Contacts, tags, fields and segments

Everyone who comments, replies to a story or DMs you becomes a contact, along with where they came from and when they were last active.

Tags and labels

Tags are free-form and can be added by hand, in bulk, or by automations. Labels are a shared, colour-coded list your team uses in both the inbox and contacts.

Managing tags

Settings → Tags lists every tag with the number of contacts that carry it. From there you can:

• Give a tag a colour.
• Rename it — the new name replaces the old one on contacts and in every rule and automation.
• Merge it into another tag — its contacts and rules move onto the tag you keep and the old tag is removed.
• Delete it — it comes off every contact and rule, and this can’t be undone.
• Add tags that are already on contacts but missing from the list, in one click.

Renaming, merging and deleting follow the tag everywhere it’s used — contacts, segments, routing rules, flow conditions and actions that add or remove it. The confirm step tells you what will change, for example “Also rewrites it in 2 automations, 1 segment and 1 routing rule”.

Custom fields

Under Contacts → Fields, add your own fields — text, number, date or yes/no — and fill them in on each contact’s profile, through a CSV import, or from a flow.

Bot fields (Settings → Fields) hold one value for your whole account, such as this week’s discount code. They use the same {{key}} tokens. If a contact has its own value for a key, that wins; if it’s empty, the bot field’s value is used.

Use a field in any message or button label from the Personalize menu. It’s inserted as a token such as {{order_number}}; add a fallback — {{order_number|your order}} — for anyone who doesn’t have a value.

Segments

A segment is a saved list defined by rules, matching all of them or any of them:

• Tag or label — has / doesn’t have
• Subscribed — yes or no
• Name or username — contains / doesn’t contain
• Source — comment, DM, story, import or manual
• Last interaction — more than, or within, a number of days
• Automation — ran / didn’t run for them
• Custom field — equals / doesn’t equal / contains

Bulk actions

Select contacts — or a whole segment — to add or remove a tag, subscribe, unsubscribe or delete them in one go.

Importing from CSV

• Up to 2,000 rows per import.
• An Instagram username column is required (a leading @ is removed).
• Name, tags and your custom fields can be mapped too. Columns called username, handle or instagram; name or full name; and tags are recognised automatically.
• Usernames you already have are skipped, not duplicated.

Active contacts and your plan

Plans include a number of active contacts: 100 on Free, 250 on Essential, 2,500 on Pro, 7,500 on Business and 25,000 on Advanced. A contact is active if they messaged you, commented or replied to a story in the last 30 days; imported and hand-added contacts count from the day you add them. Quiet contacts aren’t deleted — they stop counting, and count again when they write in.

Over the limit, new DMs, comments and story replies still come in and get answered — nothing stops.

On a paid plan, each extra active contact in a calendar month is billed at the plan’s rate — none on Free, $0.10 on Essential, $0.05 on Pro, $0.025 on Business and $0.004 on Advanced — on an invoice of its own after the month ends. Upgrade before the month ends and the bigger plan’s allowance covers the whole month. Settings › Billing shows this month so far, and lets an owner cap how many extra contacts to pay for, or switch extra contacts off.

With extra contacts off, on Free, or during a free trial (nothing is ever billed during a trial), adding contacts yourself — by CSV import or by hand — pauses at the limit until you upgrade or the count drops, and MuChat shows a banner and a notification.

Working with contacts over the API

Create a key under Settings → API and choose its scopes. With it you can list contacts (optionally filtered by tag), add or remove tags, and send a DM to one contact. Sends follow Instagram’s 24-hour window, just like the inbox. Revoke a key at any time from the same page.