🚀 Deploy a Telegram Bot for FREE Using Google Apps Script (GAS)

#telegram #bot #gas #free

🚀 Deploy a Telegram Bot for FREE Using Google Apps Script (GAS)

Want to deploy a Telegram bot for free, without servers, VPS, or DevOps headaches?
Google Apps Script (GAS) is one of the simplest ways to do it—especially for text-based bots, MVPs, and learning projects.

This guide walks you through a complete, production-ready setup using webhooks.

🧠 What Is Google Apps Script?

Google Apps Script is a serverless JavaScript runtime by Google, designed to automate Google products—but it can also act as a lightweight backend.

Key benefits:

✅ Free
✅ No server management
✅ HTTPS by default
✅ Easy webhook support

🤖 What You’ll Build

A Telegram bot that:

Receives messages via webhook
Processes them in GAS
Replies instantly using Telegram Bot API

Architecture:

Telegram → Webhook → GAS Web App → Telegram API

📋 Prerequisites

Telegram account
A bot token from @botfather on Telegram
Google account

🪜 Step 1: Create a Telegram Bot

Open Telegram
Search for @botfather
Run /start
Run /newbot
Set:

Bot name
Bot username
1. Copy the Bot Token (keep it secret)

🪜 Step 2: Create Google Apps Script Project

Go to https://script.google.com
Click New Project
Rename it (e.g. telegram-bot-gas)

🪜 Step 3: Add Bot Code (Webhook Handler)

Paste this minimal working bot:

const TOKEN = "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN";
const TELEGRAM_API = `https://api.telegram.org/bot${TOKEN}`;

function doPost(e) {
  const update = JSON.parse(e.postData.contents);

  if (update.message) {
    const chatId = update.message.chat.id;
    const text = update.message.text || "";

    sendMessage(chatId, `You said: ${text}`);
  }

  return ContentService.createTextOutput("OK");
}

function sendMessage(chatId, text) {
  const payload = {
    chat_id: chatId,
    text: text
  };

  UrlFetchApp.fetch(`${TELEGRAM_API}/sendMessage`, {
    method: "post",
    contentType: "application/json",
    payload: JSON.stringify(payload)
  });
}

🔒 Tip: For production, store the token in Script Properties instead of hardcoding.

🪜 Step 4: Deploy as a Web App

Click Deploy → New deployment
Type: Web app
Execute as: Me
Who has access: Anyone
Click Deploy
Copy the Web App URL

Example:

https://script.google.com/macros/s/AKfycbxxxxx/exec

🪜 Step 5: Set Telegram Webhook

Open this URL in your browser (replace values):

https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>/setWebhook?url=<WEB_APP_URL>

If successful, you’ll see:

{"ok":true,"result":true}

🎉 Your bot is now live.

🪜 Step 6: Test Your Bot

Open Telegram
Send a message to your bot
You should get an instant reply

✨ Adding Commands (Optional)

if (text === "/start") {
  sendMessage(chatId, "Welcome to my GAS bot!");
}

⌛ Important Limitations of GAS

Before scaling, understand these constraints:

Limitation	Details
Execution time	~30s (free)
Cold starts	1–5s delay after idle
No background jobs	Webhook-only execution
No streaming	Bad for large media
No npm packages	Pure JS only
Limited storage	Sheets / Properties