---
title: "Best Instagram AI Chatbot for DMs: 8 Tools Compared"
slug: instagram-ai-chatbot
author: "Leonardo Maldonado"
category: "Tools & Alternatives"
articleType: comparison
tags: ["AI chatbot for Instagram DMs","best AI chatbot for Instagram","Instagram chatbot with AI","free AI chatbot for Instagram","conversational AI for Instagram"]
publishedAt: 2026-09-04T09:00:00.000Z
updatedAt: 2026-10-17T12:00:00.000Z
canonical: https://setluca.com/blog/instagram-ai-chatbot
---# Best Instagram AI Chatbot for DMs: 8 Tools Compared

> The best Instagram AI chatbot depends on your inbox. ManyChat leads for comment-to-DM capture with AI included from Pro, InstantDM and Inrō are the cheapest, and SetSmart or Tidio handle real conversations. Use a tool on Meta's official API. Meta's AI Studio closed to new setups on August 10, 2026, so new accounts need a third-party tool.

## Key takeaways

- "Chatbot" now covers two products: scripted flow bots (ManyChat, Chatfuel, InstantDM) and conversational AI (SetSmart, Inrō's AI agent, Tidio's Lyro, Luca). Know which one you're buying.
- Meta's AI Studio was the free built-in creator AI. Since August 10, 2026, new AI characters can't be created; existing ones keep running.
- Cheapest paid entries: InstantDM at $9.99/mo billed yearly and SetSmart at $25/mo. ManyChat, Inrō, InstantDM and Tidio all keep free plans.
- The billing unit decides your launch-month bill: AI messages, conversations, Active Contacts, and flat plans price the same inbox very differently.
- No chatbot closes a high-ticket sale alone. The honest job description is qualify, answer, follow up, and book, with a human on the close.

---

The best Instagram AI chatbot depends on what your inbox holds. Pick ManyChat or Chatfuel for comment-to-DM capture with AI on top, and InstantDM or Inrō on the smallest budget. Choose SetSmart or Tidio when the messages need a real conversation. Most people shopping for one have already outgrown their inbox. A Reel lands, forty threads open overnight, the same five questions arrive on repeat, and the one lead ready to buy waits behind all of them. For the wider channel picture, see [Instagram automation for coaches](/integrations/instagram).

The word "chatbot" covers two different machines, though. A scripted bot follows a flow you built and stalls on any question you didn't predict. Conversational AI reads the message and writes an answer to it. Both get sold under the same name, and the cost of confusing them is a lead who asked a real question and got a menu.

## What is an Instagram chatbot?

An Instagram chatbot is software that answers Instagram DMs for a business through Meta's Instagram Messaging API. Scripted chatbots send prewritten replies when a keyword or comment triggers them. AI chatbots read the message and generate an answer. Both need a professional account, and both can only reply to people who messaged first.

## Is a chatbot the same as conversational AI?

No, and the gap between them is the most expensive thing on this page. A classic chatbot is a script with triggers: someone comments "GUIDE," it sends the guide, and a decision tree routes each tap to a prewritten branch. Conversational AI generates the reply from the message itself, so "I've been burned by two coaches already, how are you different?" gets an answer rather than a booking link.

Buyers use one word for both, which is fair, because vendors do too. ManyChat and [Chatfuel](/comparison/chatfuel) started as flow builders and added AI layers. SetSmart, Inrō, and Tidio's Lyro sell the AI as the product. The label on the pricing page won't tell you which machine you're getting. The test that will: ask what happens to a message the tool has never seen before.

We should disclose our own vocabulary here. Luca is the DM sales platform for coaches, creators, and experts; we call its AI an [AI DM setter](/blog/what-is-an-ai-dm-setter), not a chatbot, because it works a sales conversation the way you write instead of deflecting questions, and its job is booking sales calls. Our [AI setter vs chatbot](/blog/ai-setter-vs-chatbot) guide covers that line in detail. You searched "chatbot," so this page reviews the whole category on its merits, scripted bots included. If what you're really missing is lead records rather than replies, that's a different purchase, covered in our [Instagram CRM roundup](/blog/instagram-crm).

