Instagram keyword automation watches your comments, DMs and story replies for a word your audience types, then answers with the right message instantly. Here is exactly how the triggers, matching and fallbacks work — and how to build a set that does not misfire.
Set a keyword like PRICE on a specific post or on every post you publish. When someone comments it, Repli replies publicly and/or sends them a DM automatically.
Match keywords inside incoming direct messages, not just comments — useful for people who message you directly instead of commenting.
Catch replies to your Stories and route them the same way as a comment or DM trigger, so a poll reply or a reaction can start a conversation.
Choose whether a comment must equal the keyword exactly or simply contain it anywhere in the text, so "price pls send" still matches PRICE.
Use the wildcard (*) to trigger a reply on every comment a post receives, regardless of what was typed — useful for giveaways or link-in-bio funnels.
Add several keywords to a single automation so PRICE, COST and RATE all point at the same reply without duplicating the setup.
Send a fallback message when nothing matches, and hand the thread to a teammate the moment a real question needs a person.
Guard rails stop the same commenter from re-triggering the same automation repeatedly, keeping the conversation clean instead of noisy.
Pair a keyword trigger with a question sequence to collect a name, requirement or budget before the conversation ever reaches a person.
One keyword like PRICE or BUY sends pricing and a checkout link the moment someone comments.
A keyword like GUIDE or COURSE delivers a link and starts a qualifying question sequence.
The wildcard trigger replies to every comment on a giveaway post without needing a fixed keyword.
DEMO or BOOK triggers hand a warm lead straight to a booking link or a human.
A keyword trigger is a rule: when a comment, DM or story reply contains a specific word, send a specific response. Repli reads the incoming text through the official Instagram Graph API, checks it against the keywords you have configured, and fires the matching automation within seconds — no manual watching of the comments feed required.
The three trigger surfaces cover the main ways people interact with a post. A comment keyword trigger watches the comments under a post; a DM keyword trigger watches messages sent straight to your inbox; a story reply trigger watches replies to a Story. You can run all three at once, and each one can carry its own keyword list and its own reply.
A comment keyword trigger can be scoped to a single post — useful for a launch or a giveaway — or applied to every post you publish, so a standing keyword like PRICE always works no matter which Reel someone found you through. Scoping to one post keeps a promotion contained; scoping to all posts keeps a core keyword always live.
When the keyword matches, Repli can reply publicly under the comment, send the commenter a DM, or both. Most setups reply publicly with something short — "Sent you a DM!" — and put the real content, links and questions in the DM, since Instagram does not allow clickable links in comment replies.
Not everyone comments — some people message a business account directly. A DM keyword trigger matches the same way a comment trigger does, but on inbound direct messages, so a first message like "price?" gets the same instant, correct answer a comment would.
Story reply triggers cover another common pattern: someone replies to a Story with a word, an emoji, or a poll answer. Repli treats that reply the same as a comment — matching it against your keywords and firing the linked automation — so a Story becomes another entry point into the same conversation flow, not a dead end.
Exact match requires the comment or message to equal the keyword and nothing else. It is precise, but it misses real comments like "PRICE please" or "whats the price". Contains match fires whenever the keyword appears anywhere in the text, so it catches natural phrasing at the cost of occasionally matching something unintended.
Most keyword sets should use contains match for the primary keywords and reserve exact match for short, common words that would otherwise trigger too often — a keyword like "hi" as an exact match only, for instance, so it does not fire on every comment that happens to contain those letters.
The wildcard, written as *, matches any comment at all. It is the tool for posts where you want to respond to literally everyone who engages — a giveaway, a "comment below for the link" post, or a launch where every commenter should get the same DM. Because it fires on every comment, the wildcard is normally scoped to one specific post rather than applied across your whole account.
A useful keyword set maps one word to one clear goal. Seven common campaign keywords, what they trigger, the DM that follows and the goal behind each one:
PRICE — trigger: comment or DM contains "price" — DM sent: "Here's our pricing — [link]. Anything specific you're pricing this for?" — goal: move a price question straight into a qualifying conversation.
