Instagram's Messaging Rules

Almost every design decision in InfluDM traces back to a rule Instagram enforces. Knowing the four that matter makes the product's behaviour obvious.

1. One private reply per comment

When someone comments on your post, Instagram lets the business send exactly one private message in response — a private reply. Not one per hour. One, ever, for that comment.

What follows from this:

• The opening message is that one message, so it's required for any comment flow that has response steps.
• Everything else in the flow waits until the person engages.
• A comment that already triggered a run is never run again, even if Instagram redelivers the webhook.
• Only one flow can fire per comment — the first match wins.
• Two flows can't watch the same post for the same trigger type; the media picker locks those tiles.
• Someone who never taps your opener can't be messaged again. Not by a retry, not by a follow-up.

2. The 24-hour messaging window

Once a person messages the business — or taps a quick reply, which counts as messaging — a 24-hour window opens in which the business may send freely. When it closes, unsolicited messages stop being allowed.

What follows:

• Response steps run only after the person has engaged, because that's what opens the window.
• Follow-up delays are capped at 23 hours, so the nudge always lands inside the window.
• A conversation parked at a gate can be resumed by the person at any time the window allows.

3. Profile lookups need consent

A business may look up someone's profile — including whether they follow you — only once that person has messaged the account.

What follows:

• Contacts who only ever commented show Unknown relationship. That is not the same as "not following", and the UI never treats it as such.
• The ask-to-follow gate checks live at the moment of the tap — by then the person has messaged, so the check is allowed.

4. Message format limits

Instagram's Send API constrains what a message can carry:

Constraint	Effect in InfluDM
Quick-reply labels are short	Button labels capped at 20 characters
Buttons per template	3 maximum
Image attachments by URL	JPEG, PNG or GIF, up to 8 MB — enforced at upload
Multi-attachment sends are unreliable	Image steps send one message per image
Some private-reply targets reject quick replies	The opening message falls back to plain text automatically

What InfluDM does not do

To stay inside these rules — and inside Instagram's platform policies — InfluDM deliberately doesn't:

• Message people who haven't interacted with you.
• Retry a private reply that wasn't tapped.
• Send bulk or broadcast DMs to your contact list.
• Follow, unfollow, or like on your behalf.
• Scrape follower lists.

Everything it sends is a reply to an action a real person took.

Practical consequences for your copy

Because you get one shot at the DM before engagement:

1. The opening message carries all the weight. Say what they get and make the button an action.
2. Put the ask-to-follow gate after something valuable, not before it.
3. Keep lead forms short. Every question is a place to drop out, and a stalled form is a lost lead.
4. Use the follow-up. It's the only second chance the rules allow, and it only reaches people who already engaged once.