Instagram auto-DM: send your link to everyone who comments

Someone comments a keyword like PROMPTS on your post. Your account leaves a short public reply under the comment and sends them a DM with a button. They tap it and get your link. You set it up once on the Auto-DM page, in the menu, and it answers comments day and night. It can also answer story replies, story mentions and DMs, ask for an email first, and greet people who message you.

Auto-DM is part of every VidRocket plan: free for up to 100 people a month, and each plan includes more. It's on the website under Auto-DM in the menu, and in the iPhone app under All tools on Home.

1. Open Auto-DM and press Connect Instagram. Instagram's own login opens in a new tab. No Facebook Page is needed.
2. Log in and press Allow. Your account appears with its name and picture.
3. In the Instagram app, go to Settings → Messages and story replies → Connected tools and turn on Allow access to messages. Without it, Instagram won't deliver the DMs.

Your account must be a Business or Creator account. Personal accounts can't connect to any app. You can switch for free in Instagram's settings.

Press New automation. Create your own starts from what sets it off; Use a template starts from a ready-made one (a freebie for an email, three affiliate links, a promo code for story replies and more) that you can change before saving.

The editor reads top to bottom as a sentence: When someone…, And their comment has…, They get…, And then, they get…, If they don't tap a link…. The preview on the right shows the whole conversation the way they'll see it, and the line under it sums the automation up in one sentence.

1. When someone…

• comments on a post or reel I pick: tap the posts in the grid (scroll down for older ones), or paste a post's link to find it. Trial reels are at the top of the grid; see Trial reels below.
• comments on my next post: set it up now, then post. The first post you publish after that gets it. A post you publish through VidRocket attaches the moment it goes up. One you post in the Instagram app attaches when you next open Auto-DM, or, for a trial reel, when it gets its first comment. To pick the post yourself, press Attach a post on the automation.
• comments on any of my posts: needs a word to look for.
• DMs me a word: they get the answer straight back. Good for the questions you always get (price, shipping, sizes).
• replies to my story, mentions me in their story (at most once a day per person), sends me any DM (the welcome message) and taps a conversation starter: see below.

2. And their comment has… any word, or a specific word: commas between words, capitals don't matter, and emoji work too (🔥). Use Try a comment to check whether a comment would be answered.

3. Reply to their comment under the post (comments only, optional). Each reply is its own box, up to five, and each comment gets one of them picked at random, so they don't all look the same.

4. They get… For comments: a DM with a button first (recommended; the link follows once they tap) or the link straight away. Story replies and DMs always get the answer straight away, because they wrote first.

5. Before the link (optional): only people who follow you, and an email or phone number first.

6. And then, they get… the message with your link buttons: up to three, each with its own words and its own link. Every tap is counted. Each link must start with https:// and be the page itself: short links (bit.ly and the like) and numeric IP addresses can't be sent.

7. If they don't tap a link… (optional): tick send them a follow-up DM, pick how long to wait (30 minutes to 20 hours) and write the reminder. It goes out once, with the same link buttons under it, only to people who haven't tapped a link yet. See below.

Instagram leaves trial reels out of the list of posts it gives apps, because they aren't on your profile grid. So the picker finds them another way and shows them at the top, marked Trial:

• Trial reels VidRocket posted for you are there straight away.
• A trial reel you posted in the Instagram app shows up once it has a comment. Comment anything on it from your own account, then press Reload in the picker. Any reel that got a comment in the last 30 days is listed the same way.
• A trial reel you haven't posted yet: pick comments on my next post and post it afterwards. It attaches to the first post you publish after setting it up: straight away if you post it through VidRocket, on its first comment if you post it in the Instagram app.

Pasting a trial reel's link works too, once it is in the picker.

Plenty of people open the DM and forget the link. The follow-up is one reminder, sent after the wait you pick, to anyone who got the link and hasn't tapped it.

• Once per person. Asking for the link again re-sends the link, never a second reminder.
• Never after a tap, a STOP, or a paused automation. It checks again right before it goes.
• Inside Instagram's 24 hours. Instagram lets your account write again only within 24 hours of the person's last message or tap, so the longest wait is 20 hours. If their 24 hours run out first, the reminder isn't sent.
• Not with "the link straight away" on a comment. That DM is the one message a comment allows, so there's no window to remind them in. Pick a DM with a button first to use a follow-up.

