Big Idea

The argument in one line.

A paid Instagram DM automation like ManyChat can be replaced by a free, self-hosted open source tool, and an AI agent can absorb the dozen fiddly setup steps that used to make self-hosting impractical.

Who This Is For

Read if. Skip if.

READ IF YOU ARE…

You run an Instagram comment-to-DM funnel and are currently paying ManyChat, Chatfuel, or a similar automation platform by the month.
You're comfortable creating a handful of accounts (domain registrar, VPS or Resend) and handing an AI coding agent browser and API access to configure them.
You already use Claude Code or Codex and want to see a real example of an agent driving a multi-service infrastructure setup, not just writing code.

SKIP IF…

You don't run any comment-triggered DM automation, so there's nothing here to replace.
You're not willing to give an AI agent SSH, DNS, and Meta Business Suite access unsupervised.
You want a five-minute setup; this trades ManyChat's monthly fee for real (if automated) infrastructure work.

TL;DR

The full version, fast.

ManyChat's Instagram comment-to-DM automation gets expensive as a creator's audience grows, so this video replaces it with OpenReply, a free open source alternative, self-hosted on a $6.99/month VPS (or an old PC) instead. The install normally requires wiring together a domain, Meta Business Suite permissions, a transactional email service for magic-link login, and uptime monitoring, which is complicated enough that the creator packaged it into a Claude Code skill that runs the whole setup as long as every account is already created and logged in. The core lesson: once the accounts exist, an agent can absorb setup work that used to make self-hosting impractical, and the same pattern (open source tool plus agent-driven install) generalizes past this one use case.

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Chapters

Where the time goes.

00:00 – 00:36

01 · The ManyChat problem

The comment-to-DM hook creators use is running on paid automation software, and the bill climbs with audience size.

00:36 – 01:27

02 · Introducing OpenReply

An open source, self-hosted ManyChat alternative, plus the creator's plan to package its install into a Claude Code skill.

01:27 – 01:52

03 · Channel intro

Quick channel bio and subscribe ask.

01:52 – 02:54

04 · What OpenReply looks like

A tour of the campaigns dashboard: keyword triggers scoped to one post or all posts, and an optional follow-gate before the DM sends.

02:55 – 04:36

05 · Requirement: hosting

Two paths to keep it running 24/7: a spare always-on PC with a Cloudflare Tunnel, or a cheap VPS (as low as $6.99/mo) that some hosts let an agent configure directly.

04:36 – 05:39

06 · Requirement: a domain

The agent needs a domain and DNS access to point the self-hosted app's subdomain at the new hosting.

05:39 – 07:20

07 · Requirement: Instagram accounts and Meta Business Suite

A main account to run the automation from, a second account to test with, and a Meta Business Suite connection to create the Instagram app and DM permissions.

07:21 – 08:38

08 · Requirement: magic-link email and uptime monitoring

Resend sends the passwordless sign-in email; Healthchecks.io watches the service and alerts by email if it goes down.

08:38 – 09:40

09 · Log in before you start

Create every account in advance, stay logged into all of them, and install the Claude browser extension so the agent can drive it.

09:40 – 11:32

10 · Watching the agent run: hosting, DNS, email

Recorded playback of dropping the skill into Claude Code, answering its setup questions, and watching it configure the VPS, DNS records, and Resend end to end.

11:32 – 12:31

11 · First login: spam folder fix

The first magic-link email lands in spam because the new domain has no sending reputation yet; moving it to the inbox fixes it going forward.

12:31 – 13:39

12 · Wiring up Instagram and protecting API keys

The agent builds the Instagram app inside Meta Business Suite; a security rule: never paste API keys into the chat, drop them into a local .env file instead.

13:39 – 14:26

13 · Testing the automation live

Commenting the test keyword from the second account confirms the DM arrives instantly, then the test campaign is switched off.

14:27 – 14:56

14 · Moving off the VPS

The VPS was a stepping stone; the plan is to move hosting onto an always-on PC he already owns and stop paying for it.

14:56 – 15:58

15 · Where to get the install skill

The install skill file is free inside the creator's Skool community, to drop into Claude or Codex.

