How boutiques answer Instagram price and size questions

For a boutique that gets "how much?" and "do you have a medium?" all day on Instagram, we'd pick BetterSocials. It answers comments and DMs from price and size facts you write, in your voice, and hands back anything those facts don't cover. Meta Business Suite is the free pick for a few fixed answers, and ManyChat suits a shop that wants multi-step flows. All three work inside the same Instagram rules, and those rules shape every answer you send.

Instagram for boutiques: the rules come before the tool

Instagram sets the clock on every price and size question a boutique gets. A business can reply to a DM only within 24 hours of the shopper's last message. After that, the conversation is closed until they write again.

This memo takes the rules angle: the windows, caps and counts that decide what any tool can do for you. We assume one Instagram account and one Facebook Page, run by the owner or one helper. We also assume most questions are about price, size and where to buy.

Inside those rules, a reply tool has three jobs:

1. 1Answer price and size from facts you wrote, in words that sound like your shop.
2. 2Send the link by DM when a shopper comments a keyword such as PRICE.
3. 3Hand back the question it can't answer, such as a size you've sold out of, so a person replies instead of a guess.

A keyword here means a word you choose that triggers an automatic reply when it appears in a comment.

Which Instagram DM automation tools do boutiques use in 2026?

BetterSocials, ManyChat, Meta Business Suite and InstantDM are the four we'd shortlist for a boutique's price and size questions. Prices below are each vendor's own, as of October 2026, and Meta Business Suite's limits come from Meta's help pages as of July 2026.

Pick BetterSocials if most questions are price, size and where to buy, and you want comments and DMs answered from one inbox. Creator is $29 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly, for four accounts and one login.

Pick Meta Business Suite if a handful of fixed answers covers your shop. It's free, so it's cheaper than every paid tool here.

Pick ManyChat if you need multi-step sequences in a flow builder, or channels like WhatsApp. ManyChat works on Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and TikTok.

Pick InstantDM if you want to try keyword DMs on one Instagram account at no cost. Its free plan sends 500 DM automations a month, with three trigger words per automation, and InstantDM lists no per-contact fees.

Can Meta Business Suite answer price comments for free?

Meta Business Suite answers price comments for free, with one message you write in advance. In Meta's words, the automation will "send a message reply to comments on your posts that contain specific keywords or phrases."

The limits matter more for a boutique than the price does:

• Each keyword automation holds up to five keywords or phrases, and the same keyword can sit in only one automation.
• Matching is strict. Meta says "keywords are case-sensitive, and an automated message will not be sent unless the keywords match exactly."
• Replies can lag. Per Meta, "Inbox will automatically send a keyword automation to a message after 15 minutes unless you personally respond before then."
• Setup for comment-to-message is desktop only.
• Templates can collide. Meta says that when a custom keyword automation and a template automation both trigger, "we'll send the template response but not the custom keyword automated response."

Free is enough when your prices rarely change and every shopper should get the same answer. It stops being enough on a busy night. A template automation only answers the comments you predicted, so the questions you didn't predict, such as fit or a specific size, stay in the pile.

What does ManyChat cost a boutique when a reel takes off?

ManyChat prices its plans by active contacts. ManyChat Pro is $39 a month for 2,500 active contacts, as of October 2026, and each extra contact costs $0.05 on Pro, billed monthly. Extra contacts cost $0.10 on Essential and $0.025 on Business.

So a Pro account that reaches 4,000 people in a month pays $0.05 for each person past 2,500 on top of the $39, which takes the bill past a hundred dollars. A good reel is exactly when that happens, because more shoppers comment PRICE.

BetterSocials Creator is $29 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly, for four accounts, with unlimited contacts and unlimited DMs. Nothing is billed per contact. The meter is AI credits: Creator includes 1,000 a month, each AI reply or draft uses one, and when they run out the AI pauses instead of charging more.

Meta Business Suite and InstantDM's free plan both cost less than either. What BetterSocials' $29 buys over them is AI answers in your voice from rules you write, in comments and in DMs, and one inbox for every account.

How should a tool answer a size it doesn't know?

BetterSocials answers from the AI rules you write, so the rule holds your prices, your size range and your shop link. When your AI rules don't cover what someone asked, such as a price, a size or an order detail, the AI doesn't guess. The comment or DM waits for you in Needs reply.

We'd take that handback over a fast guess. A wrong size answer can cost the sale, and a short wait for a correct one rarely does. If your stock changes daily, keep the size range in a rule and leave sold-out checks to a person.

The clock still runs. Instagram's comment-to-DM rules, which Meta calls private replies, are tight. Per Meta's private replies documentation, "Only one message can be sent to the Instagram user who commented. The message must be sent within 7 days from when the comment was created."

Where that DM lands depends on the shopper. It goes to their main inbox if they follow you, and to their message requests folder if they don't. Meta also caps private replies at 750 calls an hour per Instagram professional account, as of July 2026.

What we would set up in BetterSocials

BetterSocials is the tool we'd set up for a boutique whose questions are mostly price, size and where to buy. This is the order we'd follow.

1. 1Write AI rules with your prices, your size range and your shop link. Links you put in your own rules are kept in replies.
2. 2Connect Instagram and your Facebook Page, then set a keyword such as PRICE. A comment with that word gets a public reply and a DM with your link. Keywords are unlimited and there is no flow to build.
3. 3Go to Settings, then AI voice, and set DMs to Draft for me. Every new DM gets a draft in your voice, and nothing sends until you approve it.
4. 4Once the drafts sound right, switch DMs to Reply in my voice and turn on Answer questions too. A DM then gets an answer about a minute after it arrives. Answer questions too only turns on after you've written at least one AI rule.
5. 5Leave lead tagging on. A comment or DM asking about price, booking or availability is tagged Lead, and a new lead sends a push notification to your phone.

Two limits to know. After five AI replies in one conversation in a day, the rest wait for you, and story replies and voice notes get no AI reply. Keyword DMs go out on Instagram and Facebook only. On TikTok and YouTube, the keyword posts a public reply with the link.

Creator is $29 a month, or $24 a month billed yearly, for four accounts and 1,000 AI credits. Pro is $49 a month, or $39 billed yearly, for six accounts and 2,000 AI credits. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required.