Generating ad images
AI image generation creates an original promotional graphic from a text description. It is a Master and Ultimate feature: 2 images a day and 10 a month, identical on both plans. Free, Referral Premium, Lite, Plus and Elite get none.
There are two ways to reach it, and they differ in whether you see the picture before it lands in your post.
Before you start
- Master or Ultimate. This floor is absolute — no other plan grants images, and no amount of reliability lifts it.
- Reliability at Fair (5.0) or better. Below that, images are switched off even on Master and Ultimate.
- No open review on your account. A review pauses all AI until it resolves.
- Image allowance left on both windows — the daily one and the monthly one.
All four must be true. If any one is not, the button locks or the request is refused, and nothing is spent.
The plan floor and the reliability gate work in one direction each. A Trusted reliability score earns you extra text headroom, but it cannot unlock images on a plan that does not include them. A poor score can switch images off on a plan that does.
The two image paths
| Path | Where | What happens to the picture |
|---|---|---|
| The popup's Image tab | Inside the AI dialog on all three engines — Write with AI, Draft with AI, Write my ad with AI | Generated and stored, previewed in the dialog, and attached to your post only when you press Apply to my post |
| Generate image with AI | Paid Promotions → Book a placement, in the action row under the composer | Written straight into the next free photo slot of your saved ad post, with no preview step, exactly where a manual upload would go |
Wherever the picture ends up, it goes to the same place a manual upload would: against your campaign and your side of it on a cross-promotion, into your saved ad post on Paid Promotions, and through Telegram as a real Telegram file in the Subscriber Exchange. Nothing downstream can tell a generated photo from one you uploaded.
Step by step
In the popup's Image tab
- Open the composer's AI dialog and choose the Image tab.
- Describe the picture under Describe the image — 400 characters, placeholder e.g. a warm flat-lay of open books on a desk, soft morning light.
- Press Generate image. The status reads Creating your image…
- The result appears under Preview, with ⬇ Download image and the hint Saves a copy to this device. Applying it to the post does not depend on downloading.
- Press Apply to my post. The dialog closes and the picture appears in the composer's media slot. There is no confirmation message.
- Save the post. Until you do, the image is not on it.
The Image tab in the Paid Promotions dialog writes into your saved ad post, and that ad post has to exist before it can. On a booking you have just opened, it does not yet — and the tab answers The AI could not do that just now - nothing was used. rather than saying so. Nothing is spent.
The Generate image with AI button in the action row has no such problem: it creates the saved ad post for you if there isn't one, which is why it is the reliable image path here. Adding the placement to your cart also creates it.
In the Paid Promotions booking wizard
- Write your ad post first. The Generate image with AI button takes its prompt from the post text, trimmed to 400 characters — there is no separate image brief field on this page, so an empty post gives it nothing to work from.
- Press Generate image with AI. Its tooltip reads AI-draw an ad photo into the next free media slot, and the label changes to Painting…
- On success the picture appears in a media slot and the page confirms AI image added to your ad post. There is no preview and no undo — this button is one of the two AI controls in the product that write straight into the page.
The booking composer's media slots hold either photos or a video, never both. Generating a photo deletes any video already attached to that ad post, immediately and without a confirmation step. Download the video first if you do not have the original.
The popup's Image tab draws a lock panel below Master, so there is nothing to press. Generate image with AI in the action row has no lock: it is drawn for every advertiser with a listing open, and the refusal only arrives after you press it, as AI image generation isn’t included on this account. No image is spent — but the button being there is not a sign that your plan includes images.
In the Subscriber Exchange ad builder
The exchange has no image button of its own any more. Press Write my ad with AI, choose the Image tab, and apply the result — the same dialog, the same preview, the same Apply to my post. Below Master you get the dialog's lock panel in place of the prompt field, so there is nothing to press.
The allowance
| Plan | AI images per day | AI images per month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 0 |
| Referral Premium | 0 | 0 |
| Lite | 0 | 0 |
| Plus | 0 | 0 |
| Elite | 0 | 0 |
| Master | 2 | 10 |
| Ultimate | 2 | 10 |
Both windows apply at once, and a generation is refused the moment either is full. The daily window resets at 00:00 UTC; the monthly window resets at 00:00 UTC on the 1st. The Images this month meter in the composer popup shows the smaller of the two, so it can read 0 left on a fresh day when the month is spent.