## How did we evaluate these Instagram AI chatbots?

The disclosure comes before the verdicts: **Luca is our product.** That shapes what we know well and what we could be wrong about, so here are the rules we held ourselves to.

**1. Pricing comes from the vendor's own page, dated.** Every price below was rechecked on a public pricing or newsroom page on October 15, 2026, with the full list in the Sources block. Nothing from review-site round-ups. Where a vendor doesn't publish a figure, we say so instead of guessing.

**2. We tested the category's hard question.** For each tool we looked at what its AI does with an unscripted message, because that's where a chatbot earns or loses its keep. Deflecting "what's your price?" is table stakes.

**3. The billing unit gets its own attention.** AI messages, Lyro conversations, Active Contacts, and flat plans produce very different bills for the same launch week.

**4. We name where a rival beats us.** Several tools here are a better buy than Luca for specific readers, and each of those entries says so plainly. If your DM load is fans asking where you bought your leggings, don't pay us $99 a month.

What we couldn't do: run all eight on a live account for a quarter. Feature notes come from vendor docs and pricing pages, not from months of daily use of each one.

## Which Instagram AI chatbot tools should you compare?

Eight tools, sorted by what they're for. The AI type column is the one to read first.

| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free option | AI type |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ManyChat | Comment-to-DM capture with AI replies | $17/mo; AI included from Pro ($39/mo) | Yes, 25 contacts/mo | Scripted flows + Manychat AI |
| Chatfuel | Paid traffic into DMs with an AI sales agent | $18/mo billed yearly (Business) | Free trial | Scripted flows + AI agent |
| Luca | Coaches closing high-ticket in DMs | $99/mo | No, paid only | Conversational AI; Instagram live |
| SetSmart | AI qualification on a budget | $25/mo | No, 7-day trial on Pro and Scale | Conversational AI |
| Inrō | Instagram-native creators | Free; Pro EUR 12.99/mo | Yes, 100 contacts/mo | Campaigns + AI agent |
| InstantDM | Cheapest auto-DM with AI replies | $9.99/mo billed yearly | Yes, 500 automations/mo | Triggers + AI agent (Trendsetter) |
| Tidio (Lyro) | Website support that also reads Instagram | Free; paid from $24.17/mo (billed annually) | Yes, Free plan | Support AI, metered by conversation |
| Meta AI Studio | Fan FAQs on accounts that set up before Aug 10, 2026 | Free | Built into Instagram | Creator AI (closed to new setups) |

Prices from each vendor's pricing page, rechecked October 15, 2026.

## How much does an Instagram chatbot cost?

An Instagram chatbot costs anywhere from $0 to about $800 a month, and the billing unit changes the bill more than the sticker price does. Here are the entry points, checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 15, 2026.

| Tool | Free plan | Cheapest paid plan | Billed by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ManyChat | Yes, 25 contacts | $17/mo ($14 yearly) | Active contacts |
| Chatfuel | Free trial | $18/mo billed yearly | Plan plus AI credits |
| SetSmart | No | $25/mo (250 AI messages) | AI messages |
| Inrō | Yes, 100 contacts | EUR 12.99/mo | Active contacts |
| InstantDM | Yes, 500 automations | $9.99/mo billed yearly | Flat plan |
| Tidio | Yes | $24.17/mo billed annually | Conversations |

## Is an Instagram chatbot allowed?

Yes, when it runs on Meta's official Instagram Messaging API. Every tool in this roundup does. Meta's policy lets a business reply within 24 hours of a user's message. Unofficial tools that log in with your password and click through Instagram like a person are the ones that get accounts restricted. Avoid any tool that asks for your Instagram password. More detail is in our guide to [what Meta allows for DM automation](/blog/what-meta-allows-for-dm-automation).

