• Chatbots

Instagram chatbot: replies in Direct within Meta's rules

An Instagram chatbot answers customers in Direct on behalf of your professional account: price, availability, size, delivery — from your catalog — and passes a complicated question to a manager together with the conversation history. What sets this channel apart from Telegram and a website is Meta's rules: the bot writes only to someone who wrote first, and only within 24 hours of their message. We develop such a bot for your task on the answer engine of our product LEO Chat. The product itself currently works in Telegram and on websites, so for us Instagram is a separate development project.

See how it works
Price
after a free audit
Guarantee
30 days after project sign-off
Channel
Instagram Direct via Meta's Messaging API
Price
after a free audit
Guarantee
30
days after project sign-off
Channel
Instagram Direct via Meta's Messaging API
professional accounts only: business or creator
Reply window
24
hours after the customer's message
a Meta rule; the bot does not write first
Later reply from a manager
up to 7 days with the human_agent tag
for a human's reply; the feature goes through App Review
Engine accuracy
89.7%
on a reference set of 45 questions
LEO Chat engine measurement, 4 July 2026; the Instagram channel was not measured
Timeline
9–20
days as the sum of the stages
excluding Meta's app review and business verification time
What's included

Complete list of work and what you get as a result

  • a Meta app in your business portfolio with messaging and comment permissions — the connection is registered to you, not to us, and a change of contractor does not break it
  • answers in Direct from your catalog and knowledge base on the same engine that answers in LEO Chat: whatever is not in the base goes to a human
  • control of the 24-hour window: a conversation the bot did not resolve is shown to the manager with a note of how much time is left to reply
  • a private reply to a comment under a post, reel or ad: one Direct message to the author of the comment; the conversation continues only if the person replies
  • frequent-question buttons a customer can start the conversation from — up to four, as Meta allows; Instagram does not show them on desktop
  • product cards from your Meta catalog, up to 10 in one message
  • taking an order in Direct with LEO Chat's checkout logic: product, name, phone, city and Nova Poshta branch, payment via a link from your payment provider
  • handing the conversation over to a manager through Meta routing — to the Meta Business Suite inbox or to the system your manager already works in
  • preparing the App Review and business verification application, if your scenario needs them
  • a 30-calendar-day warranty from the date the acceptance act is signed
When this service isn't right

What's not included — so there are no surprises at delivery

  • broadcasts and messages to people who have not written first: in the Instagram Messaging API only the customer opens a conversation, and Meta does not offer sponsored messages for it
  • personal Instagram accounts — the API works only with professional ones
  • running the page, posting, public replies in comments and advertising are separate services
  • a ready-made service switched on in a day: LEO Chat does not support Instagram, so this is development for your task with a Meta stage
Who it's for

Situations where this service delivers results

Scenario 1 of 4

Sales go through Direct

Customers write “price?” and “do you have my size?” in Direct, the manager answers by hand and cannot keep up in the evenings or at weekends — some conversations are simply left unanswered.

We'll review your situation in a free audit
Free audit

Free review: which Direct messages a bot can handle

We look at the account, at where the questions come from and at how fast they are answered now. That determines whether Meta's app review will be needed.

What we measure

  1. Account and accessprofessional or personal, whether it is linked to a Facebook Page, in whose business portfolio the app will live
  2. Where messages come fromDirect, comments under posts and ads, mentions in stories
  3. What repeatswhich questions come in daily and how many of them can be answered from the catalog
  4. Manager response timewhether the manager keeps within 24 hours; if not, the human_agent tag is needed, and with it App Review

What you get

  • a written review of the account's readiness
  • a list of the questions the bot will take
  • a conclusion on whether Meta's app review is needed

Timeline: 1–3 working days

Why is it free

Without a review you cannot see whether there will be a Meta stage or what happens with comments and the catalog — and that is exactly what defines the scope.

What's next

After that — an estimate broken down by stage and a contract with a fixed amount.

Short form: your contact and site URL
Contract and paperwork

We work officially

Contract, act and invoice — for every project, not just large ones.

Trusted by6 brands

Trusted by: Kvant Energy, GYPSUN, Naturel Cosmetics, Pancer Protection, LUGI, BeeTech

Terms fixed in writing8 points

  • Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

  • Contract, act and 30-day warranty

    Every project gets a written contract: scope, deadlines, amount, acceptance procedure. After delivery — act and invoice, then 30 calendar days of warranty.

