Zenedu is perfect for creators, course authors, and entrepreneurs who want to quickly and conveniently launch their digital product in a bot and control content monetization.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to launch your course, lecture, or marathon in just a few steps.
Step 1: Create and add a bot to the platform
If you don’t have a bot yet:
Open @BotFather in Telegram, click /newbot.
Set a name and username (must end with "bot"), for example: zenedu_bot.
Copy the token from the last message from BotFather and paste it in the “Bots” section on Zenеdu.
If the bot is already created:
Open @BotFather in Telegram, click /token and select your bot.
Copy the token from the last message and paste it into the “Bots” section on Zenedu
If you face any difficulties, use the detailed guide “How to create and add a bot to Zenedu”.
Step 2: Create your product
Go to your bot on the platform, open the “Products” section and click “Create Product”.
You’ll be asked to create a pricing plan for the new product to which users will be added. You can later edit it and connect payment methods.
Step 3: Fill your product with content
Each step is a separate unit of information that your subscribers or students will see.
Available step types:
Messages — use for greetings, announcements, and broadcasts.
Lessons — add text, materials, and videos.
Assignments — describe homework with manual or automatic checking.
Question — ask users questions to get feedback or understand their interests. Answers are saved in the subscriber’s card and can help assess satisfaction or select the next course.
Quiz — test knowledge with multiple-choice questions. Show explanations for incorrect answers.
Survey — conduct surveys among the audience.
Steps can be duplicated and edited.
Here are a few examples of how a lesson might look:
If your digital product is a paid lecture or material, it’s enough to create two steps: a welcome message and a lesson with content or recording.
For a full course or marathon, use all step types and configure the conditions for progressing to the next step.
More details: How to work with Steps
Step 4: Set up content delivery schedule
You can choose how your digital product content is delivered by setting up step delivery time.
Synchronous course
Lessons are sent to everyone at the same time
Set the sending time: “On a specific date”
Asynchronous course
Start on any day chosen by the subscriber
Available delivery types:
– “In” — after a specific time
– “On the exact day” — fixed date
– “After action” — after completing a task or clicking a button. For the "after click" case — add a button with the action “Send next step”
Open course
The subscriber chooses the lesson order
All lessons are available immediately, delivery time: No
If you are launching a marathon, the most convenient option is an asynchronous course with delivery “After” or “After action”, where you set the required user action in the previous step (e.g. submit homework or click a button).
For convenience, you can group steps into modules by similar content. Added modules will appear in the bot menu.
Step 5: Set up the Product Menu
In the “Product” section, open the “Menu” tab. Here you can add commands for a specific product or set a universal menu to be shown in all products. Here’s how command setup looks:
You can add a store, schedule, knowledge base. We recommend adding module commands and a support contact button for courses.
After activation, a “Menu” button will appear in the bot
More details in this section about bot menu.
Step 6: Enable content protection
You can protect content, links in the product, and the bot itself from copying.
When product protection is enabled, subscribers cannot:
save images, videos, or files
forward materials
copy text
take screenshots or screen recordings
This is one of the most reliable protection methods: sharing a messenger account is harder than sharing platform login details.
How to enable lesson content protection:
Go to Product Settings
Enable the toggle “Content Protection” in Advanced Settings on the page.
How to enable link copy protection:
Go to link button settings in a specific step
Enable “Protect from copying”
Click “Done.” Links can no longer be copied. Your links are now protected from copying:
How to enable automatic content deletion
Content is deleted from the bot after access expires (e.g. after 14 days). The user will see a message about it.
Deletion applies at the tariff and product step level.
Video messages and voice notes are not deleted — this is a Telegram limitation.
The feature is enabled by default when creating a tariff but can be disabled in tariff settings. More details in the Tariff Settings section.
How to restrict bot subscription
You can further protect your content by preventing unwanted subscriptions to your bot from Telegram search. Here's how:
Go to your bot settings on the platform.
Enable “Restrict direct subscription”.
Step 7: Configure and activate your product
We recommend doing the following:
Go to the “Product Settings” section and enable the “Lesson titles” option. This automatically adds each lesson’s title to the message text.
Set the “Access time” parameter for the course if your product includes limited access depending on the selected plan.
To activate the product, click the “Activate” button at the top right of the product page. Then click “Get link” and use it to test your product. If you need to test it again, enable Restart product and use the link again.
Step 8: Grant access to clients and set up content monetization
On Zenedu, you can choose one of two access options for your product:
Free access. Choose this if users should get content for free or have paid elsewhere — e.g. on your landing page or via another channel. Just send them the product link, and they’ll access it without additional payment in the bot.
Paid access through the bot or Zenedu mini-landing page. You can set up payment in the “Plans” section. After following the link, subscribers will pay first and then get access to the course. You won’t need to manually check who paid — all data will be shown automatically in the “Payments” section on the platform.
You can share a link to the bot or to a Zenedu mini-landing page that outlines the benefits of your digital product.
How to create a mini-landing — read in this material.
Our recommendations for managing a digital product
To conclude, we’ve compiled key tips to help you manage your products more effectively:
Create the bot on behalf of the project owner. We recommend that the bot is created from the account of the project owner — this way, access rights to the bot and project will remain with them. If necessary, you can add team members in the “Project Settings” section and configure their access rights.
Use funnels for warming up and marketing in the bot. If you want to build a full-fledged sales funnel directly in Telegram, use Funnels on the Zenedu platform. This will allow you to maintain audience interest, publish announcements of new products, and plan free webinars and marathons. Read more about funnels in this article.
Separate access by pricing plans using different products. If you offer multiple pricing tiers with different access levels (for example, “Standard” — access to only one module, and “Business” — access to the entire course), it’s best to create separate products on the platform for each tier. That is, one product is intended for “Standard” students with corresponding content, and another — for “Business” students.