Automation starts it. Your team closes it.
Every conversation your automations start lands in one shared inbox, with the automated exchange above it — and routing rules make sure the right person picks it up.
Everything a busy DM inbox needs
Assign
Give each conversation an owner, and filter the inbox to yours or the unassigned ones.
Round-robin
Hand new inbound conversations out evenly across the team.
Routing rules
Send conversations to the right team based on tags, labels, source and more.
Conversation limits
Cap how many open conversations each person holds at once.
Labels
Colour-coded labels like Hot, Wholesale or Refund — and filter by them.
Auto-close
Close conversations that have gone quiet for 3, 7, 14 or 30 days — or never.
Search
Find people by name or username, or by anything said in the conversation.
Open & closed
Close what’s done — it reopens by itself the next time they message. Or auto-close quiet ones.
Let the automation decide when a person takes over
Put an action step wherever a human should step in — after someone asks about wholesale, picks “Talk to a person”, or answers a qualifying question. The flow hands the conversation over, and the thread shows exactly what it did.
- Assign it to a teammate, or unassign it back to the queue
- Mark the conversation open or closed
- Pause automations for that one person — or resume them
- Notify the owner, or the whole team if nobody owns it yet — in the app’s notification bell
- Assign to
- Maya
- Mark conversation
- Open
- Automations for this person
- Pause
- Notify
- The assignee
Work every conversation properly
Everything you need without leaving the thread.
Notes
Leave notes for your team right in the thread. They’re never sent to the contact — and you can write one even outside the 24-hour window.
Remind me
Snooze a conversation for 30 minutes, 2 hours, until tomorrow or a time you pick. It comes back under Reminders — sooner if they message you.
Favorites
Star the conversations you’re keeping an eye on and find them in their own list.
Mark as unread
Put a conversation back in the unread count so it doesn’t slip.
System messages
Grey status lines for assignments, labels, reminders and pauses — including what auto-assignment and auto-close did. Hide them with one toggle.
Contact panel
Profile, Instagram link, labels, tags, custom fields and recent activity beside the thread.
Reactions & attachments
Emoji reactions and the attachments people send show up in the thread.
Quick replies
Up to 20 saved answers, one tap away in the ⚡ menu.
Tag from the panel
Add or remove tags right beside the thread — and tag rules and webhooks fire just as if a flow had added them.
Seen and typing
Opening a conversation tells Instagram it’s been seen, and they see the typing bubble while you write.
Send an image by link
Paste a public link and the image goes into the thread. MuChat doesn’t host files — Instagram fetches it.
Carousels as cards
Carousels your automations sent show up in the thread as the cards the person actually saw.
Start the right flow for the right person
From the conversation header, pick any live automation and run it for this one person — the booking flow for someone ready to book, the email capture for someone who asked for the guide. The thread notes that it was started by hand.
- Lists every live automation on the account
- Only inside Instagram’s 24-hour window, and never for someone who unsubscribed — MuChat says why if it can’t
- Works even if you paused automations for this person — you’re the one who paused them
- Ask for their email in the DM
- Book a call, with a morning reminder
- Show products in a carousel
- Get a callback number
Started “Book a call, with a morning reminder” by hand
Talking to someone yourself? Pause the bots.
Pause automation for one person and no automation fires for them — not comments, keywords, story replies, the default reply, or a flow that was midway through. Resume whenever you’re done.
- Applies to one conversation, not the whole account
- Stops every trigger, any flow already running — even one waiting on a delay — and their sequences
- Resuming doesn’t replay what was skipped while paused
- A system message in the thread marks when it was paused and resumed
Every conversation, to the right person
Put people in groups — Sales, Support, Tier 2 — and write rules that decide which group gets which conversation. Rules run in order and the first match wins; inside a group, the person with the fewest open conversations takes it.
- Rules use the same conditions as segments: tags, labels, source, custom fields, the automation that ran and more
- A rule with no conditions catches everything else — a handy last line
- Give each person a conversation limit; when a whole team is at its limit, the conversation waits in Unassigned instead of landing on the wrong desk
- 1Tag has “wholesale”→Sales
- 2Source is story→Support
- 3Label has “Refund”→Tier 2
- 4Everything else→Round-robin
Never type a reply that can’t be sent
Instagram only lets businesses message someone within 24 hours of their last message. The inbox shows when a conversation is outside that window, so nobody writes a reply that Instagram would refuse.
Answer from anywhere
The whole inbox works on a phone: one pane at a time with a real back button, thumb-sized controls, and a composer that stays above the keyboard. Contacts, broadcasts and Insights work there too — only building a flow needs a bigger screen.
Hear about the replies that are yours
A bell in MuChat shows what’s new, with an unread count and a full list under Notifications. Each teammate picks what they hear about — so the person who owns a conversation knows the moment it moves, and nobody else is buzzed.
- A new message in a conversation assigned to you
- A conversation assigned to you — by a teammate or a rule
- A conversation landing in Unassigned, for whoever keeps an eye on the queue
- A burst of messages from one person folds into a single notification
- Unassigned: @dan.builds2m
“do you ship to Canada?”
