When your automation fires, it does two things: it sends the DM, and — if you let it — it leaves a public reply under the comment that triggered it.
The public reply is the part everyone else scrolling the post can see. It tells the commenter to go and check their inbox, and it tells everyone else that commenting gets a response.
Turning it on
The Public comment reply card has a toggle on its right. Off, the automation still sends DMs — it just stays out of your comment section.
Switch it on and choose Manual to write the replies yourself. (The other tab, AI, generates a fresh reply for every comment from a prompt.)
Writing the replies
Type a reply and press Enter. It joins the list above the field, with a bin icon to delete it. Add up to 20 saved replies.
Insert {{username}} to drop the commenter’s Instagram handle into the
reply — there’s a shortcut button on the right of the input. “Sent it over,
{{username}} 💌” reads like you typed it; “Sent it over” repeated forty times
does not.
Add three or more
Three or more short replies make a busy comment section less repetitive. AP3K can rotate the saved replies rather than posting the same sentence every time.
With more than one reply saved, Rotate randomly per comment selects from your saved replies, so the section reads like a person answering rather than a script.
Three or four short variants is plenty:
- “Just sent it 📩”
- “Check your DMs,
{{username}}!” - “On its way — have a look at your message requests too”
- “Sent! Let me know if it doesn’t land”
Limit how many go out
The public reply limit offers no cap, 100 or 200 replies per post. Choose a limit deliberately. Once the cap is reached, public replies stop while eligible DM delivery can continue.
This matters on a post that takes off. A hundred replies from your account under one post is engagement; a thousand is a wall of your own name, and Instagram’s spam systems notice. If you want the reasoning and the numbers, see Limit public replies.