## What are the 8 best AI chatbots for Instagram DMs in 2026?

1. ManyChat: the default chatbot, with AI included from Pro

Still the tool most people mean when they say "Instagram chatbot," and the capture layer is genuinely the best in the category. Published 2026 tiers: Free ($0, 25 Active Contacts a month), Essential ($17/mo, $14 annual, 250), Pro ($39/mo, $29 annual, 2,500), Business ($99/mo, $69 annual, 7,500), Advanced ($199/mo, $139 annual, 25,000). Under the pricing model ManyChat introduced on March 2, 2026, Manychat AI is included in Pro and up at no extra cost, per ManyChat's own pricing explainer. You teach it your business and it answers DMs, replies to comments, and steers conversations toward a goal. Free and Essential don't include it.

**Pros:** the most reliable comment-to-DM trigger anywhere, broadcasts, five channels, AI included in the plan price from Pro. **Cons:** the AI rides on flow logic rather than replacing it, Active Contact billing spikes in launch months with no payment cap, and off-script sales questions still land on you. **Best for:** content-driven capture with light AI answers on top. Our full [ManyChat review](/blog/manychat-review) covers the platform, and our [ManyChat AI review](/blog/manychat-ai-review) tests the AI layer on its own.

### 2. Chatfuel: an AI sales agent with the simplest pricing here

Chatfuel runs automations across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, and its paid tier leads with AI: an AI sales assistant plus a knowledge base you load with your own material. Pricing is unusually clean. Business is US$18 a month billed yearly (US$216 a year) with US$20 of AI credits a month, and every plan starts with a free trial. The catch sits in the footnotes: usage limits apply per plan, and the numbers live on a separate limits page rather than the pricing table.

**Pros:** one clear paid tier, a free trial to test with, WhatsApp included, AI answers drawn from your own knowledge base. **Cons:** the limits take digging to find, and the AI is a sales assistant inside a marketing tool rather than a setter that owns follow-up. **Best for:** coaches running paid traffic into DMs who want AI replies and attribution in one place.

1. Luca: conversational AI that drafts the way you write

Our tool, so read the other entries first. Instagram in Luca is live. Telegram and Messenger are live today, and WhatsApp is coming soon. Luca reads each inbound DM, qualifies the lead by having the conversation rather than running a form, drafts a reply the way you write, and moves toward a booked call. Auto-send is on by default on every channel, and you can switch any channel to review. That's the reason we resist the chatbot label: a scripted flow can't hold a real conversation, and on a $2,000 offer a generic answer costs more than a slow one. Plans are $99, $249 and $499 a month for 1,250, 4,000 and 8,500 replies.

**Pros:** replies written to the question the lead actually asked, follow-up cadences on Pro and Scale, flat monthly pricing by replies. **Cons:** no free plan and no comment-to-DM growth tools. Approving drafts also takes a few minutes a day, by design. **Best for:** coaches selling $1,500+ offers where the DM thread is the sales call, once their channel is live.

### 4. SetSmart: the cheapest real conversational AI

SetSmart sells AI qualification and call booking across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, and every plan gets every feature; you're buying volume. Light is $25/mo for 250 AI messages with a hard cap and no top-ups. Pro is $97 (1,000 messages, top-ups $100 per 1,000), Scale $297 (4,000), Enterprise $797 (15,000). Pro and Scale carry a 7-day trial; Light bills immediately. Calendar integrations include Calendly, Cal.com, GoHighLevel, and iClosed.

**Pros:** genuine conversational AI at the lowest entry price in the category, all channels on all plans, voice and image support. **Cons:** the Light cap stops the automation dead mid-month, and per-message billing is hard to predict when one chatty lead eats ten messages. **Best for:** AI qualification under $30. **At that budget and modest volume, SetSmart beats us on price and we won't pretend otherwise.** Our [SetSmart review](/blog/setsmart-review) goes deeper.

