What restaurants pay to answer every Instagram DM

A restaurant can answer every Instagram and Facebook message and comment for $0 with Meta Business Suite, as long as a person types most replies. BetterSocials is best for an owner who wants each comment and DM drafted in their own voice from their hours, menu and booking link, at $29 a month, or $24 billed yearly, for four accounts. Per-seat inboxes such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social fit restaurant groups with a social team.

What a restaurant's Instagram inbox has to do, and what we priced

BetterSocials, Meta Business Suite and the per-seat inboxes all do one job for a restaurant. Every comment and DM lands in one place, and the answers go out while the guest is still choosing where to eat. This memo takes the cost question: what each way of doing that job costs per month, on the plan a restaurant would need.

The job has three parts. First, every message and comment from Instagram and Facebook arrives in one inbox, so nothing hides in a phone app. Second, the answers come from your own facts, meaning your hours, your menu link and your booking link, written down once.

The third part is speed. Instagram only lets a business reply to a DM within 24 hours of the guest's last message. After that, the conversation is closed until they write again.

Our assumption throughout is simple. One person answers the messages between services, and most questions are about hours, menus, bookings and large tables.

What each inbox tool costs a restaurant in 2026

BetterSocials sits first in our table because answering every comment and DM from your own facts, at a flat price, is the job this memo prices. The rest follow by monthly cost. Prices are as of October 2026, except Agorapulse, as of July 2026.

Meta Business Suite is cheaper than every paid tool here, because it costs nothing. What the paid tools add is either AI drafting, automation flows or team features such as assignment and reporting.

Later's Conversations inbox starts on Growth and covers Instagram DMs and comments, Facebook DMs and comments and TikTok comments. BetterSocials Pro is $49 a month, or $39 billed yearly, for six accounts. Team is $99 a month, or $79 billed yearly, for twelve accounts and unlimited teammates, which is the plan a group with several locations would price.

What Meta Business Suite covers for $0

Meta Business Suite is free on desktop and in its mobile app. Meta's help page on the Business Suite inbox says you can "Read and reply to new messages and comments from your Facebook Page, Messenger, Instagram account and WhatsApp Business account in one inbox." For a single location with a handful of messages a day, that's often enough.

The automations are where the free tool stops. Keyword replies send a fixed template you write, cap at 5 keywords and are set up on desktop. They also wait 15 minutes before sending unless you reply first.

The comment-to-message automation sends your template when a comment on your post contains your keyword. That covers the menu link and the booking link well.

What you pay with is time. A template answers the questions you predicted. A guest asking about a birthday table on Saturday waits until someone opens the inbox, and on a busy night that can be after close.

What Manychat costs in a busy month

Manychat Pro is $39 a month for 2,500 active contacts, as of October 2026, and each extra contact costs $0.05 on Pro. Manychat bills by active contacts, the people its automations reach in a month.

So a restaurant whose Pro account reaches 4,000 people in a month pays the $39 plus 1,500 extra contacts at $0.05 each, which comes to more than a hundred dollars. A post that takes off raises that month's bill, because more people comment and get messaged.

Manychat works on Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and TikTok, and each automation is built as a flow in its flow builder. Pick Manychat if you want multi-step sequences or WhatsApp in the same tool. Our earlier memo, Comment-to-DM tools in 2026, sorted by price band as your contacts grow, runs the same sum across more tools.

BetterSocials prices the other way. Every plan has unlimited contacts, unlimited DMs and unlimited keyword automations, and nothing is billed per contact.

What Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Agorapulse cost per person

Hootsuite includes its inbox from Standard at $99 per user a month, and Sprout Social puts its inbox on Standard at $199 per seat a month. Both are billed annually, as of October 2026. Agorapulse lists $79 per user a month on annual billing, as of July 2026.

Per-user pricing is the cost driver. A second manager doubles each of those bills, which puts Sprout Social close to four hundred dollars a month.

That money buys team features. Agorapulse's inbox lists assignment, reply collision detection, saved replies, labels and AI reply suggestions. These tools fit a restaurant group where several people share the inbox and someone reports on it. One owner answering DMs between services pays for features they won't use.

What Instagram's reply windows cost you when you answer late

Instagram lets a business reply to a DM through any tool only within 24 hours of the guest's last message, and each new message from them restarts the clock. Past that, BetterSocials and most other tools can't send, and you can still answer in the Instagram app itself.

So a DM that arrives during Friday dinner and sits until Sunday has to be answered by hand. Fast answers keep the conversation open, and they keep the guest from booking somewhere else first.

Comments have their own rule. Meta's developer docs on private replies say "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." Meta Business Suite applies the same limit to its Send message button, per its help page on comment actions: "You can't send a message in response to comments posted more than 7 days ago."

That private reply lands in the guest's main inbox if they follow you, and in their requests folder if they don't. TikTok runs tighter. A business can only reply to a TikTok DM, for 48 hours and at most 10 replies after the person's last message.

What BetterSocials does for four accounts at $29 a month

BetterSocials puts Instagram and Facebook comments and DMs, plus TikTok comments and DMs, in one Inbox. Creator is $29 a month, or $24 billed yearly, for four accounts and one login, with a 7-day free trial that needs a card.

You write your hours, menu link and booking link as AI rules, plain sentences such as "mention we are closed Mondays." The AI answers from those rules in your voice, and links you put in your own rules are kept.

The setting lives under Settings, then AI voice, with separate switches for comments and DMs. Draft for me writes a draft for every new comment or DM the moment it arrives, and nothing posts until you approve it. Reply in my voice answers everyday comments 1 to 5 minutes later, and answers a DM about a minute after it arrives.

Questions wait in Needs reply unless you turn on Answer questions too. That switch only turns on once you've written at least one AI rule. When your rules don't cover what a guest asked, the AI doesn't guess, and the message waits for you in Needs reply.

Every new comment and DM gets a tag when it arrives. A Lead tag goes on anything asking about price, booking or availability, and a new lead sends a push notification to your phone. A keyword comment on Instagram or Facebook sends the guest a DM with your link.

Each AI reply or draft uses 1 AI credit, and Creator includes 1,000 a month. When the credits run out the AI pauses, and it never charges more on its own. Meta Business Suite, Later and Agorapulse also put comments and DMs in one inbox. What BetterSocials adds at $29 a month for four accounts is drafts in your voice from your own rules, with no per-contact meter.

What we would do

1. 1Start on Meta Business Suite if you get a handful of messages a day and someone checks the inbox after every service.
2. 2Move to BetterSocials Creator, at $29 a month or $24 billed yearly for four accounts, when questions sit overnight. Write your hours, menu link and booking link as AI rules on day one, and keep Draft for me on for the first week.
3. 3Pay for a per-seat inbox such as Agorapulse, Hootsuite or Sprout Social when several managers share the inbox and need reporting. Price it against BetterSocials Team first, at $99 a month or $79 billed yearly for twelve accounts and unlimited teammates.