Atomic Insights

Lines worth screenshotting.

A 'comment SKILL and I'll DM you the link' post is running on an automation platform, not a person manually replying.
ManyChat's pricing scales with contact volume, so the same automation gets more expensive as a creator's audience grows.
OpenReply is a free, open source, self-hosted alternative to ManyChat for Instagram comment-to-DM automation.
Self-hosting on your own PC needs a Cloudflare Tunnel for secure access, and if the PC goes offline more than an hour, Instagram can force the app to reconnect.
A VPS as cheap as $6.99/month removes the offline risk of self-hosting on a personal PC.
Testing a DM automation safely requires a second, disposable Instagram account to trigger it, separate from the account that sends the DMs.
Meta Business Suite is where the actual Instagram app and DM permissions get created, and doing it there keeps the automation inside Meta's allowed-use rules.
A tool with no password login can still be secure by sending a one-time magic link by email instead.
Free tiers of transactional email (Resend) and uptime monitoring (Healthchecks.io) are enough to run a personal-scale automation service at no cost.
Never paste an API key or access token directly into a chat with an AI agent; have it write to a local .env file instead so the secret never lives in the conversation.
A brand-new sending domain has no reputation yet, so its first emails often land in spam even when everything else is configured correctly.
A VPS is often a stepping stone: once a setup is proven, it can move to hardware you already own and cost nothing ongoing.

Takeaway

Self-hosting can replace a monthly automation bill once an agent handles the setup.

WHAT TO LEARN

A subscription DM automation tool can be replaced by a free, self-hosted open source alternative, because an AI agent can now absorb the dozen fiddly setup steps that used to make self-hosting impractical.

01The ManyChat problem

Automated comment-to-DM funnels ('comment SKILL and I'll send the link') are usually running on a paid automation platform behind the scenes, not a person manually messaging back.
ManyChat's pricing scales with contact volume, so a creator's DM automation bill climbs as their audience grows even though the underlying task never changes.

02Introducing OpenReply

OpenReply is an open source, self-hosted alternative to ManyChat that handles the same comment-to-DM automation without a subscription.
A genuinely complicated multi-service installation can be turned into a packaged, repeatable agent skill once someone has done the setup by hand and documented every step.

04What OpenReply looks like

A self-hosted DM tool can match a paid platform's core features: keyword triggers scoped to a specific post or all posts, an optional follow-gate, and a campaign dashboard.
Building a campaign engine from scratch only makes sense if you have the bandwidth to maintain it forever; riding an actively-maintained open source project avoids that trap.

05Requirement: hosting

Self-hosting an always-on automation has two real options: a spare PC that never sleeps (needs a Cloudflare Tunnel for secure access) or a cheap VPS.
The tradeoff of self-hosting on your own PC is availability: if it goes offline for more than an hour, Instagram can force a reconnect of the app.
Hosting providers increasingly ship their own MCP servers, letting an AI agent configure a VPS directly through your account instead of clicking through a dashboard yourself.

06Requirement: a domain

The automation needs its own domain so it has a URL to run on and a place to send email from; a subdomain of a domain you already own works if you don't want a new one.
An agent doing this kind of setup needs direct access to your domain registrar's DNS manager to point records at the new hosting.

07Requirement: Instagram accounts and Meta Business Suite

Testing any DM automation safely requires two separate Instagram accounts: one that runs the automation and a second, disposable one to trigger and verify it.
Meta Business Suite is the control point that formally connects a Facebook and Instagram account and is where the actual Instagram app and DM permissions get created.
Setting this up correctly through Meta Business Suite keeps the automation inside Meta's allowed-use rules, which is what lets it message at volume without risking the account.

08Requirement: magic-link email and uptime monitoring

A self-hosted tool with no built-in password system can still be secure by using passwordless magic-link email sign-in instead.
Free tiers of transactional email and uptime monitoring are enough to run a personal-scale automation service without paying for infrastructure.

09Log in before you start

Before handing a complex multi-account setup to an AI agent, create every account you'll need in advance and stay logged into all of them in the browser.
A browser-control extension lets the agent operate your actual logged-in browser sessions instead of asking you to relay information manually.

