Messaging windows & Meta compliance

SetterStack automates Instagram and Facebook messaging inside Meta's rules, so your account stays safe. Here's what those rules are and how SetterStack enforces them for you.

01The 24-hour window

Automated messages are allowed for 24 hours after the person's last message to you. Every time they reply, the window resets. Outside it, automation must stop.

How SetterStack enforces it:

• AI replies and follow-ups respect the window automatically.
• Broadcasts only target leads active in the last 24 hours — checked at compose and re-checked at send.
• Follow-up nudges to quiet leads stop when the window rules say so.
• Follow-up pacing is human, not machine-gun: the first check-in comes a few hours after a lead goes quiet, later ones are spaced about a day apart, and after three unanswered nudges the lead is marked "went quiet" and left in peace.
• Follow-ups hold overnight (roughly 9pm to 8am Eastern by default) — a 3am nudge reads as a bot, so it waits for the morning instead.
• Leads who already received a webinar link aren't chased with generic nudges; they get a day-of session reminder instead.

02Comments don't open the window

When someone comments on your post, you may send them one private reply — but a full messaging window doesn't open until they actually reply to that DM (or tap a button in it). So the compliant comment funnel is: one great opener, then wait for the reply. That's exactly how SetterStack's comment templates are shaped — the opener earns the reply, and the reply opens the conversation.

03The human window

After the 24-hour automation window, there's a further period where human agents (your team typing manually) may still respond. SetterStack tags your manual inbox replies appropriately so late human responses deliver correctly.

Working this lane is a daily habit worth building: the ⏳ Still reachable filter on the Leads page shows every lead whose last message is 24 hours to 7 days old — quiet, but still one follow-up away — sorted by whose window closes soonest, with a countdown on each row. Once that timer runs out, the door closes for good until they message again.

04Why nobody can bulk-DM Instagram

Meta does not offer a compliant bulk re-engagement channel for Instagram DMs. Any tool promising "blast your whole IG list" is doing something that risks the account it's connected to. SetterStack's answer is the compliant pair: window-scoped broadcasts for active leads, and one-to-one Ghost revival flows for quiet ones.

05Anti-spam habits that protect your account

• One comment-trigger fire per person per post (built in) — repeat comments on the same post never double-DM.
• Vary public comment replies — identical text repeated across a post gets throttled; AI reply mode varies naturally.
• Quality beats volume: a qualified conversation that books is worth more than ten cold blasts — and it's the only kind that compounds.

06The short version

You don't need to memorize any of this. SetterStack's defaults are compliant; the visible effect is occasionally a message shows as skipped with a window-related reason in the flow's "What happened" log — that's the system protecting your account.