and pinned messages every time.
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