Starts the flow when someone replies to your story. The word list, how emoji-only replies behave, why the specific story is unknown, and the fallback to message triggers.
A customer writes "how much is this?" on your story, and if they get no answer within twenty-four hours both the story and the question are gone. The Story reply trigger answers those replies instantly and starts the right flow. This guide covers the trigger's fields, how story replies differ from other messages, and the points people get stuck on most often.
⚠️ Note: this trigger works on Instagram only. WhatsApp has no stories, so the type list never shows it on a WhatsApp account.
In this article you will find:
What it does
Building the trigger
Fields and buttons
How story replies differ from other messages
What happens when no trigger matches
Limits and known issues
Common mistakes and how to fix them
What it does
When someone replies to your story, Instagram delivers that reply to you as a DM with the answered story attached to it. The trigger listens for exactly that message type and starts its own flow.
What makes it worth separating from an ordinary DM is timing: you know the person has just seen the story. That is why story reply flows usually open with a reminder — "the discount in the story ends tonight" — followed by a button or a question.
The person's identity is known and the reply arrives in their own message, so the messaging window is open. The flow's first message goes out with its buttons, card and file intact; none of the restrictions of comment-started flows apply here.
Building the trigger
Let us build a story-ordering flow for a bakery.
Open an empty flow with New automation from the Automations list.
On the Flow tab, click the When… box on the canvas.
Press Add trigger in the panel on the side.
Pick Story reply from the list.
Leave the Keywords box empty, so every reply to a story is answered.
If your account has more than one channel connected, pick the Instagram account from the Channel list.
Connect the start box's Next output to a Message step.
Write "Thanks for replying to our story! We are still taking orders for today's cakes." and add the buttons Order now and Prices.
Connect each button's output to its own step.
Press Publish at the top right. Your automation is now running.
Leaving the word list empty is a deliberate choice on this trigger; the reason is under "emoji replies" below.
Fields and buttons
The trigger card holds three items.
Keywords — The words to look for in the story reply. Left empty it runs on every story reply; the hint under the field says so: "Leave empty to run for every story reply." Added with Enter or a comma, up to 30 words, each up to 100 characters.
Match — How the word is looked for in the reply: Contains, Whole word, Starts with, Exact match. The default is Contains and the mode applies to every word on the list. Details are in the match modes article. With an empty word list this field has no effect at all.
Channel — Which account the trigger runs on. It appears only when more than one channel is connected.
Remove — The cross at the top right of the card deletes the trigger.
There is no field for choosing which story was answered. The trigger listens to every story on the account; to build a flow for one particular story you have to make the distinction with a word (for example, say "reply SALE" in the story and add sale to the word list).
How story replies differ from other messages
There are three differences, and all three affect your setup.
Emoji-only replies are not caught by words. Before the comparison, characters that are neither letters nor digits are stripped from the beginning and the end of the text. A reply that is only a heart or an applause emoji leaves nothing to search for, so no word matches. Since a large share of story replies are emoji, leaving the word list empty is the right choice on most accounts.
The story itself does not count as an attachment. The answered story travels inside the message, but the Incoming attachment condition in the flow does not treat it as an image. If the person only replied to the story, that condition says "no attachment"; if they also attached a photo of their own, the condition sees that photo.
The post that started the flow is unknown. The Post condition, which fills for comment and share triggers, stays empty on a story reply; a story is not a feed post.
What happens when no trigger matches
Because a story reply arrives in the person's own message, if no story reply trigger matches, the message is evaluated again as an ordinary message. Keyword, Any message and Default reply triggers are tried in that order.
In practice: a customer who replies to your story and writes "price" lands in your price flow even if you have no story reply trigger at all. That is a good thing, but it hides a trap: if you built a story reply trigger with a full word list and the customer wrote something not on it, your keyword flow may run instead of yours. If you want a story-specific greeting, leave the word list empty.
Story reply is an explicit trigger: it cuts the person's running session and starts this flow. Flows whose interruption setting is turned off on the Settings tab are shielded from that.
Limits and known issues
The trigger works on Instagram only.
There is no field for choosing which story was answered; every story is listened to.
No keyword ever matches an emoji-only reply.
The word list takes up to 30 words, each up to 100 characters.
The match mode cannot be set per word; it applies to the whole list.
Matching is always case-insensitive and accent-insensitive.
The answered story does not count as an attachment for the Incoming attachment condition.
The Post condition stays empty on a story reply.
Stories disappear after 24 hours; replies may keep arriving, but the story itself can no longer be viewed.
The trigger only runs while the automation is Live.
Common mistakes and how to fix them
Filling in the word list. This is the most common mistake. Replies like an emoji or "😍 lovely" match none of your words and your flow never runs. Leave the list empty and make the distinction in a condition step inside the flow.
Trying to build a flow per story. The trigger cannot select a story. Make the distinction in the story itself: put a call to action like "reply BOOK" in it and attach that word to a separate flow.
Forgetting the re-entry rule. If you post stories regularly, the same customer may reply several times a day. Setting Can the same person enter again? to Once a day on the Settings tab is enough for most accounts.
Clashing with a keyword flow. When no story reply trigger matches, the message falls to your keyword flow. Make sure the two flows do not contradict each other.
Forgetting the call to action in the story. The automation answers people who reply, but they have to reply first. Without a "reply to us" prompt in the story, the flow stays empty.
If replies are arriving but the flow does not start, see the automation never starts guide or get in touch with our Support team.