Images are a separate allowance from text: generating a picture never touches your text actions, and drafting a post never touches your images.
Describing an image well
The prompt you type is not sent alone. Every image path prefixes a fixed instruction of its own — a clean, professional promotional graphic for a Telegram ad, with no text, no logos, no watermarks and no real people's faces. You are describing the subject, not the whole brief.
In the Subscriber Exchange, the topic you picked for the ad is not added to the prompt: the dialog sends what you typed and nothing else. If the subject matters, name it yourself.
| Works | Does not work |
|---|---|
| A scene: a warm flat-lay of open books on a desk, soft morning light | A slogan: the model is told to render no text, so it will not draw your headline |
| A mood and a palette: dark, moody, deep blues, minimal | A logo: it is told not to draw one |
| A subject and a setting: a single espresso cup on a marble counter | A person you can name: it is told not to draw real people's faces |
| Concrete nouns | Make it look professional — that instruction is already in the prompt |
If your graphic needs a headline on it, generate the background here, download it with ⬇ Download image, and add the words in whatever tool you already use. Asking the model for text produces mangled lettering, and it costs you an image either way.
What it costs
One image per attempt. A failure costs nothing, and the platform is unusually careful about this — the image allowance is handed back when:
- the model returns nothing;
- the picture comes back malformed or unusable;
- storing it fails;
- Telegram refuses the generated image on the Subscriber Exchange path, even though the generation itself succeeded;
- writing it into your saved ad post fails on the Paid Promotions path.
The rule is that a charge without a delivered, usable image is not allowed. Every failure message says no image was used.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| AI images unlock on Master. with a See plans button | The dialog's lock panel, drawn in place of the prompt field on every engine — images are not available to you right now | Check your plan first, then your reliability score. See Comparing the tiers |
| Describe your ad first — a brief or the post text. | The booking wizard's Generate image with AI found nothing to draw from | Write the post. There is no brief field on that page, so the post text is the only input |
| The AI could not do that just now - nothing was used. on the Image tab of a booking | Your saved ad post does not exist yet | Use Generate image with AI in the action row instead, or add the placement to your cart first |
| AI image generation isn’t included on this account. | The server refused a below-Master request — you see this from Generate image with AI, where there is no lock panel to stop you pressing it | Nothing was spent. See Comparing the tiers |
| Image generation is limited while your reliability recovers. | Your plan includes images but your reliability is below Fair | Complete what you have started, on time. See Reliability score |
| You've used your AI image allowance. | One of the two windows is full | The daily one resets at 00:00 UTC, the monthly one on the 1st |
| Image generation is temporarily unavailable. Please try again shortly. | The image engine specifically is down. Text can still work | Retry later. Nothing was spent |
| Image generation is temporarily unavailable. in the popup's lock panel | The same outage, seen before you press anything | The tab re-opens on its own once the engine is back |
| The AI couldn't create that image just now — no image was used. | An empty result | Retry with a simpler scene |
| The image came back unusable | The picture failed the same validity check a manual upload has to pass | Retry. Your allowance was refunded |
| Telegram wouldn't accept the generated image | Telegram refused the file on the Subscriber Exchange path | Retry, or upload a picture of your own. The image was refunded |
| Media uploads aren't available yet. | The Subscriber Exchange upload path is not configured | Nothing was spent. Try again later or contact support |
| AI is paused on your account while a review is open. | A review is open | It returns automatically when the review resolves |
| Too many attempts. Please wait a minute and try again. | The burst limit, not your allowance — image buttons allow 10 attempts per five minutes | Wait and retry |
Related
- The AI composer popup — the Image tab, its meters and its download button.
- AI in the booking composer — how a generated photo lands in an ad post's media slots.
- AI quotas and limits — both allowances, both windows and every wall.
- Comparing the tiers — what else Master and Ultimate include.