Connect Instagram DMs

On the Pro and E-commerce plans, your chatbot handles your Instagram direct messages too: someone DMs you and the assistant replies straight away, 24/7, with the same knowledge it already uses on your website and on WhatsApp. You make the connection yourself from your dashboard, and it takes a couple of minutes.

Before you start

Three things, all of them free.

• The Pro or E-commerce plan. On Free or Basic, you can switch from Billing in your dashboard.
• A professional Instagram account — either Business or Creator. Both work and both are free. If you have a personal account today, switching takes a minute in Instagram: Settings › Account type and tools › Switch to professional account. You lose no followers, no posts, nothing.
• ⚠️ Message access, turned on. This is the requirement that stops the connection most often, and nothing gives you a clear error when it's missing. In the Instagram app: Settings › Messages and story replies › Message controls, and allow message access for connected tools. If the connection completes but the assistant answers nothing, start here.

Step 1 · Open the Instagram section of your dashboard

In ChatME, open Instagram from the sidebar. You'll see the "Connect your Instagram in one click" card.

Step 2 · Authorise ChatME

Press Connect Instagram. We take you to Instagram, you sign in with your business account, and you give ChatME permission to read and reply to your direct messages.

Once you accept, you come straight back to your dashboard and the section switches to Instagram connected, showing your account name.

If you cancel halfway or something fails, the dashboard tells you exactly what happened and you can try again whenever you like. Nothing is left half-done.

Step 3 · Try it

Send a direct message to your account from a different Instagram account — a friend's, or a second account of your own. The assistant replies within seconds.

You can't test it by messaging yourself: Instagram doesn't deliver those messages to connected tools, so it would look broken when it isn't.

The conversation appears under Conversations in your dashboard, alongside the ones from your website and WhatsApp.

What it answers, and what it doesn't

The assistant reads text messages. That's what people write in the vast majority of DMs, but it's worth knowing the rest:

• Photos, story replies, story mentions, shared posts, stickers and voice notes: the assistant can't read these, so it replies by politely asking the person to type it out. Nobody is left without an answer, and the conversation sits in your dashboard for you to pick up.
• Comments on your posts and stories: no. This channel is direct messages. Comments are still yours to handle from Instagram.

If you reply from the app

You can keep answering anyone you like from the Instagram app, just as before. The assistant notices: it keeps your reply in the conversation in your dashboard (you'll see "You replied") and steps out of that thread for 30 minutes, so it never talks over you. Every message of yours extends that silence; when the time is up the assistant comes back on its own and, since the customer was just talking to a person, identifies itself as an AI again in its next reply.

You set the minutes in the Instagram section of your dashboard ("When you reply from the app"): 0 if you never want the assistant to step out, or up to a day. It is the same behaviour as on WhatsApp.

What it costs

Nothing per message. Your assistant only replies to people who write to you — it never starts conversations or sends promotions — and the channel is included on the Pro and E-commerce plans.

What to expect afterwards

• 24/7 replies with the same brain and knowledge base as your web chatbot. Any improvement you make applies across every channel at once.
• Leads and forms work exactly as they do on the web.
• It replies in each person's language, automatically.
• It identifies itself as an AI in its first reply, as the EU AI Act requires. There's nothing for you to configure — there's more detail in The EU AI Act and your chatbot.
• The connection renews itself. You don't have to re-authorise anything periodically.

If something isn't working

• It says "connected" but the bot doesn't reply → almost always message access turned off in Instagram (see "Before you start"). That's the first place to look.
• You message yourself and nothing happens → that's expected. Test from another account.
• Instagram won't let you authorise → check that the account you're signing in with is your business's professional account, not a personal one.
• You changed your password or revoked the permission in Instagram → go back to the Instagram section of your dashboard and connect it again.

How to disconnect it

From the Instagram section of your dashboard, using the Disconnect button. You can also revoke the permission from Instagram, in your account's apps and websites settings. Either way, your account and your messages remain yours.

Stuck at any point? Write to us at info@chatme.es.