Premium voices for Stars, and a quota in every plan

Every plan now includes voice replies — roughly a fifth of its message allowance. This is not an upsell but part of the plan: voice has to be available at every level, otherwise nobody starts using it.

• Free — 10 voice replies a month.
• Go — 100 replies.
• Plus — 600 replies.
• Pro — 3000 replies.

How a single reply is paid for

1. A standard voice within the quota — free, spends one unit of the quota.
2. A standard voice beyond the quota — charged to your Stars balance at a low rate.
3. A premium voice — always charged to the balance, never touches the quota.

If the quota is used up and the balance is short, the reply goes out as text. There is nothing to downgrade a premium voice to, and giving synthesis away for free is not an option — so the included voices have a price too, and it only applies beyond the quota.

Why a prepaid balance

Telegram Stars cannot be charged silently: every payment needs an invoice and a confirmation. Charging per reply under that rule would mean interrupting the owner with a confirmation for every single answer. So the owner buys a bundle and synthesis draws it down.

The price is visible before you send

You are charged for the characters actually spoken, not for the limit you set. The mini app has a panel with the remaining quota and a live estimate for the chosen voice: what a typical reply will cost and what the longest one allowed by the current limit will cost. The estimate recalculates as you drag the slider, so that “shorter reply — cheaper audio” is something you see rather than something you are told.

The premium markup is five times the cost of synthesis. A reply at the 900-character ceiling comes to 11 Stars; a typical reply of about 300 characters comes to 4. How the voice quota relates to the other limits is covered in the post about HeadHack plans in full.

The voices have names now

Instead of a dropdown of technical identifiers there are cards with names and a sense of delivery: Aurora, Artem, Zakhar. Premium ones are marked with a star and the price per reply. Previewing a sample is free for any voice, including the most expensive: billing plays no part in the preview at all.