GUIDE — trigger: comment "GUIDE" on a content post — DM sent: "Here's the guide: [link]. Want me to send the next one in the series too?" — goal: deliver a lead magnet and open a follow-up conversation.
DEMO — trigger: comment or DM contains "demo" — DM sent: "Happy to show you around — grab a time here: [calendar link]." — goal: book a product demo call.
COUPON — trigger: comment "COUPON" on a product post — DM sent: "Here's 10% off: CODE10 — valid for 48 hours: [shop link]." — goal: drive an immediate purchase with urgency.
COURSE — trigger: comment "COURSE" or DM keyword — DM sent: "Here's the course info — quick one first, are you a beginner or already working in the field?" — goal: qualify before recommending the right course tier.
INFO — trigger: wildcard-adjacent broad keyword on an FAQ-style post — DM sent: "Here's everything you asked about: [link]. Let me know if anything's missing." — goal: catch general interest that does not fit a narrower keyword.
BOOK — trigger: comment or DM contains "book" — DM sent: "Here's my calendar — pick whatever slot works: [link]." — goal: convert a warm lead straight into a booked appointment.
One automation can hold several keywords that all point to the same reply — PRICE, COST and RATE, for example — so you do not have to build three separate automations for the same intent. This also keeps your automation list readable: group by intent (pricing, guide request, booking) rather than by every possible word someone might type.
You can run several automations side by side, each with a different keyword group and a different reply, and Repli checks incoming text against all of them, firing whichever one matches first.
A fallback reply covers everything that does not match a configured keyword — it is what keeps an automation from going silent on a real question it was not built to answer. A good fallback acknowledges the message and either points to a keyword that will work ("Comment PRICE and I'll send it right over") or flags the thread for a person to answer.
Human handoff matters the moment a conversation moves past what a keyword can handle — a complaint, a custom request, a negotiation. Repli lets a teammate take over a thread at that point, so the automation does the repetitive first reply and a person closes the conversation that actually needs judgment.
Without limits, a popular post can trigger the same automation hundreds of times from the same handful of accounts commenting repeatedly, or from bot accounts spamming a keyword. Rate limiting per commenter keeps a single automation from re-firing on the same person inside a short window, and per-keyword limits stop a runaway automation from sending the same DM to everyone twice.
This matters for account health as much as user experience — sending near-identical messages too fast, to too many people, is exactly the pattern Instagram and any recipient would flag as spam.
A keyword trigger is often the front door to a lead-collection sequence. GUIDE or DEMO can open a short set of questions — name, company, what they are looking for — asked one at a time in the DM, with the answers stored against the contact instead of buried in a chat thread. See how the full flow works on the lead-generation page.
Too many overlapping keywords is the most common failure — if PRICE, COST and INFO all point to different automations, whichever fires first wins, and the others never run, which looks like the automation is broken. Group overlapping intents into one automation instead.
A missing fallback is the second — silence on an unmatched message reads as being ignored. A wildcard applied account-wide instead of to one post is the third — it will fire on every comment on every post forever, which is rarely what anyone intends. And a comment reply that promises a DM but no DM is configured leaves the person with nothing, which damages trust faster than no automation at all.
A rule that watches comments, DMs or story replies for a specific word and automatically sends a reply, comment or DM when it appears, without anyone manually watching the post.
Yes. Add as many keywords as you need to a single automation — PRICE, COST, RATE — and they all trigger the same reply.
The wildcard (*) matches every comment on a post, so you can reply to everyone who engages instead of requiring a specific word — commonly used for giveaways.
Exact match requires the text to equal the keyword exactly; contains match fires whenever the keyword appears anywhere inside a longer comment or message.
Yes. A story reply trigger matches keywords in replies to your Stories the same way a comment trigger matches comments.
You can set a fallback reply for unmatched comments or messages, so the person gets an acknowledgement instead of silence.
Yes. A teammate can take over any automated thread, which pauses further automated replies on that conversation.
Rate limiting per commenter prevents the same automation firing repeatedly on the same person in a short window.
Yes. Repli uses the official Instagram Graph API for comments, DMs and story replies — no scraping or unofficial access.
Instagram keyword automation is included on the Creator plan at ₹249 / US$3 per month, with a free plan available to try it first.
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