  • Sole proprietor & bank transfer

    The contractor is a registered sole proprietor. Payment by invoice with closing documents.

  • Rights & access — yours

    Code, design and materials transfer to you after full payment. Domain, hosting, repository and analytics are registered to you.

  • Client portal instead of email chains

    During the project you get access to a portal: contracts, invoices, acts and project status in one place.

  • Sites in nine countries

    Our sites run in nine countries: besides Ukraine — Poland, Germany, Austria, England, Norway, Bulgaria, Moldova and Spain.

  • Verifiable numbers

    Every case in the portfolio comes with a link to a live site and a technical measurement.

  • Audit first, then pricing

    There is no price list on the site intentionally: the scope of the same work differs multiples between clients.

  • We say "no" when unsure

    If the task isn't ours or the deadline is unrealistic — we tell you upfront.

We sign NDAs on request. After completing the work, we delete our access to your services ourselves.

What affects the price

Why two seemingly identical tasks are priced differently

  • Whether app review is neededan app only for your account and an app with advanced access or the human_agent tag mean different amounts of preparation, and in the second case also waiting for Meta's decision
  • CommentsDirect only, or also private replies to comments under posts and ads — a separate scenario and a separate permission
  • Catalog in Metaif a catalog with IDs already exists, product cards are connected; if not, it has to be built first
  • Where conversations are handed over to the managerthe Meta Business Suite inbox or your CRM via webhook — different handover work
  • Checkout in the chatonly answering questions, or also taking an order with delivery and payment
  • Facebook Pagewithout a linked Page you still get replies, comments and frequent-question buttons; product cards and handover to the Meta inbox require linking
Cases

Tasks and results in numbers — all metrics measured by us

LEO Chat

LEO Chat — the agency's own chat-commerce product; works in Telegram and in a website widget, Instagram is not supported in it

Task
Answer customers from the catalog without making things up, and without losing messages under load — in the channels where the product works: Telegram and the website widget.
Solution
An answer engine working from the knowledge base that passes whatever it does not know to an operator; order checkout with Nova Poshta and payment through the store's own merchant account; a message queue with retries. It is exactly the engine and the checkout logic that we carry over into the Instagram project.
Result
89.7% accurate answers on a reference set of 45 questions and not a single answer outside the knowledge base (4 July 2026); 0 lost and 0 duplicated acknowledged messages in a chaos test at 300 messages per second with the engine, NATS and Redis forcibly killed (17 August 2026) — a load test on a test stack, not in production. Both measurements concern the LEO Chat engine; the Instagram channel is not covered by them.

Did not find your case?

Describe how it works on your side — we will tell you whether “Instagram chatbot” fits and what it means in your situation. No brief and no call: one question, one answer.

Process steps

Transparent stages with approval at every step

Total duration:9–20 days

  1. Reviewing the task

    1–3 days

    We read real Direct conversations and comments, set the line between “the bot answers” and “a human takes over”, and find out whether app review will be needed.

  2. The app and Meta access

    2–4 days

    We check that the account is professional, create the app in your business portfolio, and connect the messaging and comment permissions and the webhooks. If the scenario needs App Review, we submit the application; the decision time depends on Meta and is not included in these days.

  3. Knowledge base and answers

    3–5 days

    We build the base from the catalog and real questions and run a reference question set before launch — the same way the LEO Chat engine was measured.

  4. Comments, cards and handover to a human

    2–5 days

    We set up private replies to comments, frequent-question buttons, cards from the Meta catalog and handing the conversation over to the manager's inbox.

  5. Launch

    1–3 days

    We switch it on for the live account — after Meta's decision, if the scenario needs App Review; we watch the first conversations together with the manager and hand over the instructions.

