Follow gate

A follow gate is a step in an Instagram DM automation that asks the contact to follow you before the flow sends what they asked for. In Inrō it is the Ask for follow step. When the contact taps its button, Inrō asks Instagram whether they follow you. Followers go on. Anyone else gets your retry message.

How does Inrō know a contact follows you?

Instagram never tells an app that someone followed you. Meta lists 15 webhook fields for Instagram apps, and none of them is a follow (Meta for Developers, webhooks, checked 1 October 2026).

So Inrō checks at the moment it matters. When the contact taps the button, Inrō asks Instagram, through Meta's official API, whether this person follows your account. The answer comes from Instagram, not from the tap. Meta returns nothing for a person who has blocked you.

What does the contact see?

You fill in Your message, Button text (I have followed you by default) and Message if follow is not detected. You can add an image.

• If they tap and follow you, the flow continues down the When contact clicks and follows you branch.
• If they tap without following, they get your retry message with the button again, and the next tap checks again.

If someone unfollows later, what you sent stays sent.

What if they never tap the button?

When the wait you set runs out, Inrō checks once more. A contact who still does not follow you takes the If contact hasn't clicked and followed you after branch, where you can send a reminder.

Make the button text clear and ask contacts to tap it after following.

Where do you use a follow gate?

When you set up a comment-to-DM automation, the first question can be Simple question, Ask for follow or Ask for email. Pick Ask for follow and your link sits on the followed branch. The step also works in DM campaigns. How the first DM to a commenter works is covered under comment to DM.

You can gate a follow and collect an email in one flow. The Get leads with freebies template checks the follow, captures the email, then delivers the link. Ask once per path: a second Ask for follow on the same path gets the warning You already asked for a follow in this automation.

If you only want a tap, with no follow check, use a button template instead. More flow building blocks are in the Inrō automation glossary.