Check Message Requests first#
If the person doesn't follow you, Instagram puts your DM in their Message Requests, not their main inbox. This is the most common reason. Mention it in your public reply, e.g. “Sent! Check your requests 👀”.
Other causes#
- The comment is older than 7 days. Instagram won't allow a DM reply after that.
- Their privacy settings block messages from accounts they don't follow.
- The hourly limit was reached. Past 750 first DMs in an hour, new commenters are skipped. There's no automatic retry yet.
- They already got one for this comment. Each comment gets one DM. A new comment starts a new one.
Open the reel and look at their row in Conversations. A red ⚠ shows the exact reason Instagram gave.
Was this article helpful?