10Watching the agent run: hosting, DNS, email

An agent-driven install can front-load a short questionnaire (where are you hosting, what domain, what email) instead of scattering setup questions throughout the process.
Staying near both the agent window and the browser during the first run catches verification prompts, like two-factor codes, the agent can't complete alone.

11First login: spam folder fix

A brand-new sending domain has no reputation yet, so its first emails often land in spam even when everything is configured correctly.
Moving the first email to the inbox and saving the sender as a contact is often enough to fix deliverability for a domain that only emails you.

12Wiring up Instagram and protecting API keys

Never paste API keys or access tokens directly into a chat conversation with an AI agent; have it open a local file so the secret is saved on your machine, not in the conversation.
Creating an app inside Meta Business Suite is the mechanism that grants a third-party tool permission to read comments and send DMs on your behalf.

13Testing the automation live

Always run a real end-to-end test, like commenting the trigger word from a second account, before turning any automation loose on a live audience.
Turn off test campaigns immediately after verifying they work so the trigger word doesn't keep firing on real comments.

14Moving off the VPS

A VPS is often a stepping stone: once a setup is proven, it can move to hardware you already own and cost nothing ongoing.

15Where to get the install skill

Free communities are increasingly where creators gate downloadable tools and skill files instead of a direct paywall, trading a signup for the file.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing.

OpenReply: An open source, self-hosted alternative to ManyChat that automates sending Instagram DMs when someone comments a trigger word.
ManyChat: A paid platform that automates sending Instagram and Facebook DMs when a user comments a specific keyword on a post.
Meta Business Suite: Facebook's dashboard for managing a business's Facebook and Instagram presence, including the app permissions a DM automation needs.
Cloudflare Tunnel: A way to securely expose a self-hosted service on your own computer to the internet without opening ports on your router.
Magic link: A one-time sign-in link emailed to a user in place of a password.
Healthchecks.io: A free service that emails you when a scheduled job or self-hosted service stops checking in, so an outage doesn't go unnoticed.
Resend: A transactional email service used here to deliver the magic-link sign-in emails for the self-hosted tool.
VPS (Virtual Private Server): A rented slice of a remote server you fully control, used here to keep the DM automation running 24/7.
.env file: A local text file used to store API keys and secrets on your own machine, kept out of chat conversations and code.

Resources

Things they pointed at.

00:41toolOpenReply

04:17toolHostinger (VPS hosting, KVM1 plan, $6.99/mo) ↗

04:48toolGoDaddy (domain registrar) ↗

07:21toolResend (transactional email) ↗

08:06toolHealthchecks.io (cron/uptime monitoring) ↗

14:56linkAI Systems for Human Content (free Skool community, install skill download) ↗

Quotables

Lines you could clip.

00:26

“The thing that ManyChat doesn't want you to know is that you can host these automations yourself.”

names the video's whole promise in one line→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote

05:19

“Let's be real, bro, you have a graveyard of domains from those businesses that you spontaneously planned on starting.”

relatable, funny, concrete image→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote

12:35

“Never drop an API key or access token in the conversation directly.”

standalone, actionable security rule→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote

The Script

Word for word.

Read-along

Don't just watch it. Burn it in.

See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.

metaphor

Have you ever commented on an Instagram reel when the creator's like comment skill and I'll send you the link and then you comment skill. and they actually send it to you. Well, 99 % of the time, they're not manually DMing you.

They're most likely using some sort of automation. The most popular platform that does these types of automations would be ManyChat, which allows creators to connect their social media platforms to automate some of their communications. But the problem with ManyChat is that it can get super expensive.

Now, the thing that ManyChat doesn't want you to know is that you can host these automations yourself. And you can even do it in a way where it's completely free. Now to make this happen, we're gonna be using an open source repo on GitHub called Open Reply, which when I got to installing Open Reply, I realized how insanely complicated it was to set this thing up.

