Instagram DM bot for bookings
"How much, and do you have Saturday?" is a booking waiting to happen. The bot replies in the DM straight away with your services, then offers the times you have free and confirms, so the customer isn't left waiting until closing time.
Quick answer
Updated
An Instagram booking bot answers a customer's direct message, shows real free times and books the appointment inside the DM. Meerlume builds it from a description of your business and connects to a professional Instagram account through Instagram login, with no linked Facebook Page. Instagram is on the Growth plan at $49 a month. The customer always messages you first: Meerlume does not send broadcasts or reply to comments.
What an Instagram booking bot does
When someone sends your account a direct message, the bot greets them, offers your services and walks them to a free time from your calendar. It sends your flow's messages and Meerlume's standard system messages, and when a customer types something unexpected, an AI model works out what they meant from the options you already have. It never writes a reply of its own.
When a conversation needs you, the customer can ask for a person. The bot pauses and you reply from the Meerlume inbox, where Instagram sits alongside your other channels. Instagram only lets a business reply within 24 hours of a customer's last message, so pick these up the same day.
How the booking flow works
The same steps as on any other channel, inside the DM thread.
Answer in the DM
The first reply offers your services. Prices, location and hours come from your own answers, followed by a way to book.
Free times only
The bot offers times from your calendar, so nobody is promised a slot that is taken.
Optional deposit
A payment step sends a Stripe Checkout link once the time is held. If you approve bookings yourself, the customer's payment confirms the booking and they're told so, and it leaves your requests. An unpaid request lapses when your approval time runs out. If the bot confirms bookings itself, an unpaid booking stays until you cancel it.
Hand over to you
Customers can ask for a person, and you take over from the inbox.
Why Instagram
For salons, studios and anyone whose work sells through photos, the question often arrives as a DM after someone finds a post you made weeks ago. Answering it there, with a time, keeps the customer in the app they chose.
Accounts this suits
Each card opens a working template prompt you can edit before anything goes live.
Barbers & nail techs
Portfolio on the grid, bookings in the DMs.
Therapists & trainers
Session type, then a slot, in the conversation that started from a post.
Instagram booking bot FAQ
Ready to launch
Answer the DM with a time.
Pick the template closest to your business, change the services and hours, and connect your account.
Other use cases
Hair Salons & Barbers
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Real bookings on WhatsApp — service, resource, and time slot in one chat, calendar built in.
Website Bookings
Booking chatbot for your website
Add a booking chat to your website with one script tag, and run the same bot on WhatsApp.