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Merckit

AI & Automation

WooCommerce Telegram Order Notifications: Setup Guide

2026-06-21

Email is where order notifications go to die. They land in spam, get buried under newsletters, or wait unread until you next open your inbox — which on a busy day might be hours after the buyer paid. For a store owner, those hours are the difference between shipping same-day and watching a customer cancel because nobody confirmed their order.

Telegram fixes this. A message arrives on your phone the second an order is placed, with a sound you actually notice. This guide walks through setting up instant Telegram notifications for WooCommerce using the free Merckit Notify for Telegram plugin — from installing it to writing your own message templates and troubleshooting the bot when it stays silent.

Why order notifications belong in Telegram

Speed of response is one of the few things a small store can compete on. Marketplaces are slow and impersonal; a direct store that confirms an order within minutes feels reliable. Telegram makes that reaction time possible because:

  • You see it immediately. Push notifications are hard to miss, unlike email that sits in a folder.
  • You can act from anywhere. The order details are in your pocket, so you can start picking, packing, or messaging the customer without opening a laptop.
  • Your whole team sees it. Point notifications at a group chat and everyone who handles fulfillment gets the same alert at the same time.
  • Fewer lost orders. Faster confirmation means fewer cancellations, fewer "did my order go through?" support tickets, and fewer abandoned payments.

The setup below takes about ten minutes and costs nothing.

Step 1: Install the plugin

You can install Merckit Notify for Telegram the same way you install any WordPress plugin.

Option A — from your dashboard: Go to Plugins → Add New, search for "Merckit Notify for Telegram", click Install Now, then Activate.

Option B — manual upload: Download the plugin ZIP, then either upload it under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or unzip it into /wp-content/plugins/merckit-notify-for-telegram/ via FTP and activate it from the Plugins screen.

Once activated, a new Telegram Notify item appears in your WordPress admin menu. That's where the rest of the setup happens.

Step 2: Create a Telegram bot

Notifications are sent by a bot you create and control. Creating one is free and takes a minute.

  1. Open Telegram and start a chat with @BotFather (the official bot for managing bots).
  2. Send the command /newbot.
  3. Give your bot a display name (for example, "My Store Orders").
  4. Give it a username ending in bot (for example, mystore_orders_bot).

@BotFather replies with a token that looks like this:

123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11

Copy this token and keep it safe — it lets anything that has it send messages as your bot.

Step 3: Get your Chat ID

The token tells the plugin which bot sends the message. The Chat ID tells it where the message goes.

For a personal chat (notifications to you only):

  1. Open Telegram and start a chat with @userinfobot.
  2. It instantly replies with your numeric Chat ID (a number like 123456789).

For a group chat (notifications to your team):

  1. Create the group and add your bot to it.
  2. Send any message in the group.
  3. Open this URL in a browser, replacing <TOKEN> with your bot token:
https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates
  1. In the JSON response, find the "chat" object and copy its "id" value. Group IDs are usually negative (for example, -1001234567890).

Step 4: Connect and turn on notifications

Go to Telegram Notify in your WordPress admin and:

  1. Paste your bot token into the token field.
  2. Paste your Chat ID into the Chat ID field.
  3. Enable New order notifications so you're alerted whenever an order comes in.
  4. Enable Order status change notifications if you also want alerts when an order moves to processing, completed, refunded, and so on.
  5. Click Save.

That's the core configuration done.

Step 5: Send a test message

Don't wait for a real order to find out something's wrong. On the settings page, click the Send test message button. If everything is wired up correctly, the test arrives in your chat within a second or two. If it doesn't, jump to the troubleshooting section below before going live.

Customizing message templates

You decide what each notification says. Templates use variables wrapped in curly braces, and the plugin replaces them with real order data when a message is sent. The available variables are:

| Variable | What it shows | | --- | --- | | {order_number} | The order number | | {order_total} | The total amount paid | | {customer_name} | The buyer's name | | {customer_email} | The buyer's email | | {order_items_list} | The list of products in the order | | {payment_method_title} | The payment method used | | {shipping_method_title} | The chosen shipping method |

A clean, scannable template for a new order might look like this:

New order #{order_number}

Customer: {customer_name}
Email: {customer_email}
Total: {order_total}
Payment: {payment_method_title}
Shipping: {shipping_method_title}

Items:
{order_items_list}

Keep the most important line — usually the order number and total — at the top, so you get the gist from the notification preview without opening the chat.

Security tip: keep your token out of the database

By default the bot token is stored in your WordPress settings. For a hardening step, you can define it as a PHP constant in wp-config.php instead, so it never lives in the database and isn't exposed if your settings are ever leaked:

define( 'TRADAI_TTN_BOT_TOKEN', '123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11' );

When this constant is set, the plugin uses it and ignores the token field in the admin screen.

Common problems

The bot never sends anything. Almost always one of these three:

  • You never pressed Start. A bot can't message a person who hasn't started a conversation with it first. Open the bot's chat and tap Start (or send /start).
  • The Chat ID is wrong. Double-check the number, including the leading minus sign for groups. A personal ID won't work for a group and vice versa.
  • The bot isn't in the group. For group notifications the bot must be a member of that group. Re-add it, send a message, and re-check getUpdates.

The test works but real orders don't arrive. Confirm that New order notifications is enabled and saved, and that your store is actually creating orders in WooCommerce (some payment gateways only create an order after payment is confirmed).

Messages look broken. Check your template for typos in variable names — a misspelled {order_total} won't be replaced and will appear literally in the message.

What the Pro version adds

The free plugin covers the core job: instant order alerts to one chat. If your needs grow, the Pro version adds:

  • Multiple chats and bots, so different team members or departments get their own notifications.
  • Form notifications for Contact Form 7, WPForms, Elementor forms, and others — not just orders.
  • Quiet hours, so you're not pinged in the middle of the night.

For most single-store owners the free version is enough; Pro earns its place once you're routing notifications to several people or handling more than just orders.

Get started

Install Merckit Notify for Telegram, spend ten minutes on the steps above, and you'll never miss an order again. Learn more and download it on the plugin page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Merckit Notify for Telegram free?

Yes. The core plugin sends new-order and status-change notifications to Telegram for free, with no telemetry — your data goes only to your own bot and chat.

Do I need coding skills to set it up?

No. You create a Telegram bot, paste the token and your chat ID into the plugin, and customize the message template. Setup takes about ten minutes.

Why use Telegram instead of email for order alerts?

Email order alerts get buried in spam or newsletters and are easy to miss. A Telegram message arrives instantly with a sound, so you can confirm and ship orders faster.

Can I send notifications to more than one person?

The free version sends to one chat; routing to several people or a team channel is handled in the Pro version.

WooCommerce Telegram Order Notifications: Setup Guide