These two get compared because both get described as DM automation. They are different products on different platforms with different meters, and the honest way to choose is to name where your customers actually message you. Everything about AiSensy below was read from their own pricing page and checked on 21 October 2026.
What their pricing page shows
A free forever tier with the WhatsApp Business API, ₹50 of conversation credits on sign-up and no broadcasting, then Basic at $45 a month, Pro at $99, Premium at $299, Unlimited at $899 and Enterprise on request. Their rupee page lists the same tiers at ₹1,500, ₹3,200, ₹9,100 and ₹45,000. Plans carry broadcasting speed, agent logins — one owner plus five on Basic, with extra seats at $20 (₹750) a month each — tags and custom attributes. Two builders are priced separately on the same page: a drag-and-drop chatbot builder at $80 (₹2,500) a month for five chatbots, and a WhatsApp AI agent builder at $50 (₹1,350) a month including 1,000 AI messages. An Indian virtual number is ₹2,000 plus GST a year.
And below all of it, the number every WhatsApp platform has to show: Meta's own per-message rates. For Indian users their page lists marketing at ₹1.09 and utility and authentication at ₹0.145. Service messages — the replies sent inside the 24-hour window, including chatbot and AI agent replies — are no longer free without limit: from 1 October 2026 each number gets 1,000 free a month, then ₹0.145 each.
When we read that page, Instagram messaging was not part of it.
What we do instead
Instagram comments and DMs on the official Graph API, and nothing else. No WhatsApp, no broadcasts, no campaign tool, no catalogue, no virtual number. One credit is one reply written by the model; templated comment replies are free and unlimited on every plan, and templated DMs are free too, up to Free's 1,000-every-30-days cap. Lite at $4 a month (₹149) removes that cap. Free tier 100 credits, no card, packs from $3.99.
Where WhatsApp earns its cost
Where Instagram replies earn theirs
| AiSensy | PostEngage | |
|---|---|---|
| Channel | WhatsApp Business API | Instagram comments and DMs |
| Monthly | From $45 (₹1,500), per their pricing page | Free, or Lite at $4 for unlimited DMs |
| Per-message charges | Meta rates listed on their page | Not applicable on Instagram |
| AI, as sold | Agent builder add-on, per their page | One credit per written reply |
| Broadcasts and campaigns | Core of the product | Not built here |
| Instagram comment automation | Not on the pricing page we read | The whole product |
The mistake worth avoiding
The expensive mistake is buying a WhatsApp platform to solve an Instagram problem, because the two costs behave differently. A WhatsApp stack has a monthly, add-ons, seats and a per-message rate that grows every time you reach somebody. An Instagram comment reply inside the window has none of those, whoever you buy it from.
The reverse mistake is real too: if your business lives on order updates and COD confirmations, no Instagram tool can help you and you should be reading their page rather than ours.
What ours actually does, screen by screen
- 01
Connect Instagram
Three permissions: read comments, reply to them, send the DM you wrote. Meta handles the login, so your password never reaches us, and disconnect sits on the same screen.
- 02
Write the trigger
Choose a post or your next post, then type the words customers actually use — Hinglish included. A negative keyword holds the reply back when somebody says "not interested".
- 03
Write both replies
A public reply that keeps the post moving and a private reply that carries the link or the price list. Both are templates you wrote, so neither spends a credit however often they fire — the public reply is unlimited on every plan, the private one free up to the Free plan DM cap of 1,000 every 30 days.
- 04
Try it, then go live
Try it takes a pretend comment, runs every check against the live account and shows the replies exactly as they would go out. Nothing is sent, and nothing reaches a customer until you press Go live.
- 05
Read Activity in week one
Every send and refusal with a reason — window closed, takeover, duplicate, quiet hours — so a missing reply is a line you can look up.
The sixteen checks, briefly
Before any reply leaves, sixteen checks run in a fixed order: kill switch, connection, takeover, auto-reply switch, complaint pause, window, dedupe, burst, bot loop, cooldown, quiet hours, account limits, rate budget, free DM cap, credits, content safety. The first failure stops the send and writes down the reason, so a reply that never went out is readable afterwards rather than a mystery. Takeover is the one businesses notice first — when a person on your team presses Take over in Inbox, or replies from Inbox, the automation stands down on that conversation instead of talking over them. Replying in the Instagram app does not pause it.
Deciding in one line
If the money arrives on WhatsApp, buy AiSensy. If the money starts in an Instagram comment, start free here and see how much of your inbox your own templates already cover.
The rest of our numbers are on pricing, the tool that does both channels in one bill is Interakt, the Instagram tools that bill per contact are covered on the ManyChat alternative page, and the limits both products live inside are in is Instagram DM automation safe.