- @maya.jewels was assigned to you8m
Assigned automatically
- New message from @lena.moves14m
“perfect, booking now 🙌”
Every way a conversation starts ends up here
Broadcasts in the thread
A broadcast you send to a segment lands in each person’s conversation, so whoever replies next sees what they were sent.
Links and QR codes
People who open your ref link, scan your QR code or tap your link-in-bio page start a DM like anyone else — and land here.
Every message, in your tools
The inbox.message webhook sends each inbound message to Zapier, Make or your own server as it arrives.
Tags that start things
A tag added in the inbox can start a tag rule and fires the contact.tagged webhook.
Ads and story mentions
People who tap your click-to-DM ad or tag you in their story land here too — answered straight away if you’ve set up an automation for them.
A broken connection, flagged
If Instagram stops accepting messages — a changed password, say — owners and admins are told and a red strip stays up until you reconnect.
Team seats and roles
Seats by plan: 2 on Free, 2 on Essential, 3 on Pro, 5 on Business and 10 on Advanced. Invite each person as an admin, an editor who can reply, or a viewer who can only read — nobody needs the Instagram password.
Groups
Organise the team the way you actually split the work, then point rules at a group instead of a person.
Filters
Everyone, mine or unassigned; by label; open or closed; favorites and reminders.
Inbox questions
Do automated messages show up in the inbox?
Yes. Everything MuChat sent and everything the person sent sits in one thread, with automated messages marked ⚡ so you can tell them apart.
How does a conversation get assigned?
Four ways: by hand from the conversation header, round-robin across the team, routing rules that send it to a group — where the least busy person gets it — or an action step in a flow that assigns it to a named teammate. Conversations that already have an owner keep it unless a flow step reassigns them.
Can an automation hand a conversation to a person?
Yes. An action step in the Flow Builder can assign the conversation to a teammate, open or close it, pause automations for that person and notify the team. Each change shows up as a system line in the thread, naming the automation that made it.
Do broadcasts show up in the inbox?
Yes. Each person’s copy of a broadcast is saved in their conversation, like any other message MuChat sends.
What happens when everyone is at their conversation limit?
Nobody gets overloaded: the conversation waits in Unassigned for someone to pick up, instead of being pushed onto a person who’s already full.
How many people can use the inbox?
Seats by plan: 2 on Free, 2 on Essential, 3 on Pro, 5 on Business and 10 on Advanced. Invite teammates from Settings → Team members and pick a role for each.
Can I stop automations while I talk to someone?
Yes — pause automation for that conversation. While it’s paused, no automation fires for that person, including any flow that was already running. Resuming doesn’t replay what was skipped.
How do I know when someone replies?
The bell in MuChat shows new messages in conversations assigned to you, conversations assigned to you, and — if you switch it on — anything landing in Unassigned. Each teammate chooses their own under Settings → Notifications.
Can the contact see our notes?
No. Notes stay inside MuChat for your team; they’re never sent to Instagram.
Can I start an automation for one person?
Yes. Use Send automation in the conversation header and pick any live automation. It runs only inside Instagram’s 24-hour window and never for someone who unsubscribed; it does run if you paused automations for them, because you’re the one taking over.
Does the inbox work on my phone?
Yes — in your phone’s browser, with one pane at a time, a back button and a composer that stays above the keyboard. Building a flow is the one thing that needs a larger screen.
What can a viewer do?
Read. Viewers see conversations, contacts and Insights but can’t reply, assign, tag or change anything — and opening a conversation as a viewer doesn’t mark it read. Editors, admins and owners can reply.
Can I get inbox messages into my own tools?
Yes — subscribe to the inbox.message webhook under Settings → Webhooks and every inbound message is posted to your endpoint, signed, as it arrives.
Can I still reply from the Instagram app?
Yes. MuChat doesn’t take anything away from Instagram’s own inbox; it adds a shared one for your team.
Priced by how many people answer
Seats by plan: 2 on Free, 2 on Essential, 3 on Pro, 5 on Business and 10 on Advanced. The shared inbox, routing, notes and reminders are on every plan, including Free.
Free
$0/mo
Free forever
- 100 active contacts
- No overage charges
- 2 seats · 2 channels
- No card needed
Essential
$7/mo
billed yearly · $9 monthly
- 250 active contacts
- then $0.10 each
- 2 seats · 2 channels
- 14-day free trial
Pro
$19/mo
billed yearly · $25 monthly
- 2,500 active contacts
- then $0.05 each
- 3 seats · 3 channels
- 14-day free trial
Business
$45/mo
billed yearly · $65 monthly
- 7,500 active contacts
- then $0.025 each
- 5 seats · unlimited channels
- Billed from day one
Advanced
$89/mo
billed yearly · $129 monthly
- 25,000 active contacts
- then $0.004 each
- 10 seats · unlimited channels
- Billed from day one
Give every DM an owner
Set up your first automation in the time it takes to write one reply by hand.