Instagram Messaging with the Messenger Platform

The Messenger Platform allows you to build messaging solutions for Instagram Professional accounts at scale.

Instagram Messaging is available for the following accounts:

• Any Instagram Professional account for a business
• Any Instagram Professional account for a Creator

You can check the eligibility for accounts that you manage using the Conversations API . A 36103 error code will be returned if the messaging is not yet available.

Common Uses

• Get messages that have been sent to your Instagram Professional Inbox from customers
• Receive and respond to customer messages with text, media, stories, and more
• Send a private reply to a person who published a public post on your Instagram
• Send a private reply to a person who published a comment on your Instagram post

How It Works

The Messenger Platform allows you to have conversations with people interested in your business or creations. The Facebook Page linked to your Instagram Professional account facilitates these conversations using the Messenger Platform. When a person sends your Instagram a message, the message will be delivered to your Instagram Inbox and a webhook notification will be sent to your server. Your messaging app has 24 hours to respond to this message. If more time is needed to allow a human agent to respond, you can add a tag to your response to send the message outside the standard 24 hour messaging window.

Instagram Messaging offers a wide variety of conversation entry points for people to start a conversation and message types for your messaging app to respond with.

Instagram Inbox

An Instagram Professional account has a messaging inbox that allows you to control notifications and organize messages. By default notifications are off. You can turn notifications on in the Inbox Settings. The inbox is organized into different categories, Primary, General, and Requests. By default, all new conversations from followers will appear in the Primary folder. Conversations that existed before you implemented Instagram Messaging will be in the folders you have placed them within.

Messages that you receive from people who are not followers of your account are in Requests folder. You can choose to accept or deny these requests, and request messages aren’t marked as Seen until you accept them. Once a request is accepted you can move the conversation to the Primary or General folder. All message requests that you answer using a third-party app will be moved to the General folder.

Inbox Limitations

• If you reply to a message using a third-party app, the conversation will be moved to the General folder regardless of your Setting configuration
• Inbox folders are not supported and messages delivered by the Messenger Platform do not include folder information that is shown in the Instagram from Meta app inbox folder
• Webhooks notifications or messages delivered via the API will not be considered as Read in the Instagram app inbox. Only after a reply is sent will a message be considered Read.

Business Login for Instagram

Requirements

• The Instagram Graph API – This API allows businesses and Creators to manage their presence on Instagram using your app
• The following permissions:

  • instagram_basic
  • instagram_manage_messages
  • pages_manage_metadata
  • pages_showlist
  • business_management
• Delete messages when you receive a webhooks notification to do so

Automated Experiences

You can provide an escalation path for automated messaging experiences using one of the following:

• A Single App – You can create a custom inbox to receive or reply to messages from a person. This custom inbox is powered by the same messaging app that also provides the automated experience
• Multiple Apps – Handover Protocol allows you pass the conversation from one app or inbox to another. For example, one app would handle the conversation with an automated experience and, when needed, would pass the conversation to another app to continue the conversation with a human agent.

Human Agent Only

You can provide an escalation path for human agent only messaging experiences with a custom inbox. Your messaging app must be able to:

• receive messages sent by people and render them correctly in the custom inbox
• reply to messages via the custom inbox and ensure people successfully received them

Limitations

• An Instagram Professional account can only converse with one customer per conversation. Group messaging is not supported
• Conversations in the Requests folder that have not been active for 30 days will not be returned in API calls
• Only the URL for the shared media or post is included in the webhooks notification when a customer sends a message with a share
• An Instagram Professional account for a Creator must send an API request using the Instagram Conversations API before the account can receive webhooks

Testing Limitations

• Apps with Standard Access can only interact people who have a role on the app
• Some features may not work properly until your app has been granted Advanced Access
• People testing your app must have a role on your app, grant access to all the required permissions, and have a role on the Instagram Professional account

Next Steps

• Set up Webhooks for Instagram Messaging

See Also

• Sample Instagram Messaging Experience – Example code for a working Instagram messaging experience
• Available Message Types – Explanations of various Instagram Messaging features
• FAQs – Solutions to common problems, troubleshooting tips, and FAQs
• Rate Limits – Explanations of various Instagram Messaging rate limits
• App Review – Review the Platform policies and follow our pre-launch checklist to ensure a successful launch
• Feature Reference – Learn more about the Human Agent feature and how it works