Out of hours is most of the hours
Evenings and weekends are when people browse and ask. By Monday they have asked someone else the same question.
Meta approved partner
Instagram DM automation for small businesses
Most enquiries arrive after you have closed. “Do you deliver to my area?”, “how much is it?”, “are you open Sunday?” — Augst AI answers them from your own information the moment they land, and hands you the ones that need a person.
Free to start · No credit card · Official Meta API
The problem
The enquiry arrives at 11pm. You answer it at 9am.
For a business selling on Instagram, the DM is the shopfront — and it is unattended most of the hours people actually use it.
The same ten questions, forever
Price, availability, location, delivery, opening times. Answering them personally is not service, it is data entry.
Nobody reads the highlights
The answer is already on your profile, your website or your price list. They are going to ask you anyway.
Step one
Every comment gets an answer, not just the ones you see
Someone comments “price?” on a post and the reply lands in their DMs in under a second — a keyword fires it, or the AI reads what they meant, so every way of asking reaches the same automation.
Set it on one post, or on every post you publish from here on. Comments on ads and boosted posts have their own triggers too, so the traffic you paid for converts in the DM instead of dying in a thread.
“Augst AI became our first-line customer support on Instagram. It replies faster than any human, and it's never off duty.”
Step two
Then it answers the follow-up, not just the first message
Where most setups stop is the second question. These are the two ways to carry the conversation.
A flow you draw, not code
Ask a question, branch on the answer, send a different ending to each one. You write the conditions in plain English. On the Advanced plan.
Or a prebuilt agent
The Lead Gen Agent is ready the moment you switch it on — it asks for the phone number or email at the right point and files it. Included from Starter. More prebuilt agents, including appointment booking, are on the way.
Straight to the booking
A flow can end by sending your booking link, your location or your menu to the people who qualified for it, instead of to everyone who commented.
Step three
An agent that knows your business, on every channel
Point a custom agent at your website, a PDF price list, a menu or a policy sheet and it answers from those sources only — citing where each answer came from, so you can see where a number originated before a customer does.
The same agent runs across Instagram and Facebook rather than being set up twice, and WhatsApp is coming to the Business plan at no extra cost when it ships.
Custom AI agents are on the Business plan. See how agents are trained →
Trained on what you already have
Your website, a PDF such as a price list or policy sheet, or your Shopify store. Nothing to write from scratch.
One agent, every channel
Deploy it across Instagram and Facebook from one place. WhatsApp is coming to the Business plan.
A person whenever it matters
Anyone on your team can step into a thread at any point, and every reply shows whether an agent, a flow or a human sent it.
Underneath all of it
Every enquiry in one queue, and every enquirer on a list
Instagram and Facebook land in a single inbox with assignment, tags and tickets, so a conversation has an owner and nothing is answered twice or not at all.
Everyone who comments or messages also becomes a contact with the number or email the conversation collected — the list you want when you have something to announce. Export it to Excel or your own CRM whenever you like.
Pricing
Flat monthly, whatever the month looks like
You are not billed per contact or per message, so a busy season costs the same as a quiet one and the number you budgeted is the number you pay.
Starter · $19/mo
Unlimited automations, no branding, the AI trigger, ad and story replies, your contact list and the Lead Gen Agent. Enough for a business answering with set replies.
Advanced · $49/mo
Adds the Unibox — Instagram and Facebook in one queue with assignment, tags and tickets — and flows that branch on what the customer actually said.
Business · $99/mo
Adds custom AI agents trained on your website, price list or store, deployed across channels. WhatsApp comes to this plan at no extra cost.
Every feature, side by side → · How this compares to Manychat →
Proof
Businesses letting the DM answer first
“We used to get 20+ DMs a day about products, and spent hours just replying. With Augst AI we automated everything — replies, lead capture, even exporting contacts to our CRM. It turned Instagram into a real sales channel.”
FAQ
Questions businesses ask
01Can it answer questions using my own prices and policies?
Yes, through a custom agent on the Business plan. You point it at your website, a PDF such as a price list or policy sheet, or your Shopify store, and it answers from those sources only, citing where each answer came from.
02Does it work outside business hours?
That is most of the point. The automation replies in under a second whenever the message arrives, and anything it cannot answer waits in the Unibox for a person, tagged and assigned.
03Can a real person take over?
At any point. Every reply is labelled with whether an agent, a flow or a human sent it, and anyone on your team can step into a thread. On the Advanced plan the Unibox gives you assignment, tags and tickets across channels.
04Which channels does it cover?
Instagram on every plan and Facebook from Starter — Page comments and Messenger alongside Instagram, with one agent deployed across both. WhatsApp is not live yet; it is coming to the Business plan, and Business subscribers get it at no extra cost when it ships.
05Can it book appointments?
A flow can qualify someone and send your booking link at the right moment, and anything they tell you along the way is saved to their contact record. A dedicated prebuilt appointment-booking agent is on the way but is not shipping yet — the Lead Gen Agent is the prebuilt one available today.
06Do I have to set up an automation for every post?
A comment-to-DM automation belongs to the post it runs on, so each one is its own short setup. The agent and the inbox work across everything, so the recurring questions are handled once rather than per post.
07Is this allowed on Instagram?
Yes. Augst AI is an official Meta partner and everything runs on the official Instagram API, within Meta's guidelines for chat automation. There is no unofficial automation of your logged-in account.
Related
The enquiry you miss tonight is the sale you lose tomorrow
Start on the free plan and see how many of them answer themselves.
No card · Live in minutes