Instagram limits

Some of what a bot “does not do” is not a setting of ours but a rule of Instagram itself. It helps to know them up front: then it is clear why the bot answers once, or goes quiet the next day. We state these rules plainly so you do not go looking for the cause inside your bot.

One private message in reply to a comment

Someone commented under your post — Instagram allows the bot to send them one private message, and only within 7 days of the comment. There will be no second one.

That is why the welcome must contain a button: tapping the button inside that message opens the chat, and from then on the bot can write normally — check the follow, hand the gift over, remind.

The same rule explains why a comment-only bot has no “Remind about the gift” setting: the second message would simply never arrive.

Private replies to comments — in a queue

Instagram allows up to 750 private replies to comments per hour per account. If there are more comments, replies go out in a queue, in the order they arrived. Nothing is lost: you can reply to a comment within 7 days, and one reply goes out per comment.

While the queue is working through, you see it on the bot card in Bots and on the account card in Connections: “In the reply queue: 214. Instagram allows 750 private replies per hour, replies are sent in order, the wait is about 17 min”.

Public replies under posts — paced on purpose

Public replies — the ones the bot writes right under a comment — are limited far more strictly than private ones: a stream of identical auto-replies under posts is treated as spam, and the account pays for it.

So we keep a safe pace ourselves:

• The pace depends on the age of the account. A brand-new account gets fewer public replies per hour, an older one more, a long-established one the most. Age is counted from the date of the first post; no posts — we treat the account as new.
• What does not fit into the hour waits its turn. If there are more comments than can be answered right now, the replies are not dropped: they go out later, in order.
• What does not fit into the day is not sent at all. Once the daily allowance is used up, the remaining public replies are skipped: replying tomorrow under yesterday’s comment is pointless. How many there were is shown on the bot card: “Skipped in the last 24 hours: 12 — the daily limit on public replies”. Private replies to those people still go out as usual.

What to do about it: if you see a lot of skips, do not reply publicly to every comment — answer only those with a code word, for example, and carry the conversation on in private messages.

One public reply per user per post

Under the comment itself the bot replies publicly once per user, per post. If the same person comments under that post again, there is no second public reply; under another of your posts a reply comes again.

The bot picks the phrase at random from your variants: identical replies under every comment are treated as spam by Instagram.

Public replies work only for top-level comments. There is no public reply under hidden comments or in a live.

The 24-hour window

The general Instagram rule: you can reply to a user within 24 hours of their message. They wrote to your direct, replied to a story, tapped a button — the clock starts. Stay silent for a day and the platform will not let new bot messages through.

What follows from this:

• Long delays in an Instagram bot are pointless: after a day the message will not go out.
• If the bot tries to write into a closed window, we do not bother the platform at all: the bot quietly skips that message and a line with the reason appears in the chat in “Chats”.

Comments and lives do not open the window — they have their own rule, described above.

Lives

Events from a live arrive only while the live is running. Once it ends there is neither an event nor a way to reply. A missed live comment cannot be recovered: Instagram does not hand them over afterwards.

Live comments are visible only to the author of the broadcast: a co-host does not get them, and a “close friends” live does not count.

Stories

• A story reply is an ordinary text in direct messages, and it opens the 24-hour window. Replies with a sticker or a GIF are not delivered by Instagram — text only.
• A story reaction is a quick icon. Likes and stickers do not count as reactions. Instagram does not deliver these reactions for accounts over 50,000 followers at all.
• A story mention is when someone mentions you in their own story. A mention from a private account only arrives if that account follows you. Resharing your story is not a mention — Instagram does not report it. We do not store the story itself: the link stops opening once the story expires or is deleted.

The account must be public

Events arrive only while the account is public. For a private one, comments and mentions do not come through.

Images and attachments

• The welcome image and a file gift go out as a separate message: that is how sending works on Instagram.
• Someone who came from a comment or a live gets no image at all — that message is allowed to be text and nothing else.
• The bot sends a link as a button inside the message, not as a bare address: Instagram would turn an address in the text into a grey preview card.

Common questions

The bot answered one user but not another. Check whether that user blocks direct messages. Instagram does not deliver replies to users who restrict messages from strangers.

Why does the bot go quiet the next day? Most likely the 24-hour window has closed. The user only needs to write to the bot again — the window reopens and the conversation continues.

No comments arrive at all, although the bot is on. Instagram does not send comments and lives to every app. If nothing arrives whatsoever, the cause is access on the platform side, not your bot — write to us.