Technologies & integrations

What we build on and what it connects to

Stack

  • the LEO Chat answer engine — the agency's own product; the product currently covers Telegram and websites, Instagram is connected within this project
  • Instagram Platform: Messaging API and Meta webhooks
  • Conversation Routing — passing the conversation between the app and the inbox
  • OpenAI API for answers from the knowledge base

Integrations

  • the Meta product catalog (Catalog API or Commerce Manager)
  • the Meta Business Suite inbox
  • Nova Poshta for arranging delivery
  • CRM via webhook
How Instagram Direct differs from a Telegram bot

How this option differs from the alternative

Telegram botOur approach
Who starts the conversationonce the customer has started the bot, the bot can send them messages within Telegram's rulesonly the customer: wrote in Direct or mentioned the account in a story; to a comment — one private reply
How much time there is to replythere is no reply window24 hours after the customer's message; for a human — up to 7 days with the human_agent tag
Broadcastsyes: to everyone who has started the bot, about 30 messages per second, free of chargenone: sponsored messages are not available for the Instagram API
Commentsthere is no private reply to a commentone private Direct reply within 7 days of the comment
Connectiona token from @BotFathera Meta app, permissions, and for some scenarios App Review and business verification
What we need from you

We can't start without this — best to prepare in advance

  1. a professional Instagram account (business or creator) and admin access to the Meta business portfolio where the app will live
  2. real questions from Direct and comments over the last month — the knowledge base is built from them
  3. a Meta catalog with product IDs, if the bot is to show cards
  4. a manager who takes conversations over from the bot, and an honest answer on how many hours they usually take to reply
  5. company documents for Meta business verification, if the scenario needs advanced access
  6. a Facebook Page linked to the account, if you need product cards and handover to the Meta inbox
If something is missing — let us know, we'll help you gather it or do it as a separate task.
FAQ

Most frequently asked questions — with concrete answers

Can the bot write first to someone who followed or liked a post?

No. According to Meta's documentation, a conversation starts only when a person messages your professional account themselves. A follow or a like is not a message, so it does not open a conversation. A comment opens one in a limited way — see the next question.

How does the bot answer a “price?” comment under a post or an ad?

With a private reply: one Direct message to the author of the comment, no later than 7 days after the comment. It works for posts, reels, stories, ad posts and live broadcasts; for a live broadcast only while it is on air. Further messages are possible only if the person replies, and within 24 hours of their reply.

What happens if the manager doesn't reply within 24 hours?

The standard window is 24 hours from the customer's message. For replies from a live person Meta has the human_agent tag: it gives up to 7 days when the question cannot be resolved within the standard window, for example over the weekend. This feature requires App Review and business verification. The bot does not put this tag on its own messages — it is meant for a human.

Will a personal Instagram account do?

No. Instagram Platform works only with professional accounts — business or creator. Without a Facebook Page the app is connected through Instagram Login: the bot replies in Direct and to comments, and frequent-question buttons are available too. Product cards from the catalog and handing the conversation over to the Meta Business Suite inbox require an account linked to a Facebook Page.

Why App Review, and how long does it take?

The app's users are the account owners, not the customers who write in Direct. If the app in your business portfolio serves only your own account, according to Meta's documentation standard access is enough; advanced access and the human_agent tag require review and business verification. We'll find out during the review whether you need it. We prepare the application, but the decision time depends on Meta, so it is not part of our stages and we do not promise a date.

Can the bot show products from the catalog?

Yes, with the product template: up to 10 items in one message, by IDs from your Facebook catalog taken from the Catalog API or Commerce Manager. If there is no catalog in Meta yet, it has to be built separately — that is separate work on the feed.

Do you already have a ready-made Instagram bot?

No, and we say so plainly. Our product LEO Chat currently works in Telegram and in a website widget; Instagram is in its plans. For your task we develop a bot on the same answer engine and the same order checkout logic. The figures on this page describe the engine in those channels, not Instagram.

How does a manager take the conversation over from the bot?

Through Meta's conversation routing: the app passes control of the conversation to another app, including the Meta Business Suite inbox, which can be set as the default recipient. The bot hands the conversation over on a keyword, a button, or when it did not find an answer in the knowledge base. Routing is configured in the Facebook Page settings, so the account has to be linked to a Page.

How long does the launch take?

9–20 days as the sum of the stages: 1–3 days review, 2–4 days app and access, 3–5 days knowledge base, 2–5 days comments, cards and handover to a human, 1–3 days launch. Meta's app review time, if it is needed, is not included. Warranty: 30 calendar days from the date the acceptance act is signed; we reply to requests within 2 hours.

Let's see which of your Direct messages a bot can handle

We will go through the questions from Direct and comments and check the account and Meta access. The review is free, we reply within 2 hours.

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  • No commitment
  • We work under a contract

There is no price list on the site on purpose: the same work differs several times over between two clients, and a “from” figure explains nothing in that case. First a free audit — we count your pages, duplicates and speed — then we name the sum and the deadline and fix both in the contract.