An uplink control channel sending method, comprising: determining, by a terminal device, a compensation power of an uplink control channel based on first information and a bit per resource element, BPRE, corresponding to uplink control information, wherein the uplink control channel is used to carry uplink control information, and the first information is associated with a first parameter set, and the first parameter set is one of at least two parameter sets, each of the at least two parameter sets comprises at least one of the following: a channel coding type of the uplink control information, a transmission format of the uplink control channel, or a length of a check code bit of the uplink control information, wherein there is at least one parameter that is different from a respective another parameter in the at least two parameter sets, there is a mapping relationship between the at least two parameter sets and at least two compensation coefficient sets, each compensation coefficient set includes at least one of a value of compensation coefficient k 1 or a value of compensation coefficient k 2, wherein there is at least one compensation coefficient that is different from a respective another compensation parameter in the at least two compensation coefficient sets, k 1 and k 2 are greater than or equal to 0, and the compensation power meets the following formula: Δ TF =10log 10 [ f ( k 1 · T, k 2)], where Δ TF represents the compensation power, T represents the BPRE corresponding to the uplink control information, the value of k 1 and k 2 belong to compensation coefficient set corresponding to the first parameter set, and f ( k 1 · T, k 2) is a preset function that uses T, k 1 and k 2 as variables; determining, by the terminal device, a transmit power of the uplink control channel based on the compensation power; and sending, by the terminal device, the uplink control channel based on the transmit power; wherein the BPRE is a ratio of a quantity of bits of the uplink control information to a quantity of resource elements occupied by the uplink control channel, the quantity of bits of the uplink control information is a sum of a quantity of information bits of the uplink control information and a quantity of cyclic redundancy check, CRC bits of the uplink control information. Δ TF =10log 10 [ f ( k 1 · T, k 2)], where Δ TF represents the compensation power, T represents the BPRE corresponding to the uplink control information, the value of k 1 and k 2 belong to compensation coefficient set corresponding to the first parameter set, and f ( k 1 · T, k 2) is a preset function that uses T, k 1 and k 2 as variables; determining, by the terminal device, a transmit power of the uplink control channel based on the compensation power; and sending, by the terminal device, the uplink control channel based on the transmit power; wherein the BPRE is a ratio of a quantity of bits of the uplink control information to a quantity of resource elements occupied by the uplink control channel, the quantity of bits of the uplink control information is a sum of a quantity of information bits of the uplink control information and a quantity of cyclic redundancy check, CRC bits of the uplink control information.