Create a Telegram bot via BotFather, get a chat or channel ID, and use a Make.com or n8n flow to push F5Bot or Syften alerts to it as formatted Markdown messages. Real-time, mobile-first, and effectively free if you self-host n8n.
Telegram is the mobile-first channel for solo founders and small teams who already live there. Push notifications are aggressive enough that you actually see the alert within 30 seconds, even off-laptop. Bots support rich formatting and inline buttons so you can open the Reddit thread in one tap.
Open Telegram, search for @BotFather, send /newbot, give your bot a name (Reddit Competitor Watch) and a username ending in bot (yourbrandcompbot). BotFather returns an HTTP API token like 7234567890:AAH-EXAMPLE_TOKEN.
Create a Telegram channel or group for alerts. Add your bot as an admin with post-message permission.
Get the chat_id. Send a test message to the channel from any account, then visit https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates and grab the chat.id value (negative number for channels).
In Make.com or n8n, set up a flow: source is your Reddit alert tool (Syften webhook, F5Bot email via parser, or Reddit RSS), destination is HTTP Request to https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/sendMessage with chat_id, text, and parse_mode=MarkdownV2.
Format the message body to include the competitor name as bold, the subreddit, the post title as a Markdown link, a 1-2 line snippet, and an inline keyboard button labeled Open Thread linking to the Reddit URL.
Test by triggering a match. Bot post should land in the Telegram channel within 5-10 seconds of the webhook firing.
Real payload shape for Telegram. Paste this into your handler to test the integration without waiting for a live match.
POST https://api.telegram.org/bot7234567890:AAH-EXAMPLE_TOKEN/sendMessage
Content-Type: application/json
{
"chat_id": -1001234567890,
"parse_mode": "MarkdownV2",
"text": "*Competitor mention: Calendly*\n\nš r/smallbusiness\nš¤ u/agency_owner_42 \\| score 12\n\n[Cheaper Calendly alternative for 3\\-person agency?](https://reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/xyz789)\n\n> Calendly's team plan is $192/mo for 3 seats and we use maybe 40% of features\\.\\.\\.",
"reply_markup": {
"inline_keyboard": [[
{"text": "Open Thread", "url": "https://reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/xyz789"},
{"text": "Claim", "callback_data": "claim_xyz789"}
]]
}
}A solo founder of a Figma plugin tracked Figma plugin alternative in Syften with a Telegram bot pushing to a channel only she watched. She replied from her phone within 2 minutes on average and tracked 9 of 11 monthly conversions to those Reddit reply threads.
A two-person crypto-tax startup ran a Telegram channel with Koinly and CoinTracker mentions piped via n8n. The non-technical co-founder triaged from his phone during his commute, the technical co-founder replied from his laptop on receipt of a thread tagged for him.
An indie SaaS in the EU watched competitor mentions during EU business hours via Telegram and let them queue silently overnight US time. The mobile-first model meant the founder never needed a laptop to act on a thread.
MediaFast's Opportunity Finder scores Reddit threads by intent and pipes the high-signal ones to your channel of choice. No multi-tool setup.
drag-and-drop flow from Syften webhook or F5Bot email parser to Telegram sendMessage. Free tier covers low volume.
same pattern with more control, free if self-hosted. n8n Cloud starts $20/mo.
Email by Zapier into Telegram by Zapier. Works but Zapier's Telegram action is bare-bones (no inline buttons). $20/mo+.
poll Reddit API directly, push to Telegram, fully free under Workers free tier.
source only, no native Telegram. Pair with Make or Zapier.
Solo founders and 2-3 person teams who triage from mobile and already use Telegram for team comms.
Effectively free with n8n self-hosted or Cloudflare Workers. Make.com free tier covers most solo use. Zapier path is $20/mo+.
Pick a different channel or alert type and read the matched guide.
If you would rather skip the tool stack and just get the high-intent Reddit threads delivered, MediaFast ships an Opportunity Finder that scores threads by buying intent and pushes them to email or webhook. It sits in the same category as the tools listed above and stays competitive on price.
The questions teams actually ask before wiring this up.
Telegram's B2B presence is small outside Eastern Europe and certain crypto and indie founder circles. Mainstream Reddit alert tools prioritize Slack, email, and webhooks where their enterprise customers live. The webhook route lets you bridge Telegram in 10 minutes via Make or n8n.
Personal DM: positive integer (123456789). Group: negative integer (-987654321). Channel: prefixed with -100 (-1001234567890). Get it by sending a message and hitting https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getUpdates, then grab chat.id.
MarkdownV2 requires escaping these characters with backslash: _, *, [, ], (, ), ~, `, >, #, +, -, =, |, {, }, ., !. Wrapping the message body through a small JS escape function before sendMessage is the cleanest fix. Or use parse_mode HTML which has fewer landmines.
Yes via Telegram callback_data plus a small bot backend. When the user taps Claim, Telegram fires a callbackQuery to your bot endpoint with the callback_data value and the user who clicked. Your backend then edits the message to add the claimer's name and stores it in your db.
MediaFast's Opportunity Finder pulls Reddit posts where your product solves a stated problem and scores them by buying intent. One tool, no glue code.
Try Opportunity Finder