Your own ManyChat: an Instagram comment-to-DM bot from one Claude Code prompt
Someone comments a keyword on your reel; the bot replies, DMs them, checks they follow you and sends the link, running on Cloudflare’s free plan. The prompt, the six Meta setup screens, the add-ons and Instagram’s rules, with every picture, checked against Meta’s, ManyChat’s, Cloudflare’s and Anthropic’s own pages
One Claude Code prompt builds the comment-to-DM bot ManyChat sells: someone comments a keyword on your reel, it replies, DMs them a button, checks they follow you and sends the link, on Cloudflare’s free plan. The guide’s author got 42 commenters, 42 DMs and 14 clicks in three days. The checks kept the build and fixed the setup. Meta says new apps can no longer pick the Instagram Login setup the prompt names; the button taps need a third webhook the steps leave out; the follow-up nudge only works for people who already tapped; and $0 is the running cost, because building it needs a paid Claude plan or API credits.
A guide to building your own Instagram comment-to-DM bot, the thing ManyChat charges for, with one prompt in Claude Code. It’s all here: the flow, the author’s first results, the price comparison, the prompt, the six Meta setup screens, the add-on prompts and the rules, with every picture. Account names, profile photos, reel thumbnails and the business name in the screenshots are pixelated. Where the guide got something wrong or left it out, the note at that spot says so, and a fixes prompt to paste after the original is added. Not in the guide: the fixes prompt.
What held up, on 30 October 2026
Checked against Meta’s developer docs, ManyChat’s pricing page and help center, Cloudflare’s docs, Anthropic’s Claude Code docs and the guide’s own screenshots.
One prompt, the same bot ManyChat sells
One prompt, pasted into Claude Code, builds you the same comment-to-DM bot ManyChat sells: someone comments a word on your reel, it replies, DMs them, checks they follow you and sends the link. Mine runs on Cloudflare’s free plan, so it costs $0 and keeps working with my laptop closed. (The guide’s author speaking. The guide opens “You commented BUILD, so here is everything you need”: it’s what the author’s own bot sends.)
Reading this on your phone? Send yourself the link and open it on your computer. That is where the setup happens.
The whole flow, from one comment
Someone comments your keyword
on a reel, say BUILD. Any case, extra words are fine. (That’s the bot’s own matching, not an Instagram rule, and the prompt doesn’t say it, so the fixes prompt below does, as whole words: stricter than the author’s editor, which also catches “Prompts” for “prompt”. Not in the guide: ManyChat says a second comment from the same person under the same post doesn’t trigger again.)
It replies under their comment
rotating short lines like “Sent you a DM” so it never looks like a bot. (Not in the guide: rotating keeps you clear of Instagram’s spam filters; it shouldn’t be about passing as human: where the law requires it, Meta wants automated chats to say so. Post the reply after the DM goes through, or “Sent you a DM” can be false.)
It DMs them
a message with a “Send me the link” button. (Not in the guide: people who don’t follow you find it in Message Requests, and the button has to be one that reports the tap back to the bot.)
It checks they follow you.
Not following? They get a follow button first, then “I’m following”. (The guide says follow button, but Instagram has none: it’s a link to your profile, as the editor below calls it, “Visit profile”. People follow you themselves, come back and tap “I’m following”, and the bot checks again.)
It sends the link
and one nudge an hour later if they did not tap it. (Allowed, because their tap opened a 24-hour window. Not in the guide: someone who never tapped or answered the first DM can’t be sent anything more.)
6 reels, all live
The author’s own figures; the first three match the dashboard below, and nothing on it shows the fourth. Not in the guide: only 17 of the 42 tapped “Send me the link”, and unless they wrote back, Instagram lets the bot send nothing more to the other 25, so that first tap is the step to work on. The fourth line needs the “Earlier comments” add-on further down. The DEMO badge most likely means the dashboard was masking names for recording.
It bills per person, every month
ManyChat charges per active contact: one person who comments, DMs or replies to your story that month. Five comments from the same person count once. Each plan includes some people, and every person past that is billed extra, automatically. (Checked against ManyChat’s own pricing page and help center: right for monthly billing. Not in the guide: people you reach by broadcast or from the inbox count too, “month” means your billing month, and you can cap the overage in billing settings. Prices exclude tax and depend on your billing country.)
So one reel that 10,000 people comment on costs $414 that month on Pro, not $39. (Right if you stay on Pro. Not in the guide: Business would cost $161.50 that month, and ManyChat waives the overage if you upgrade within the same billing month.)
Not in the guide: ManyChat also has a Free plan, $0 for 25 people a month with comment-to-DM included, but no follow check and a “Powered by Manychat” message; the follow check starts at Essential. Every paid plan is cheaper billed yearly: $14, $29, $69 and $139 a month, paid up front, with lower overage. Advanced’s 0.4¢ falls as you grow. And your own bot’s “no cap” means no per-person fee: Instagram still allows only 750 first DMs an hour, so a reel with 10,000 commenters takes about 14 hours to answer.
Monthly prices as listed on hyperleap.ai (October 2026). Check manychat.com/pricing for your country. (Not in the guide: Hyperleap sells a competing product; its prices match ManyChat’s own pages, linked at the top.)
What you need
Claude Code.
It is the AI that writes and sets it all up. (Not in the guide: it needs a paid Claude plan, Pro at $20 a month or $17 a month billed yearly, or API credits; the free plan doesn’t include Claude Code. The guide links its author’s beginner page here; Anthropic’s setup page is linked at the top.)