### 5. Inrō: Instagram-native, with the most generous free tier

Inrō is Instagram-only on purpose: DMs, comments, story mentions and replies, live comments, and ads. The Free plan covers 100 active contacts a month with 50 AI agent credits and no card. Pro starts at EUR 12.99/mo with the AI agent included and contacts that auto-scale from 500. An annual plan runs EUR 1,249/yr at the 10,000-contact mark, and Managed accounts start at EUR 299/month, billed monthly. Pro carries a 14-day trial.

**Pros:** the best free tier in the roundup, an AI agent included at a hobby-budget price, story-reply coverage many tools skip. **Cons:** one channel only, and the auto-scaling price schedule between the published anchors isn't listed. Our [Inro pricing teardown](/comparison/inro) brackets what it costs at real sizes. **Best for:** an Instagram-native creator who wants capture plus light AI replies under EUR 20/mo. **At that size, Inrō is the better buy and Luca is overkill.**

### 6. InstantDM: under ten dollars, with AI agents attached

InstantDM covers Instagram reels, posts, stories, DMs, and Live comments, plus Facebook page comments and Messenger. A Free plan covers 500 DM automations a month. Legend Pro is $9.99/mo billed yearly, with automations rated to 800 an hour. Trendsetter is $24.99/mo billed yearly and adds the Flow Editor with an AI agent node that runs on your own OpenAI, Claude or Gemini key, plus API access. Paid plans carry a 7-day trial, and the Free plan needs no card.

**Pros:** the cheapest paid tool here, a real free plan, no per-contact fees, email capture inside DMs, an AI reply layer at a trigger-tool price. **Cons:** the AI agent needs Trendsetter and your own model key, and an 800-an-hour send ceiling is an invitation to behave in ways Instagram notices. **Best for:** creators and small accounts that want keyword capture with AI answers for the lightest possible bill.

### 7. Tidio (Lyro): a support AI that happens to speak Instagram

Tidio comes from the website-support world, and Lyro, its AI agent, is built to resolve customer questions from your knowledge base. The pricing page lists a Free plan, Starter at $24.17/mo (billed annually), Growth from $49.17/mo (billed annually), and Plus from $300/mo. Lyro's AI conversations are metered separately from $32.50/mo and a 7-day trial covering everything. Instagram sits alongside live chat, email, and Messenger as a channel.

**Pros:** mature AI trained for accurate answers, one inbox across your website and socials, a real free plan to test with. **Cons:** it's a support desk at heart. Lyro resolves tickets; it doesn't chase a lead who went quiet or hold a price conversation, and conversation-metered billing needs watching. **Best for:** a coach or small business with a website storefront who wants one AI answering both site chat and Instagram questions.

### 8. Meta AI Studio: the free option, honestly assessed

The free answer in this category used to be built into Instagram itself. AI Studio, launched in July 2024, let creators set up an AI extension of themselves that answered common DM questions and story replies, with responses clearly labeled as AI, topic controls, and an on/off switch in the professional dashboard. No subscription attached. For a creator whose inbox was fan FAQs, it was genuinely enough, and we'd have said so.

The tense matters for AI Studio now. Meta's August 10, 2026 update says people can no longer create new AI characters or edit existing ones, as the company shifts focus to its next generation of AI experiences. Existing characters and chats stay active on upgraded infrastructure.

**Pros:** free, native, clearly labeled, and zero third-party access to your account. **Cons:** closed to new setups, frozen for editing, answers only light questions, and it was never able to qualify a lead or book a call. **Best for:** accounts that set an AI up before the cutoff and mostly field repeat questions. Everyone else now starts on a third-party tool, free or from $9.99/mo.

## Which AI chatbot for Instagram DMs should you choose?

Choose by the shape of the messages in your inbox, not by the feature grid. Repetitive questions reward a scripted bot. Real sales conversations reward conversational AI. Most inboxes hold both, which is why stacks are common.

