How to Build an AI Telegram Bot with OpenClaw: Complete Tutorial (2026)

Result: A fully functional AI Telegram bot running GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, or any of 627+ models — deployed in under 5 minutes, costing $5-25/month, with persistent memory and extensible skills. What You'll Build By the end of this tutorial, you'll have: ✅ A Telegram bot that responds with AI (any model you choose) ✅ Persistent memory across conversations ✅ Web search, code execution, and file management capabilities ✅ Auto-start on server reboot ✅ Access to 627+ AI models through one API key Total cost: $0 upfront + ~$15/month for moderate usage (via Crazyrouter's discounted pricing) Prerequisites (5 minutes) You need three things: 1. A Server Any Linux VPS works. Minimum: 2 cores, 4GB RAM. Provider Price Good For Hetzner €4.5/mo Europe/US Vultr $6/mo Global DigitalOcean $6/mo Beginners Oracle Cloud Free tier Budget AWS Lightsail $5/mo AWS users 2. Crazyrouter API Key Your bot needs AI model access. Crazyrouter provides one API key for 627+ models at ~55% below official pricing. Regist