How upgrading Telegram gifts works

Updated 12 November 2026 · 4 min read

Upgrading turns a regular Telegram gift into a unique collectible. You pay a fee in Stars, and Telegram gives the gift a serial number plus three random traits: a model, a backdrop and a symbol. Those traits decide most of what the gift is worth later. As of November 2026, Sales Tracker counts 7,940 models across 125 upgradable collections.

How to upgrade a gift

Only gifts Telegram marks as upgradable can be upgraded. The steps are short:

1. Open the gift on your profile or in the chat where you received it.
2. Tap the upgrade option. Telegram shows a preview of the models, backdrops and symbols the gift can roll.
3. Choose whether to keep the original details: who sent the gift, to whom and with what message. Removing them costs extra.
4. Pay the upgrade fee in Stars. The cost differs from gift to gift.

A sender can also prepay the upgrade when buying the gift. The recipient then upgrades it at no cost. Subscribers who send gifts to a channel can do the same.

The result is permanent. You cannot reroll a trait or undo the upgrade, and an upgraded gift can no longer be converted into Stars.

What you get: model, backdrop, symbol and number

Every upgraded gift carries four things that make it unique:

• Model: the artwork. It is the trait buyers look at first, and collections have many: Desk Calendar has 157 models, Jingle Bells 151, Myth Mask 134, Resistance Dog 127 and Lol Pop 100.
• Backdrop: the colored background behind the model. Some gifts look far better on one color, and a model whose colors match its backdrop is called monochrome.
• Symbol: a small icon repeated in a pattern across the backdrop.
• Serial number: the gift's place in the collection, shown as #1, #2 and onward. Low numbers and patterns such as #1111 draw their own premium.

Telegram gives each upgraded gift a public page at t.me/nft/GiftName-Number. Sales Tracker keeps a page for each one too, with its traits, listings and sales history. Plush Pepe #2 lives at /nft/plushpepe/2.

Some collections also include craftable models, which come from Telegram's crafting feature rather than from a plain upgrade. Crafting uses up other gifts, which are then burned. Collection pages mark these models as Crafted, and the Finder can show or hide burned gifts.

How rarity percentages work

Each trait shows a percentage. It is the share of that collection's upgraded gifts with the same trait. A model at 0.5% appears on roughly one gift in two hundred. A backdrop at 2% appears on one in fifty. Telegram also groups models into tiers: Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary.

Traits roll independently, so the odds of a full combination multiply. A 1% model on a 1% backdrop comes out about once in 10,000 upgrades. Backdrop pages in Sales Tracker do this math for you: each combo shows its odds, such as "1 in 5,000", and about how many such gifts exist.

Percentages are not fixed forever. While a collection is still being upgraded, the shares shift a little as new gifts roll. Gifts burned in crafting also leave the count. Sales Tracker refreshes these counts from its index every few minutes.

Browse every backdrop

Why rare traits sell higher

Buyers pay for scarcity and for looks, and the two often go together. The record sales show it. Of the 15 most expensive gift sales Sales Tracker has recorded as of November 2026, 14 are Plush Pepes, and 9 of those carry the same model, Cozy Galaxy.

Record sales as of November 2026.

Within one collection, the model usually sets the price floor and the backdrop adjusts it. Black and Onyx Black backdrops are popular enough that collection pages list their floors next to the plain model floor. Each backdrop page also says how many times the common backdrop it sells for, when there are enough sales to compare.

The serial number adds a premium on top. Sales Tracker's price estimate measures it from past sales of similar numbers: one, two and three digit numbers, repeated digits, sequences, palindromes and round hundreds or thousands. The rarity guide covers number premiums in detail.

Watching new upgrades as they happen

The New upgrades page lists gifts moments after they are upgraded or crafted, as the scanner finds them on Telegram. You can filter it so only the gifts you care about show:

• Model rarity at or below a percentage, for example 1%.
• Backdrop rarity at or below a percentage.
• A range of gift numbers, such as #1 to #100.
• Crafted models only, or one symbol.

This is the fastest way to spot a rare roll before it appears on a marketplace. When it does get listed, the Deal Finder compares its price with recent sales of the same model and backdrop.

See new upgrades

Should you upgrade or sell as is

Upgrading is a gamble on the roll. Most upgrades land on common traits and sell near the collection floor. A few land on a rare model or backdrop and sell for many times more. Before paying the fee, check what upgraded gifts of that collection actually sell for:

1. Open the collection, for example Plush Pepe or Myth Mask, and sort the models by cheapest or rarest.
2. Compare the cheapest model floor with the upgrade fee in Stars.
3. Check recent prices on Sales, filtered to that gift.

If the cheapest upgraded gift sells for less than your fee plus the gift, the odds favor not upgrading. For a full method, read how to tell what a Telegram gift is worth.

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