Secret Santa Bot for Telegram: Join, Draw, and DM Matches
Running Secret Santa by hand in a group chat means someone has to draw names privately and DM each person without slipping up and revealing a match in the group. SantaDrawProBot does the whole thing inside Telegram: members join from a card in the group, the organizer draws, and each participant's match arrives by private DM — nobody in the group chat ever sees who has who.
It also handles the two things that usually cause friction: wishlists, so your Santa knows what to get you, and exclusions, so you don't accidentally draw your own partner.
Because the draw and the DMs are automated, the organizer doesn't have to manually message ten or twenty people one by one and keep track of who's been told — running /draw once handles delivery to everyone in the exchange at the same time.
Steps
- Start the exchange with a budget and date. /santa 25 EUR 2026-12-20 posts an event card with a 🎁 Join / Leave button, budget, and gift date. Only one active Secret Santa can run per group at a time.
- Have members join. Tapping Join requires having started a private chat with the bot first — if you haven't, a "Start me first" button appears; tap it, then Join again.
- Add a wishlist in DM. /wish socks, a good book, coffee, sent privately to the bot, gets forwarded to whoever draws you — do this any time before the draw.
- Exclude anyone who shouldn't match (Pro). The organizer runs /exclude @alice @bob to stop those two being matched with each other in either direction — handy for couples or family members.
- Draw with /draw. The organizer runs this to randomly assign a Secret Santa to everyone, honoring exclusions, and each participant gets their match plus that person's wishlist by DM. The card then shows "Drawn ✅ N participants".
Good to know
- Free: up to 10 participants per exchange and one draw. Pro (one-time 150 Stars per group) removes the participant cap, allows exclusions, unlimited redraws with /redraw, and adds a reminder DM to every participant 3 days before the exchange date.
- Matches are only ever sent privately by DM — the group chat never sees who has who, and only members who've started a private chat with the bot can be matched at all.
- Exchange data (participants, matches, wishlists) is kept until the set exchange date plus 30 days, then deleted automatically; an organizer can also end an exchange early to remove it sooner.
- Only the organizer can run /draw, /redraw, or /exclude — participants can only Join, Leave, and set their own /wish.
- A wishlist sent with /wish is capped at 500 characters and applies across every exchange you're part of that hasn't ended yet, so you don't need to resend it if you're in more than one group's Secret Santa.
FAQ
- Can group members see who drew whom?
- No — matches are sent only by private DM to each participant. The group chat only ever sees the Join/Leave card and, after the draw, a "Drawn ✅ N participants" status.
- What if someone forgets to message the bot privately first?
- Tapping Join without having started a private chat with the bot shows a "Start me first" button — tap it, then tap Join again, and you're in.
- How many people can join for free?
- Up to 10 participants and one draw. Pro removes the participant cap and allows unlimited redraws, for a one-time 150 Stars payment per group.
- Can we keep two specific people from being matched together?
- Yes, with Pro — the organizer runs /exclude @alice @bob and those two won't be matched with each other in either direction, useful for couples.