From Follow to DM: turn selected contacts into conversations

Following someone is only the first touch. Here is how to move the same people into a Direct or Bulk DM you review and start yourself.

Applies to Ins Autopilot 3.22 and later · Updated 2026-10-17

What this helps you do

Following someone is only the first touch. The people you just found with Follow are also the people you most likely want to talk to — but rebuilding that list by hand in another tool is where most outreach quietly dies.

Ins Autopilot keeps the two steps in one place: you pick an audience, run Follow, then move the accounts you care about into a Direct or Bulk DM. You still choose the recipients, you still review the message, and you still press the button that starts the send.

What this is not

This is not an automatic reply to new followers. Ins Autopilot does not message someone merely because they followed you, and it has no platform-level trigger that fires when a new follower arrives.

Everything below is a workflow you drive: the extension prepares and sends the message you approved, from your own signed-in browser session.

Before you start

• You are signed in to Instagram in the same browser, and the extension shows your account ID in the footer.
• You have run at least one Follow session, or you already have contacts in the Relationships ledger.
• Free plan: outreach runs on the Outreach Trial — up to 5 unique confirmed contacts, at most 3 new contacts per UTC day, for 7 days from your first confirmed delivery. No credit card, and the Trial does not renew daily.
• To keep messaging after the Trial ends you need Pro, which raises the DM allowance to 30 per day (Monthly) or 50 per day (Annual).

Step by step

1. Choose a target and run Follow — open the Follow tab, set the profile, post or list you want to work from, apply your filters, then press Start. Let the session finish — the accounts it followed are the ones you will message.
2. Review the successful contacts — the Recent log lists who was actually followed, and the header counter shows how many succeeded today. Accounts that were skipped (already following, filtered out, protected) never appear here.
3. Take the Try DM entry — once you have 5 or more successful follows today on the free plan, a Try Outreach prompt appears. It only navigates — it opens the Outreach tab and never sends anything by itself.
4. Pick one contact, or several — Direct Message takes a single handle. Bulk DM Queue takes a list, so you can work through several people in one pass with a delay between sends.
5. Write and review the message — type it yourself or paste a draft you wrote elsewhere. Nothing leaves your browser until you press the send button.
6. Start the send and watch the status — each attempt ends in sent, blocked, failed, skipped or unknown. Only a confirmed send uses one of your five Trial contacts.
7. Check History and the relationship — History shows every attempt and its status. The contact also appears in Relationships, where you can record an outcome and see the Activity timeline.
8. Follow up with Pro — if nobody replies, a follow-up sequence can send up to three steps (the initial message plus two follow-ups) and stops by itself when a reply is detected.

What happens next

• A confirmed send (status sent) uses one Trial contact and appears in History and in the contact's Activity timeline.
• A blocked attempt means the system refused before sending — for example because the Trial contact is already used, the daily limit is reached, or the signed-in account changed. Nothing was sent, and no Trial contact is consumed.
• A failed attempt means the send did not go out and can be retried safely.
• An unknown attempt means Instagram never confirmed delivery. It is held for review and is never retried automatically, because retrying could send the same message twice.
• Reply detection is read-only. When someone answers, the relationship shows it and any running follow-up sequence stops before the next step.

Limits and important behavior

• 5 unique confirmed contacts per Instagram sender account on the Trial — not 5 sends. A second message to the same contact is not covered by the Trial.
• At most 3 new contacts per UTC day. The counter resets at midnight UTC, not at your local midnight.
• 7 days, counted from the first confirmed Trial delivery — not from installation, not from opening Outreach, and not from the first click.
• Direct and Bulk share the same allowance. Splitting the same five contacts between the two tools does not create more room.
• A failed, blocked or skipped attempt does not consume a contact; a retry after a proven failure does not double-count.
• The Trial does not renew. When the five contacts are used or the seven days pass, new outreach needs Pro.

Troubleshooting

The Try DM prompt never appeared.

It is shown to free accounts only, needs at least 5 successful follows in the current day, is hidden once the Trial is used up, and stays hidden for the rest of the day if you dismissed it. You can always open the Outreach tab directly.

Bulk queued only part of my list.

The Trial has fewer contacts left than you selected. Direct and Bulk draw from the same five, and the daily cap still applies. The queue is bounded by what is actually available.

A message says “delivery needs review”.

Instagram did not confirm the send. Open the Instagram thread and look before doing anything else — the message may already be there. See Sent, blocked, unknown and Needs Review explained.

I want to message the same person again.

On the Trial, one confirmed message per contact. Reaching the same person again is a Pro capability, and the History tab will show the earlier attempt either way.