Switch your Instagram to a Business or Creator account. In Instagram: Settings → Account type and tools → Switch to professional account. Instagram only allows automated replies on professional accounts — this is their rule, not ours, and nothing works until it is done.
Connect it to Instoly. Dashboard → Settings → Connect Instagram. You will land on instagram.com and log in there. We never see your password.
Allow the permissions Instagram asks for. If you skip the messaging permission, flows will look set up and quietly send nothing.
Create your first flow and point it at one specific post. Not "all posts" — one, so you can see clearly whether it worked.
Test it from a second account. Instagram does not send you a DM for your own comment, so testing from your own profile always looks like a failure.
The single most common setup mistake: commenting from the same account that owns the post. Borrow a friend's phone.
2. How a flow actually works
A flow is one sentence: when someone does X, send them Y. Instagram tells us the moment a comment lands, we check it against your keywords, and if it matches we send the DM. In practice that is a few seconds.
What can trigger a flow
A comment containing a keyword — the common one.
An exact keyword match — stricter, for when a loose match keeps catching the wrong comments.
Any comment on a post — for a giveaway or a launch where you want everyone.
A story reply or a story mention — for "reply LINK to my story".
The rule that decides whether the DM lands
Instagram lets you message someone who has interacted with you, within a 24-hour window from that interaction. A comment opens the window. This is why an Auto DM sent seconds after a comment is reliable and a message you try to send two days later is not.
Write the DM as a reply, not a broadcast. The message that performs best is short, references what they commented, and has one link. Three links and a paragraph of hype reads as spam and gets reported.
3. Choosing keywords that do not misfire
Pick a word nobody uses by accident. "LINK", "PRICE" and "SEND" all appear in ordinary comments. "GLOW30" does not.
Say the keyword out loud in the reel. Comments follow instructions far more than captions.
Add the obvious misspellings. People type fast on phones.
Case does not matter. "link", "Link" and "LINK" are the same keyword.
Use exact match when a word is short. Otherwise "so" matches "so good", "also" and "person".
4. Credits, plainly
One credit, one thing done. There is nothing else to decode.
1 auto DM = 1 DM credit
1 comment reply = 1 DM credit
1 invoice = 1 invoice credit
1 AI try-on = 1 AI credit, and only when it succeeds
Free includes 1,000 DM credits a month, Pro 30,000, Business 3,00,000. The allowance refills every month and does not roll over.
Credits you buy are different
Credit packs never expire, and your monthly allowance is always spent first — so a pack you buy in March is untouched until a month where you actually run out. That ordering is deliberate: you should never lose something you paid for because a free allowance was sitting beside it.
Pro covers 2 accounts and Business 5. Switch between them from the sidebar; flows, analytics and the inbox all follow whichever one you are on.
Credits are pooled, not split. Five accounts on Business share one balance of 3,00,000 rather than getting a fifth each. A quiet account is not wasting an allowance, and a month where one account goes viral can use the whole pool.
6. Giving someone their own login
If a manager or an editor runs some of your accounts, give them a team seat rather than your password. Settings → Team.
They sign in with their own email and password.
They see only the Instagram profiles you assign them.
They cannot see your billing, buy anything, cancel your plan, or connect new accounts.
They spend your shared credits, so there is nothing to top up twice.
Removing a seat takes their login away and hands their profiles back to you. Everything they built stays — it was always in your workspace.
7. Getting paid: invoices
Build a GST invoice from the posts you actually delivered, get a PDF and a shareable link, and send it to the brand. Set your prefix, GSTIN and default currency once in Settings and every invoice inherits them.
One invoice costs one invoice credit. Free includes 20 a month, Pro 50, Business 200 — and you can top up.
8. AI Studio
AI Studio writes flows in eleven Indian languages, generates virtual try-on images from a product photo, and produces short tutorial clips. Each generation costs AI credits.
A failed generation costs you nothing. The credit goes straight back to your balance — you do not have to ask, and you do not have to notice.
9. What Instagram will and will not allow
Instoly runs on Instagram's official API, which means we are bound by their rules and we will not build around them. Worth knowing, because most "why did that not send" questions are one of these:
The 24-hour window. We can message someone who interacted with you, for 24 hours after they did.
Professional accounts only. A personal account cannot use automated messaging at all.
Rate limits. Instagram caps how fast an account can send. During a viral spike we queue and pace the sends rather than dropping them — a burst that trips the limit risks your account, not just the message.
No cold DMs. Nothing here can message people who have not interacted with you. That is the line between automation and spam, and it is not adjustable.
10. When something is not working
Nobody is getting DMs
Is the flow live rather than draft or paused?
Is it attached to the post they are commenting on?
Are you testing from the account that owns the post? Instagram will not deliver that one.
Is Instagram still connected? Settings shows it, and a token can expire.
Did you allow the messaging permission when you connected? If you are not sure, disconnect and reconnect and accept everything.
"Instagram disconnected"
Meta expires access periodically, and always if you change your Instagram password. Reconnect from Settings; your flows, history and analytics are untouched.
Some comments trigger, others do not
Almost always the keyword. Check for a typo you did not anticipate, or switch from exact match to contains.
Still stuck
Contact support with the post link and roughly when it happened — that is enough for us to find the exact event in the logs.
Set up your first flow
Free to start. No card, no commission on anything you earn.