But after I used Claude to help me set everything up, I looked back and I thought I can turn this installation process into a nearly automated skill. In this video, I'm gonna show you exactly how Open Reply works, how to install it without doing the hundreds of manual steps by yourself.

And if you stick with me until the very end, I'll give you access to this agentic installation file that I created for Open Reply so you can set this thing up and host it for free. That way, you can automatically DM your audience members who opt in without paying like... two grand a year.

My name is Vic. Content is my business. I've gotten over 200 million views across my network of channels, and I've also earned millions online as a creator.

This channel is dedicated to AI systems for human content. So if you want more AI workflows just like this, make sure you subscribe and turn on the notification bell because I'm always dropping custom made. tools like this.

So like I mentioned before, this is open reply. This is the repo that is actually going to have the backbone software for these automations to work. And once you actually have open reply installed, hosted wherever you want, this is how it's going to look.

I have right now just a test campaign from when I actually set this up myself, but I could go to new campaign and start setting up different campaigns for different videos, or I could do it on. all posts, all videos, set the keyword I want. I can even add a follow requirement if I want them to follow me before I send them the resource in the DM.

I don't do this, but I've seen other people do it. Now, the reason that I sided with using OpenReply instead of just trying to manufacture something myself, which usually I would, but in this case, they are always pushing out new updates to OpenReply and adding different integrations. It's just very well maintained.

So I thought, let's just make the installation process easier. of building something from scratch and then me not having the bandwidth to update it and improve it. But.

Like I explained before, this installation process is pretty complicated and it has multiple requirements that you need to know in advance in order to make this a smooth installation process. So let's go through these requirements together. First off, you need to host Open Reply yourself.

The skill that I created is designed for two different paths. First path is that you self -host it. You actually have it on a PC that's always on.

If you have a secondary PC or old laptop you don't use, you can definitely use that. I think you need Windows 11 and a couple other specs in order to make it work, but nothing crazy. The caveat is that if it goes offline, your automations don't work.

And if it's offline for more than an hour, Instagram will actually make you reset your app, which only takes a couple minutes, but it's annoying. This is how you make it completely free. If you self...

host. One other caveat for self -hosting is that you need a Cloudflare account to set up what's called a tunnel. This is for security on your network.

Now, if you don't have another computer, completely fine. We will be hosting on a VPS. There is a fee involved with renting a VPS.

I'm personally using Hostinger and I've set up a KVM1 VPS instance, which I pay $6 .99 per month to run. I'll have the link. to Hostinger below if you wanna go this route.

An amazing part about Hostinger as well is that there is an MCP for Hostinger that connects to Cloud or Codex. So it can just attach to the backend of your account and just streamline the installation even further because I'm not a developer. So I don't even know how to do this stuff.

I just tell my agent to do it. The next thing that you're going to need after you know where you're hosting is you're going to need a domain, basically a website name. You also need to know where you buy your domains, like where.

Did you get them? Where are they hosted? Where do the name servers live?

Personally, I use GoDaddy. It's kind of the industry standard. When I tested this skill, it was using GoDaddy as well.

So it just knows where to find everything with GoDaddy. If you don't have a place to buy a domain, I recommend just getting it here. The agent will need to access your DNS manager in order to just route the domain to this open reply interface that I showed you before because open reply will be accessed through.

the domain that's where you're going to go in order to actually use open reply now if you don't have a domain they can be super cheap especially since this isn't some public address i mean you can get a domain for like a dollar a year depending on what they are but let's be real bro you have a graveyard of domains from those businesses that you spontaneously planned on starting I did too.

That's where I got my domain. It's okay. And if you don't, then you can make a subdomain on another domain that you're using already.

Like there's a lot of different ways that you can just get a very cheap domain or leverage one that you already are using. Next, you will need two Instagram accounts. One will be the Instagram account this operates from.

Like I have this installed for my systems by Vic Instagram account. So when someone comments here, it sends from this account. You'll need the second Instagram.

account to run the test. So it's an account that you are going to comment with in order to receive the message to make sure everything works. It could also be like your friend's account or something doesn't have to be yours.

You just have to be able to test with a second account. Now. the main account that you're using will need to have its own meta business suite account.

