Some comparison pages exist to settle an argument. This one exists to end a search early, and that is worth more than a thousand words of feature grid.
Reading instabot.io on 21 October 2026: the page describes AI chatbot software for your website. The pitch is answering questions, increasing engagement, booking appointments and qualifying leads with a chatbot builder. On channels it says "Web, mobile, text, or social: Instabot's platform can help you create seamless, engaging conversations with leads" and names setting bots up on your site, Facebook Messenger, or text. There are sections for businesses, for marketing agencies with a fully white-labeled option, and for developers with APIs. A fourteen-day free trial is offered with no credit card.
The word Instagram does not appear on that page, or on the pricing page.
Their pricing page, checked the same day, bands plans by monthly active users: Base up to 5,000, Standard up to 10,000, Advanced up to 50,000, and Enterprise above that. The prices are filled in by a script on the page rather than written into its text, and that script, which opens on yearly billing, sets Base at $49 a month, Standard at $149 and Advanced at $349 billed yearly, or $70, $199 and $449 month to month. Enterprise is priced on request. Text messaging is a separate add-on for US and Canadian accounts: $50 to set up a business phone line, then $15 per 500 messages, with the first 500 free.
If you searched this because you want Instagram automation
Then the category you want is a tool built on Meta's official Instagram Graph API, which is a different thing from website chat in one specific way: the platform decides what you are allowed to send, and when.
A website chatbot can speak to anyone who lands on the page. An Instagram tool can only answer people who spoke first, and only for a while.
Two clocks govern everything. A comment can be replied to for 7 days after it is posted. A DM can be answered for 24 hours after that person's last message. No vendor on the official API extends either, and cold messaging strangers is not a permission any of them holds. If you are evaluating tools in this category, that single fact rules out most of what people imagine automation means, and it is the honest starting point — the longer version is in is Instagram DM automation safe.
What PostEngage is, in one paragraph
Instagram comments and DMs, through the official Graph API, connected via Meta's own OAuth screen so that no password reaches us. An automation names a post, the keywords that should match with any-of or all-of logic, negative keywords that stop it firing, a public reply, a private reply, and whether the person is treated as a lead, which is off by default. The same builder adds first-time senders only, a time window and specific posts. Two buttons: Try it, then Go live.
Before anything sends, 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 records its reason in Activity, so a reply that never went out is a line you can read rather than a mystery. Takeover sits third: press Take over in Inbox, or reply from Inbox, and the automation stands down on that thread. Replying in the Instagram app does not pause it.
Pricing, since that is usually the next question
One credit is one AI-written reply. Comment replies sent from a template you wrote are free and unlimited, however many people receive them, on every plan. DMs are free too, up to Free's 1,000-every-30-days cap, which Lite and up remove. Nothing is metered per contact, per follower or per conversation — which is worth noting against a monthly-active-user band, because a band charges you for the size of the audience while a credit charges you for the work.
Free tier: 100 credits, 1,000 DMs every 30 days, no card. Lite is $4 a month and removes the DM cap; Creator is $12 with 3,000 AI replies a month. Packs: $3.99 for 1,000 credits, $14.99 for 4,500, $39.99 for 12,000. The full table is on our pricing page.
And the list of things we do not do, because it is shorter to read now than to discover in week three: no website chat, no SMS, no email, no WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram, no flow-builder canvas, no broadcasts, no sequences, no analytics product, no scheduling or publishing. Leads leave as CSV.
The question worth asking either way
Whichever category you end up in, one test separates the tools inside it, and it is not on any pricing page: ask the product to show you something it decided not to send.
Every tool can send a message. What varies is the moment before sending, when something is slightly wrong — the same person already got an answer four minutes ago, it is 2am, a post is travelling and the queue is nine hundred long, or a draft came back saying something you would never say. A tool that keeps a record of those decisions is one you can debug on a Tuesday morning. A tool that simply goes quiet is one you will end up investigating by screenshot.
That is the whole reason our gate records a reason for every refusal, and it is a fair thing to demand of anyone else you are evaluating.
Where to go from here
If your visitors arrive on a website and you want to greet them there, Instabot is in the right category and we are not in it at all.
If your visitors arrive in your Instagram comments and nobody answers until lunchtime, that is the thing we built. Start with 100 credits and no card, read the getting-started walkthrough before pointing anything at real people, and if you would rather survey the field first, every tool we are asked about is compared here with the date each page was last read. If ManyChat is on your list too, the ManyChat alternative page covers that comparison.