There is no exact number, and anyone quoting one is making it up. Telegram does not publish story thresholds any more than it publishes message ones. What is known is the shape of it.
What is certain
- Stories have their own ceiling. The «too many stories» error arrives separately from messaging restrictions — different counters.
- It depends on the account. A fresh account hits it sooner than an old one, as everywhere in Telegram.
- It is about frequency, not about how many people one caption mentions.
Why mass mentions are riskier than mass stories
A story on its own is an ordinary action. What looks unusual is an account posting story after story, each mentioning strangers with nothing in common. No human behaves that way, and it is that picture — not a number — that produces restrictions.
The general mechanism: why Telegram bans accounts.
How to tell you are close
First sign: the story posts but notifications stop arriving. Second: an explicit error. Third and worst: silence in replies at unchanged volume — the account still works, it is simply shown less.
What to do
The same as with any restriction: reduce volume and wait, rather than move the same pace to another account. Warm-up applies here too — work out your own pace in the warm-up calculator.
How Neurogram does this
Everything above is manual work that runs into the number of hours in a day. Neurogram does it on your own accounts and without you: it collects channels and audiences, writes comments and replies with a language model, and keeps limits and quiet hours so the accounts survive. See pricing or look at your case.