**Keep your Meta AI Studio setup if** you built one before August 10, 2026 and your DMs are mostly fan questions. It's free and it still runs. Just don't expect qualification or booking from it.

**Choose ManyChat if** your top of funnel is comment-to-DM capture and broadcasts, and the AI included on Pro covers your question load.

**Choose Chatfuel if** you're running paid traffic into DMs and want AI answers plus attribution from first message to sale.

**Choose InstantDM or Inrō if** the budget is under $25/mo, Instagram is your only channel, and nobody negotiates a $4,000 package in your inbox.

**Choose SetSmart if** you want true conversational AI at the lowest entry price and can live with a hard message cap.

**Choose Tidio if** your business runs through a website as much as through DMs and the job is accurate answers, not appointment setting.

**Choose Luca if** the DM is the sales call, with messy questions, price objections, and follow-up over days, and you want every reply drafted the way you write. Telegram, Instagram and Messenger are live now. Our [best AI DM setter](/blog/best-ai-dm-setter) guide compares that narrower category head to head, and our list of [Instagram automation tools](/blog/best-instagram-dm-tool-for-coaches) covers the wider field.

**Run two if** capture and conversation are both real jobs for you: ManyChat or Inrō catching the comment, a conversational tool underneath carrying everything that isn't a keyword. That's the most common setup we see among coaches past about 50 leads a month.

## A worked example: Amara's launch week, priced three ways

Illustrative composite, not a real client. Amara is a mindset coach in Toronto selling a $2,200 eight-week program. A launch Reel performs, and 140 new DM threads open across the week. Average threads run about nine messages each once qualification and scheduling happen, and her own [qualification questions](/blog/lead-qualification-questions-for-coaches) are the same five she'd ask in person.

Priced on SetSmart: 140 leads at nine messages each is roughly 1,260 AI messages. That clears Pro's 1,000 allowance, so the month costs $97 plus a $100 top-up block, about $197. On Light, the 250-message cap dies before the end of day two, which is exactly the week she can't afford silence.

Priced on ManyChat Pro: 140 contacts sit comfortably inside the 2,500 allowance, so the bill stays $39. But around 60 of those threads open with something off-script, "I did two programs like this and nothing stuck" or a straight [price objection](/blog/how-to-handle-i-cant-afford-it), and those land back on Amara, at night, in batches.

Priced on Luca: of those roughly 1,260 messages, about half are Amara's side of the thread, so around 630 replies, comfortably inside the $99 plan's 1,250-reply allowance. Every Luca plan comes with a 7-day free trial (card required). Each reply is drafted the way she writes and she approves it before it sends, so the off-script threads get real answers without her writing them from scratch.

None of Amara's three options is wrong. The $39 bill costs her evenings, the $197 bill scales with the exact spike she planned for, and the $99 bill buys drafted replies the way she writes that she approves in minutes rather than writes. Which trade is right depends on whether those 60 hard threads are where her revenue lives. At $2,200 a sale, they usually are.

## Which edge cases trip up an Instagram AI chatbot?

**The 2am buyer in another timezone.** Every tool here can reply instantly at any hour, and an instant 2am reply reads as a bot even when it's good. Queue overnight replies for the morning unless the lead is clearly awake and mid-conversation. Matching a person's pace beats winning a speed contest they didn't ask for.

**The window has already closed.** Meta's Messenger Platform policy gives you 24 hours to respond to a message, extended to 7 days with the Human Agent tag. A chatbot cheerfully "following up" outside that window is sending messages that never arrive. Build the [follow-up sequence](/blog/dm-follow-up-sequence) inside the window, and move longer cycles to a channel you captured, like email.

**The person messaging is already a client.** Qualification questions aimed at someone who paid you last month read as contempt with a smiley on it. Tag current clients and route their messages straight to a human, whatever tool you run.