This is done at business .facebook .com. And it's what formally connects your Facebook to your Instagram page, to the ads manager. Like this is where all of the meta business tools live.

This is important because we need to create an Instagram app for this to work. We actually need to create our own permission set on Instagram on the backend to give - permissions to open reply to go and read our comments and then DM on our behalf.

Now, if you do this the right way through the Meta business suite, it's completely fine with Meta. Your account won't get any hits on it. You can DM a million people at once because it's happening in a way that is allowed.

This is super easy to set up. You probably already have it set up already if you use both your Facebook, your Instagram, or maybe Meta ads. Now we get into a few of the more nuanced requirements.

ones that I didn't really think about when I got into this build. But now that I'm in the build, I get it. It makes complete sense why we would actually have these things set up.

So you can't skip these. So the next account that we need is from a service called Resend. Resend is free at the level that we need it at.

Now, this is going to allow us to send emails. The reason we need to send emails is because once you have open reply set up, there is no login and password. log in through a magic link that gets sent to your email address when you request it.

Resend is going to be the service that we use to send those emails, but they're also going to send other very important emails that connect with the next requirement. So the next requirement is health checks, which is also completely free. This is going to monitor our service that we've set up in case it ever goes down or ever has some sort of failure or error or bug or anything like that.

And it's actually going to connect to Resend. So if anything does happen, we get an email in our inbox, letting us know that something broke and we need to go fix it. We definitely don't want to be unaware of anything breaking with our automation.

Now there's also... a bunch of little technical dependencies that your agent is just going to install by default once you give it permissions. That will all be done completely on the backend.

So it's wise for you to go into your browser before you start. any of this, create all of the accounts that I laid out for you and just keep them logged in. If you do that, then Claude will be able to take over your browser or Codex if you're using Codex as well, and just get to work without really needing you.

What I would recommend is getting the browser plugin for the agent that you're using. So right here, I have the Claude browser plugin, and this is going to allow Claude to open up its own tabs and do that computer use thing where it has this glow. around and like controls the browser.

That's how I programmed this to work is that it's actually going to control your browser. So now that we have the requirements out of the way, let me just quickly run you through exactly what's going to happen. I've already done this setup.

So what I'm playing on screen is actually just the recording of me running the setup because I want to show you. each step and give you some foresight on things to look out for when you're actually doing it. So like I mentioned before, this is going to work on Codex.

It's going to work on Claude code and the entire skill file is a zip file. You just drop it right into Claude. And once it's installed, you can initiate the many chat killer skill.

So the very first step is setting up hosting. I went with Hostinger, like I let you know before. I already had the Hostinger MCP set up.

Your agent will direct you to set up the MCP for Hostinger if that's the method you're going with. If you are self -hosting, it will go and actually set up the self -hosting for you. I would keep yourself active both with your agent window and your browser open just to make sure that if there's any verification needed at any point, you are there to just click the button or do the two -factor and move things forward.

The agent's also gonna ask you a bunch of questions at the start. Where are you hosting this? What is the domain you're using?

What's the email address you're using? It will also verify if you are actually going to use Resend and use health checks, which I do recommend because they're free. So once the hosting is actually set up and it has the SSH key that it needs to actually set up that hosting for this, it's then going to move over to the domain service.

GoDaddy would be that place for me. Access the domain that it told you about, go into the DNS manager and - change some of the DNS records in order for it to point at the hosting that we've set up.

While it has GoDaddy open, it's also going to go to resend, get anything set up on resend that you need, and then also point GoDaddy over to resend in order for resend to be able to send emails from that domain. So the emails that you get are actually going to be from that domain.

It's then going to move over to setting up health checks. And again, it ties it in to the email service as well. So health checks can speak to your email.

So at this point, I got the login email for open reply as a magic link, but it landed in my spam folder. And that's normal because the domain that I'm using is brand new.

Like no one's ever used it before. It has no warmup sending emails, but since we're only sending emails to ourselves, that's completely fine. What we can do is move this email out of the spam folder and then add that email address as a contact.