Who it answered on each automation shows who has a follow-up waiting and who got one.

Under Before the link, ask them to…, pick their email, their phone number or both. After they tap the button (or straight away, for a story reply or DM), they're asked for it, and the link follows their answer. If what they type isn't an email or a number, they're asked once more, then they get the link anyway. Someone who already gave it isn't asked again.

What they give lands in Contacts.

• Welcome message answers any DM nothing else answered, at most once a week per person (you can change how often). One per Instagram account.
• Conversation starters are up to four questions people can tap when they open a chat with you for the first time. Each has its own answer. Instagram shows them as soon as you save; if Instagram refuses them, the Auto-DM page says why.

Contacts lists everyone your automations answered, with their Instagram username, the email or phone they gave, which automation brought them, and whether they follow you. People who only sent you a DM that no automation answered aren't contacts, and neither is anyone who wrote before you set up an automation for them. Someone who replied STOP stays on the list under Opted out, so you can see who asked not to be messaged. Search by name, @handle, email or phone, filter to Leads (people who gave details) or Opted out, and on the website press Export CSV to take the list to your email tool. Delete anyone with the bin.

Use the list only for what people asked for, and honour an unsubscribe. People who gave an email or phone are kept until you delete them or disconnect the account; everyone else is cleared 90 days after they last wrote.

Under Before the link, ask them to…, tick follow @you first. Someone who doesn't follow you is asked to follow first, with an I followed button. Once they follow and tap it, the link arrives.

• One DM per person per automation. Commenting again doesn't send another DM. For a second post, make a second automation. The welcome message and story mentions are the exceptions: they can answer the same person again after a while.
• Instagram's own limits apply. The DM must go out within 7 days of the comment, and the link within 24 hours of their tap. Auto-DM sends at most 700 an hour per account and queues the rest.
• Anyone can reply STOP. They are never messaged by your account through VidRocket again.
• Monthly limits, counted as people messaged: free 100, Creator 2,500, Pro 10,000, Max and Agency 20,000 a month. Need more? Move up a plan on the pricing page: the bigger month starts straight away. During the $1 trial the limit is 100 people; it rises to your plan's once the trial ends. The Auto-DM page shows how many you've used this month.
• On the free plan you can connect one Instagram account, and the message with the link ends with a short "Sent with VidRocket" line. Any paid plan removes it.
• Links are checked for safety. Every link is checked against Google's list of phishing, malware and scam sites when you save it, when someone taps it, and once a day. If a link shows up on that list, the automation turns off, the tap shows a warning instead of the page, and we email you. Change the link to turn it back on.
• Each automation shows its post. In your list, an automation for posts you picked shows the first post's picture (with +2 and so on when it watches more), so you can tell which reel each one is for. Tap the picture to open the post on Instagram. Other automations show an icon for what starts them.
• Who it answered on each automation shows every person, what they got, and whether they clicked.
• We email you if an automation is turned off for an unsafe link. The Auto-DM page shows when an account needs reconnecting.

• Don't run two auto-DM tools on the same post. Each comment gets only one private reply, so whichever tool answers first wins and the other one fails.
• If another tool owns your DMs, the link after the tap can't be sent. Instagram lets only one app (the "default app") continue a conversation. Your account card says so, and until it's fixed, VidRocket puts the link in the first DM instead, so nobody misses it.

To fix it:

1. On Facebook, switch into the Page linked to your Instagram account.
2. Go to Settings → Page setup → Instagram Conversation Routing. Make VidRocket Messaging the default app, or remove the other app.
3. On the Auto-DM page, press I changed it — use the button again on your account card.

Pausing the other tool doesn't help. It has to be disconnected or stop being the default app.

Auto-DM sends messages from your account through VidRocket's app on Instagram, so it has to follow our rules for automated messages and Instagram's own. In short: only message people who commented or wrote to you, send links that go where they say, and never ask for passwords, codes or payment details in a DM.

If an account breaks them, or sends far more than usual, gets a lot of STOP replies, or keeps getting refused by Instagram, we may pause Auto-DM on it. A paused account sends nothing and we email you why. If you think it's a mistake, write to us from Help.

Disconnect on the account card turns off its automations and deletes the connection and everything stored with it. You can also remove VidRocket from the apps in your Instagram settings.