How to scrape Telegram Channel with PHP

A public channel: name, description, subscribers, media counts. This tutorial gets it with a short PHP program and the Telegram Channel API. Each successful call costs 1 credit; errors and not-found answers are free.

1. Get an API key

Sign in to get a key and 100 free credits, no card. Then put the key in an environment variable so it stays out of your code:

export SCRAPEIO_API_KEY="your_key_here"

2. Set up PHP

PHP 8 with the curl extension

3. Write the code

Save this as scrape.php.

<?php
$params = ["handle" => "nike"];

function call(array $params): array {
    $ch = curl_init("https://scrapeio.com/v1/telegram/channel?" . http_build_query($params));
    curl_setopt_array($ch, [
        CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
        CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ["x-api-key: " . getenv("SCRAPEIO_API_KEY")],
    ]);
    $body = curl_exec($ch);
    $code = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    if ($code !== 200) throw new Exception("HTTP $code");
    return json_decode($body, true)["data"];
}

print_r(call($params));

4. Run it

php scrape.php

The response has the same envelope on every endpoint: success, cached, credits_used, credits_remaining and data. Shared fields such as handle, followers, plays, likes and created_at have the same names on every platform.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
`handle` (required)	string	Channel handle, @handle or t.me URL.

Errors and what you pay

Status	Meaning	Charged
`200`	Success	Yes, unless cached
`400`	A parameter is missing or wrong	No
`401`	The key is missing or invalid	No
`402`	Not enough credits	No
`403`	The account or post is private	No
`404`	Not found on the platform	No
`429`	More than 300 requests a minute	No
`502`	Every source is down; retry shortly	No

Same endpoint in other languages

Python · Node.js · JavaScript · TypeScript · Go · Rust · Java · C# · Ruby · Kotlin · Swift · R

Prefer no code?

Connect the MCP server to Claude Code, Cursor or Codex and ask in plain English. The agent uses the telegram_channel tool for you.

100 free credits, no card. Credits never expire.

Get API key