How a Flow Runs

What actually happens between someone commenting and the messages landing — useful when you're working out why a flow behaved a particular way.

The short version

Someone comments. InfluDM replies publicly under the comment, then sends them a single opening message with a button. When they tap it, the rest of the flow runs: your messages, your ask-to-follow gate, your lead form.

Everything after that first tap happens in the DM thread, and it happens in seconds.

When a flow won't start

Some events never reach your flows at all:

Situation	Why
The Instagram account is paused	Your plan doesn't currently cover it.
You're out of contact allowance	The person is new and your plan is full.
The account needs reconnecting	Instagram has stopped accepting our access.
The comment already started a flow	Instagram allows one opening message per comment, ever.
You wrote it	Otherwise a flow would answer its own reply forever.
It's a reply underneath another comment	Only top-level comments start a flow.

Events missed for these reasons aren't picked up later — they're gone. Fix the cause and the next comment works.

Which flow runs

InfluDM checks your active flows for that account and trigger type, skipping any whose post or keywords don't match.

For comments, only one flow can run — Instagram allows a single opening message per comment, so a second flow would have nothing left to send. Keep keyword lists distinct between flows watching the same post, or you won't be able to predict which one answers.

Comment and live triggers

1. Your public reply is posted under the comment.
2. Your opening message is sent as a DM, with its button.
3. The conversation waits.
4. They tap the button — or just reply — and the response steps run.

That wait matters. Instagram only opens the messaging window once they interact, so the rest of your flow is unreachable until they do. This is why the opening message is required on comment flows: it's the one thing you're allowed to send uninvited, and its only job is to earn that tap.

Someone who never taps receives nothing further. That isn't a failure — it's the rule the whole product is shaped around.

DM and story-reply triggers

Simpler: the messaging window is already open because they messaged you first, so your steps run immediately. No opening message is needed.

Running the steps

Steps are sent in order, top to bottom. Disabled steps are skipped as if they weren't there.

Two of them pause the flow rather than sending and moving on:

• Ask to follow waits for the tap, then checks the follow.
• Lead form asks one question at a time and waits for each answer.

If a message can't be delivered, the flow stops there rather than skipping ahead — a half-sent sequence is more confusing than one that stops. Anything already delivered stays delivered; nothing is ever sent twice.

Resuming a conversation

When someone taps a button or answers a question, InfluDM picks the conversation back up exactly where it paused — even if they took hours to reply, and even if several of your flows are talking to them.

A reply that answers a question is treated as that answer and nothing else, so answering a lead form can't accidentally trigger a keyword flow at the same time.

The ask-to-follow check

Before the gate sends anything it checks whether the person already follows you. If they do, the gate is skipped silently and the flow carries straight on — they never see the ask.

For everyone else the follow is verified live at the moment they respond, not from anything stored earlier. A tap on the confirm button counts, and so does a typed reply — Instagram shows no buttons on desktop, so a gate that only accepted taps would strand anyone reading on a computer.

• Following — the flow continues from the next step.
• Not following — one reminder goes back, and the conversation waits.

The check keeps running on everything they send afterwards, so someone who follows on their fourth message is let through on their fourth message. The reminder, though, is sent only once. Answering every message with the same card is how an account gets reported, and the card with the way through is already in the thread.

Why the check can be unreliable

Instagram only reveals whether someone follows you once they've messaged your account. That's usually true by this point, since they tapped your opening message. When Instagram won't say, the gate treats it as "not following" and re-asks rather than handing over the payload — a needless ask is recoverable, giving your link to a non-follower isn't.

A follow made seconds earlier can also take a moment to become visible, so an honest confirmation occasionally lands on the reminder. Replying again resolves it.

Lead-form capture

Questions are asked one at a time, in order. Email and phone questions offer a tap-to-fill option so nobody has to type theirs.

An answer that clearly isn't an email or phone number gets a polite re-ask, then is accepted as typed — nobody gets stuck in a loop arguing with a form.

A lead is recorded when the last question is answered. Someone who abandons halfway doesn't appear.

Follow-ups

If someone taps your opening message and then stalls at a gate, one follow-up nudge can be sent after a delay you choose. It's cancelled automatically the moment they move on, so nobody is nudged about something they've already done, and nobody gets nudged twice.

Conversations that are never finished

Not everyone answers. Someone taps your opening message, reaches the ask-to-follow gate, and never comes back.

Those conversations don't stay open indefinitely. After a couple of days with no response the conversation is settled — closed out quietly, with nothing further sent. It's recorded as expired rather than failed, because a person choosing not to follow you is the gate working, not a malfunction.

This is also why an old abandoned conversation can't swallow a new one. If that same person messages you fresh a month later, they start a new conversation and match your triggers normally, instead of having their message read as a late answer to a question they'd long forgotten.

Where the AI fits

Your flows and the AI features run side by side and never compete for the same message.

A message a flow is already handling — a lead-form answer, a gate confirmation, an opener tap — is consumed by the flow and never reaches the AI. Everything else is what the AI reads. See How the AI Works for the full sequence.

Editing a flow mid-conversation

Changes apply to new conversations immediately. People already partway through are following the sequence as it was when they started, so reordering or removing steps while someone is mid-flow can land them somewhere unexpected.

It's rarely a problem in practice — most conversations finish in minutes. Prefer editing a flow when it's quiet.