**The voice note and the shared Reel.** Leads answer questions with voice notes and react to posts instead of typing. Scripted bots treat both as dead air. Some conversational tools handle voice (SetSmart lists voice and image support), and some don't. Ask before you buy, because "the bot ignored my message" is how warm leads cool.

## What breaks after you turn the chatbot on?

| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The AI states a price or promise you never made | Generative replies with no guardrails or a stale knowledge base | Constrain topics, update the source material, and route price talk to a human or an approval step. |
| Replies fire but bookings don't move | The bot deflects questions instead of qualifying and asking for the call | Measure booked calls, not response counts. Add a booking step or a tool whose job is booking. |
| Instagram flags suspected automated behavior | Send volume jumped from zero to bot-pace on day one | Slow the pace, ramp over 7 to 10 days, keep replies inbound-only. |
| Leads get two different replies | A capture bot and an AI tool both subscribed to the same account | Split by trigger: keywords to the capture tool, everything else to the conversation layer. |
| The AI sounds like a stranger in your shirt | Trained on marketing copy rather than your real threads | Feed it 20 to 30 genuine past conversations, including ones where you pushed back on price, and approve every draft for at least a fortnight. |
| The AI bill doubled in a launch week | Message- or conversation-metered billing met a spike | Check your billing unit, pre-buy volume before launches, or move the spiky channel to a flat plan. |

Most rows in that table trace back to pace and permissions rather than the tool's brand. The platform's actual limits, and what gets accounts restricted, are collected in our guide to the [Instagram DM automation rules](/blog/instagram-dm-automation-rules-2026).

## What mistakes do people make buying an Instagram AI chatbot?

**Buying the word instead of the mechanism.** "AI chatbot" on a pricing page can mean a decision tree with autocomplete or a model that writes real answers. Ask one question of every vendor: what happens to a message you have no flow for? The answer sorts the whole market.

**Judging the AI on the vendor's demo questions.** Every demo handles "what are your prices?" Bring your three hardest real messages, the skeptical one, the rambling one, the price objection, and paste them in during the trial. The gap between tools shows up in minutes.

**Skipping review in week one.** The AI's first replies are its least polished, and it has learned little about you on day one. Approve every draft until you stop editing what it writes. On high-ticket offers, leave approval on longer; week one is where it pays most.

**Ignoring the billing unit.** A $25 hard cap, a $29 contact meter, a conversation-metered AI, and a $99 flat plan are four different bets on your launch week. Model your best month, because that's when metered bills spike.

**Running an undisclosed bot.** Meta labels creator AI responses, California's bot-disclosure law covers commercial bots, and leads increasingly ask outright. Disclose in the reply or the bio. An AI your leads discover by catching it lying about being human costs more than it ever saved.

## One honest limit

A chatbot, ours included, does not close a high-ticket sale. The lead who's emotionally invested, half-decided, and reading your tone is still won by a human who can hear what isn't being typed. AI handles the opening, the qualification, the 11pm question, and the fourth follow-up nobody enjoys sending, and then its best move is handing you a warm, booked conversation. That handoff is why Luca drafts the way you write and lets you switch any channel to review (auto-send is on by default on every channel): the AI does the labor, the coach keeps the judgment, and nothing goes out under your name that you didn't decide to allow.

The other honest limit is volume. If your inbox holds ten real conversations a week, you don't need any Instagram AI chatbot on this page yet. Answer them yourself, thoughtfully, within the hour. Buy tooling when threads start slipping, because the tools are for keeping promises at a volume where memory fails, and no tool improves on a coach with time to care.

If the conversation is the part your current chatbot keeps fumbling, see how Luca handles [Instagram automation for coaches](/integrations/instagram), or see what an AI setter costs on [Luca's pricing](/pricing) page.


