The short version
Instagram DM automation means your professional account answers incoming messages (and story replies) by a rule you set. The simplest rule reads: if the message contains this word, send this reply. The reply goes out from BixoChat's servers, so it works while you sleep and while your phone is off. This page covers what the automation can do, the five-step setup, and the limits worth knowing before you build anything.
What a DM automation is made of
The trigger
The trigger decides when a message gets an answer. There are three kinds: Contains (the word appears anywhere in the message), Exactly (the message is that phrase and nothing else) and a pattern (a regular expression, for advanced cases). There is no "any message" trigger for DMs; messages that match nothing are handled by the setting for all other messages at the bottom of the list. One automation takes up to 10 triggers. People write "how much is it", "price?", "what does it cost", so in practice you use Contains with a few synonyms.
The reply
The reply can be text (up to 1,000 characters), an image, a video, an audio clip or cards. A reply can include up to 3 buttons or up to 5 quick replies; a card reply shows up to 10 cards, which is the way to show several products at once. A card holds an image, a title, a short description and up to 3 buttons; video cannot go in a card. A button either opens a link or brings up the next message: leave the link empty and attach an automation to the button, and the button's title becomes that automation's trigger. Quick replies sit side by side, send text only, and cannot be mixed with buttons in one reply.
The options
- Require a follow before replying: the person is asked to follow you and tap a button first; the real reply goes out after the tap. Useful for giveaways, "follow to get the link" setups and messages with links.
- Reply delay: the reply goes out after the delay you set, in seconds, minutes or hours (up to one day). Ten to thirty seconds makes a reply read as if a person typed it.
- Auto-like: the incoming message gets a like.
Story replies
A reply to your story is a DM. The same triggers answer it. Telling viewers to "reply LINK" and binding an automation to the word "link" is the shortest way to automate story replies; the details are in Instagram story reply automation.
Forms and leads
To collect details question by question, use the Form Builder: a trigger word starts the form, it asks up to 30 questions, and every answer is saved in Lead Management. With automatic capture switched on in Lead Management, phone numbers and emails sent on their own in ordinary DMs are saved too; the list exports to Excel. Setup: Collecting leads in Instagram DMs.
Messages that match nothing
With the setting for all other messages off, unmatched messages get no automatic reply. Switch on the AI replies option and the AI assistant answers them from your business description and your DM goal. It replies with text only and does not read your website, so read its first replies for a few days and refine the description.
Setup in five steps
Connect Instagram
Click Connect Instagram in the panel and pick your account in Meta's own login window; your password never reaches BixoChat. The account must be a professional account (business or creator), and all permissions should stay on when Instagram asks. The three usual reasons a connection fails: the account is still personal, the browser is logged in to a different account, or the connect link opened inside the Instagram app instead of a browser.
Direct Automation → new automation
Open Instagram → Direct Automation and create a new automation. Name it after the topic: "Price", "Shipping", "Welcome".
Add the trigger
Type the word and pick the match kind: Contains, Exactly or a pattern. Add the words one by one: price, how much, cost. Up to 10 triggers per automation; Exactly is usually too narrow for everyday messages, so prefer Contains. Do not use words that appear in every message ("info", "thanks", "hi") and never give the same word to two automations. Also remember that Contains fires on any message that includes the word, so "order" also catches "where is my order?".
Add the reply
Add the automatic reply and choose the type: Text, Image, Video, Audio or Card. Text is capped at 1,000 characters; a reply can include up to 3 Buttons or 5 Quick replies. Use cards for several products (up to 10) and quick replies for yes/no choices.
Options, save, switch on
Under the advanced settings, a Reply delay of 10–30 seconds makes the reply look natural. Require a follow before replying asks the person to follow you first; the reply goes out after they confirm. Auto-like likes the incoming message. Save, switch the automation on, and test it from another account.
Which topics deserve their own automation
For a shop, four automations do most of the work: welcome (greeting words, short and pointing to the next word), price, shipping and delivery, how to order. A service business needs welcome plus appointments or quotes (a form in DMs). A creator needs welcome plus "link" for the product in the story. Complete example messages with their trigger words are in Instagram auto reply: three ways, with examples.
Editing, pausing and deleting
Open an automation to change its words or its text. Switch it off from the list to pause it; a paused automation stays saved, so a campaign automation can be switched off and reused next year. Delete it from the list if you no longer need it. For a similar automation, use Duplicate and change only the words.
Limits and safety
- No bulk messages. An automation replies to the person who wrote to you; it never writes to people who did not. That is also what keeps your account safe.
- No payments inside DMs. Put a payment link or your bank details in the reply; a person takes over once the customer confirms.
- Not connected to your stock or order system. The reply is fixed text until you change it; when a product sells out, change the text the same day.
- Hourly send limits. On the account page you set how many DMs and comment replies may go out per hour; anything over the limit waits in a queue and goes out the next hour. A busy launch day should not look like spam to Instagram; the details are in Why Instagram restricts accounts.
The whole setup, with the panel's own labels, step by step: How to use BixoChat. Comments and the comment-to-DM follow-up: Instagram comment-to-DM automation.