An Instagram professional account
(Business or Creator). Switching is free in the Instagram settings. (It must be public, or no comment events reach the bot. Switching a private account to professional makes it public. Not in the guide.)
A free Cloudflare account
so the bot runs when your computer is off.
About an hour
most of it clicking through Meta’s developer site with Claude telling you where. (The guide ends by calling it an afternoon. Not in the guide: if Meta asks for business verification or App Review, it takes days.)
A Facebook account
to register as a Meta developer at developers.facebook.com. It’s free and asks you to confirm a phone number and an email. Not in the guide.
Node.js and npm
on your computer: Cloudflare’s deploy tool, Wrangler, needs them, and you sign in to Cloudflare from the computer once. Not in the guide.
Copy it into Claude Code
The guide’s prompt, word for word. Paste the fixes below before Claude starts building, or right after.
Then paste the fixes
Not in the guide. Each line fixes something the checks found: which Meta setup your app has, the buttons and the webhook they need, the nudge Instagram allows, the follow check, telling people it’s automated, the signing secret, keeping the token alive past 60 days, and staying inside Cloudflare’s free limits and Instagram’s rate limit.
Claude walks you through these. Here is what each screen looks like
1. Create the app.
Go to developers.facebook.com, Create app, pick the use case Manage messaging & content on Instagram. (Not in the guide: connect the app to a business portfolio when Meta asks: the newer Instagram setup needs one. The business name in the picture is pixelated.)
2. Add your Instagram as a tester.
App roles, Add people, pick Instagram Tester (the last option), type your username. Then accept it on instagram.com: Settings, Apps and websites, Tester invites, Accept. (Not in the guide: on Instagram on the web the path now has one more level: Settings, Website permissions, Apps and websites, Tester Invites. The second picture shows the invite already accepted. On the newer Unified login screen, Add account in step 3 sends this invite for you.)
3. Connect your account and generate a token.
In API setup with Instagram login, Add account, then Generate token. Claude stores it as a secret. (Not in the guide: if your dashboard shows API setup with Unified login instead, Meta has moved new apps there: the token is a different kind and is shown only once, so copy it, and tell Claude which screen you see. On Instagram login the token lasts 60 days, and the weekly refresh in the prompt keeps it going only if the bot saves each new token in its storage, since a Worker can’t change its own secret. On Instagram login, also check that instagram_business_manage_comments is among the permissions: the dashboard adds only the basic and messages ones by default. On Unified login the default setup already includes instagram_manage_comments.)
4. Point the webhook at your bot.
Paste the address and verify token Claude gives you, then switch on comments and messages. (The guide’s prompt names messaging_postbacks, but this step leaves it out: switch it on too, since that’s where the button taps arrive, and without it the buttons do nothing. Not in the guide: then turn on webhooks for your account itself: the fixes prompt has Claude subscribe it through the account’s subscribed_apps call. Meta subscribes new apps to all eight Instagram fields by default, and every event counts against Cloudflare’s free limit, so turn off the ones the bot doesn’t use, such as live_comments and messaging_seen. Your real address looks like bot-name.your-subdomain.workers.dev/webhook.)
5. Publish the app.
Add the privacy and data deletion links first. Instagram sends nothing to an unpublished app. (Not in the guide: Meta may also want an app icon, a category, a contact email and a terms of service link before it publishes, so the fixes prompt asks for a /terms page. Meta’s pages disagree on whether your business must be verified first; the author’s showed as unverified when the app was created. If real comments still don’t arrive once it’s live, Meta’s webhook page says comment notifications need Advanced Access: App Review and Business Verification, which take days.)
6. On your phone:
Instagram, Settings, Messages and story replies, Message controls, Connected tools, Allow access to messages. (Meta gives the same path. Not in the guide: with it off, every message the bot sends fails.)
One page to run every reel
Pick the reel, type the keyword, write the messages, paste the link, press Go Live. The phone preview shows exactly what people will get. (Not in the guide: that’s on a phone. Meta says button messages aren’t available on Instagram’s web version, so people on a computer may not see the DM at all; the fixes prompt’s public replies tell them to DM you instead, and the bot answers them in plain text with the link written out.)
Paste any of these after the first prompt
Reach people who commented before the bot existed. (As the prompt says, it reaches comments up to 7 days old. Not in the guide: Instagram returns comments 50 at a time, without their replies unless asked, and can’t filter by date, so the bot has to page through all of them and skip the old ones itself.)
Lock onto the reel you post next. (Not in the guide: add “published after the automation went live” so it can’t pick an older post that gets a late comment.)
Collect emails. (People type the email as a message, which also keeps the conversation open. Before you collect any, add emails and the CSV to your /privacy page, delete them when asked, and get consent before you email anyone. Not in the guide.)
Record a clean demo. (Not in the guide: most likely what the DEMO badge on the dashboard picture means.)
The rules Instagram enforces
The guide’s five rules, as it gives them, with the checks beside them and two rules it leaves out. The Checked column is not in the guide.
“Every person who comments is someone asking to hear from you. You should own that list, and it should not cost more the better your reel does.” One prompt, one afternoon, $0 a month. (The guide’s author. Not in the guide: what you own is a record of who commented, not a list you can message again: Instagram lets the bot write only within 24 hours of the person writing or tapping. And $0 is the running cost; the build needs a paid Claude plan or API credits.)