## FAQ

### What is the best AI chatbot for Instagram?

It depends on the job. ManyChat (from $17/mo, Manychat AI included from Pro) leads for comment-to-DM capture. InstantDM ($9.99/mo billed yearly) and Inrō (free, then EUR 12.99/mo) are the budget picks. SetSmart (from $25/mo) qualifies leads cheaply. Tidio's Lyro suits website-first businesses. Prices checked October 15, 2026.

### How much does an Instagram chatbot cost?

An Instagram chatbot costs from $0 to about $800 a month. ManyChat, Inrō, InstantDM and Tidio have free plans, InstantDM starts at $9.99/mo billed yearly, Chatfuel Business at $18/mo billed yearly, SetSmart at $25/mo, and SetSmart Enterprise runs $797/mo. The billing unit matters more than the sticker price.

### Is an Instagram chatbot against the rules?

No, not when it connects through Meta's official Instagram Messaging API and replies to people who messaged you first. Meta's policy gives businesses 24 hours to answer a user's message. What gets accounts restricted is unofficial tools that log in as you, cold mass-sending, and messaging people who never wrote to you.

### Can an Instagram chatbot sound human?

Yes, a conversational AI can sound close to human when it's trained on your real replies rather than marketing copy. Scripted flow bots sound like menus because they send prewritten branches. Either way, never deny being AI when asked. Meta's policy and California's bot-disclosure law both require disclosure in certain situations.

### Does Instagram have its own AI chatbot?

Not for new accounts. Meta's AI Studio let creators build an AI that answered DMs, but Meta's August 10, 2026 update stopped anyone creating new AI characters or editing existing ones. Characters built before that date keep running. Everyone else needs a third-party tool on Meta's official API.


## Sources

1. [Manychat: Pricing (Free 25 Active Contacts; Essential $17/mo, $14 annual; Pro $39/mo, $29 annual; Business $99/mo, $69 annual; Advanced $199/mo, $139 annual). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://manychat.com/pricing)
2. [Manychat Blog: "Manychat Pricing Explained" (Manychat AI included in Pro). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://manychat.com/blog/manychat-pricing-explained/)
3. [Chatfuel: Pricing (Business US$18/mo billed yearly, US$216/year; US$20 AI credits a month; Agency S US$90/mo billed yearly with US$100 AI credits; free trial on every plan). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://chatfuel.com/pricing)
4. [SetSmart: Pricing (Light $25, Pro $97, Scale $297, Enterprise $797; AI-message allowances and top-up rates; channels on all plans). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://setsmart.io/pricing)
5. [Inrō: Pricing (Free 100 contacts and 50 AI credits; Pro from EUR 12.99/mo auto-scaling; annual EUR 1,249/yr; Managed from EUR 299/month). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://www.inro.social/pricing)
6. [InstantDM: Pricing (Free 500 DM automations a month; Legend Pro $9.99/mo and Trendsetter $24.99/mo billed yearly; AI agent node on Trendsetter; 7-day trial on paid plans). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://instantdm.com/pricing)
7. [Tidio: Pricing (Free plan; Starter $24.17/mo billed annually; Growth from $49.17/mo billed annually; Plus from $300/mo; Lyro from $32.50/mo; 7-day trial). Retrieved October 15, 2026.](https://www.tidio.com/pricing/)
8. [Meta Newsroom: "Create Your Own Custom AI with AI Studio" (July 2024 launch; August 10, 2026 update: no new AI characters or edits, existing characters remain active)](https://about.fb.com/news/2024/07/create-your-own-custom-ai-with-ai-studio/)
9. [Meta for Developers: Messenger Platform policy overview (24-hour window, 7-day Human Agent tag)](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform/policy/policy-overview/)
10. [California Legislature: SB 1001, Bots: disclosure (Bolstering Online Transparency Act)](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1001)
11. [Twilio (2025): State of Customer Engagement Report: 54% of consumers want to know when they're talking to AI. Retrieved October 17, 2026.](https://www.twilio.com/en-us/press/releases/socer-2025)

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Published by SetLuca.