HOW TO AVOID GETTING BANNED?

Hi ​@tyron james music , I am glad you want to take acctions to protect your account, good instinct to ask before scaling.

Please take into account Manychat itself won't get you banned. It's an official Meta partner and comment-to-DM automation is allowed. The risk comes from volume, not the tool. When a post goes viral, a burst of identical auto-replies can trip Instagram's spam filters — that's where bans and DM blocks usually come from. A few things that genuinely help:

• Be extra careful on viral posts. A workaround experts -like ​@Fabio Gaulke -  use: build two versions of your comment trigger — one that posts a public reply, one that doesn't. When a post starts blowing up, switch to the one that doesn't post the public comment. That keeps you under Meta's radar.
• Don't spam identical links. Vary your replies and avoid firing the exact same message at high velocity.
• Meta Verified won't protect you from a ban — it only buys you slightly better support access. Don't rely on it as a safety net.
• If something goes wrong, appeal directly with Meta (Help Center / Oversight Board), not just the in-app button — Manychat can't reverse a Meta restriction.

Try to run it compliant and you'll be fine.

Hope this helps!

Cata Rendon

​@cata_rendon 

Thanks so much for your reply. That’s really helpful.

I just have a few more questions, if you don’t mind.

1. What exactly counts as an active contact?
My ManyChat account currently shows around 4,000 active contacts, but I think the actual number of automated sends is closer to 3,000. Does someone become an active contact simply by messaging me, even if I haven’t sent them an automation?

Also, is there a way to stop every person who messages me from automatically becoming an active contact and counting toward my quota?

2. How much volume would you consider too much?
At the moment, my automation only sends a link when someone comments a specific keyword asking for it. I’m currently sending roughly 10 messages per hour, but on viral posts it could possibly go up to around 50 per hour.

Do you think that kind of volume is risky, even if the person has requested the link by commenting the keyword? Over the last two weeks I’ve had around 3,000–4,000 contacts/sends, so I’m trying to understand what a safe limit might be before it starts looking like spam to Instagram.

Thankyou 
 

Hi ​@tyron james music , regarding your questions:

1. Active Contact: Any person who interacts with your account. So yes, even if they send you a message but you dont replay it is count as an active contact. The good news is that no matter how many times you message the same person in a month, they're only counted once.
2. How much volume: I dont think 50 per hour is to much, however as you cannot control how many comments you will have.  I advice you the following:  -  first dont send a link in the first message, try to have a real conversation, with at least two message, the first message should have a botton to “continue” - Second dont public comment on all posts as you can get flag - as I mentioned before-
3. On viral posts specifically: Manychat does have a throttling mechanism in place precisely for viral posts. When a post blows up, instead of firing replies all at once (which would trip Instagram's spam detection), Manychat spaces them out to stay within Meta's rate limits — 750 private reply API calls per hour for Instagram professional accounts. Manychat caps Comment Triggers at 12 requests per 60 seconds for exactly this reason.
   More technical detail here: Meta Graph API Rate Limiting. 

If you have more questions probably ​@Cansu from Manychat Team can guide you more.

Cheers!

Cata