So any new emails we get from it moving forward. will actually land in our inbox. So at this point, you can actually access Open Reply and see the dashboard on the domain and the emails are working and sending.

Health Checks is also looking it over and making sure that everything is running smoothly. But we are missing a massive component and that is Instagram isn't connected whatsoever. So we wanna make sure that our Meta Business Suite is logged in and everything is set up there and our agent knows which Meta Business Suite account we are using.

with that Instagram account. Once it has access and knows, it will get started working on the Instagram app within the meta suite. Now, at certain times in this build process, there are going to be different API keys or access tokens that we need to give to the agent.

Never drop an API key or access token in the conversation directly. Always ask it to open up a notepad file, which is an ENV file. saved somewhere on your computer safely, where you can paste those keys in manually yourself, save the file, and then have the agent just pull that out.

through the code. Then your API keys and your access codes never live in the conversation. And we don't want that, especially with something that can control your Instagram communications.

So you can see me doing that here, opening this notepad, pasting some stuff in and then saving it off the screen because I'm not going to show you my stuff. There's a few different steps for the Instagram app to be created. But once it is created, your agent will now go into open reply and create a test campaign.

You can have it set for a specific post or any post. I just went with any post so I could just do this really quick.

The agent also set the test word as test. So that would be what I comment when I'm actually testing this out. And this is where our second Instagram account comes in because we're going to go to our main Instagram account on that second account, comment the word test, and then check our DMs.

And you can see right here, it worked perfectly. I got the DM. instantly from the main account that i'm using and then the agent turned off the test campaign from that point you can go ahead and build your own campaigns very easily through the campaign page on open reply and you're officially set up to use this many chat killer for a fraction of the cost or if you did it in a free manner completely free now i only use the vps for this because I'm setting it up on my main PC.

I do have a secondary PC that's always on where I run my agents from. I'm actually gonna be moving that over and hosting it locally so I don't have to pay for this VPS fee and I'm actually running it for free. Now, if you want the skill that I just showed you that I was working with to actually get everything set up, all you have to do is go over to my free school community.

It's called AI Systems for Human Content. We have over 10 ,000... free members at this point.

And this community is only two and a half months old. So once you get access for free to the community, you can come over to the classroom section and then go to the AI automations panel. And this is actually where I host all of my free skills that I present and give away on my YouTube channel.

So just find this video here. It will just be called many chat killer. And then you can click this button right at the bottom of the skill to actually download the zip file, which you will drop into either cloud.

or codex directly to install. And you can take a look at some of the other skills I have. I have a Higgs field replacement.

I have a video editing skill. I have a clipping army skill that replaces opus clip. Like we are cooking, bro.

I hope you got some value from this video today. And I hope I just saved you a bunch of money as well. If you haven't yet subscribed, hit the notification bell.

And as always, stay human.

The Hook

The bait, then the rug-pull.

Every "comment SKILL and I'll DM you the link" post is running on an automation platform, usually ManyChat, usually billed monthly. This creator canceled that subscription, self-hosted the same automation for free with an open source tool, and used a Claude Code agent to handle the entire multi-service setup.

Frameworks

Named ideas worth stealing.

02:55list

Hosting: Two Paths

Self-host on an always-on PC (needs a Cloudflare Tunnel for secure access)
Rent a VPS, as low as $6.99/mo, sometimes with a provider MCP for agent-driven setup

The two viable ways to keep a self-hosted DM automation reachable 24/7.

Steal forany self-hosted tool that needs to stay reachable from the internet

02:58list

The Requirements Checklist

Hosting (own always-on PC or a VPS)
A domain plus DNS access
Two Instagram accounts
Meta Business Suite access
A Resend account for magic-link email
A Healthchecks.io account for uptime monitoring
A browser-control plugin for the agent
Every account created and logged in before starting

Everything the agent needs access to before it can run the install unattended.

Steal forany complex multi-service self-hosted setup handed to an AI agent

CTA Breakdown

How they asked for the click.

VERBAL ASK

14:56link

“go over to my free Skool community... download the zip file, which you will drop into either Claude or Codex directly to install”

Soft CTA at the very end, after full value delivery; the downloadable skill file is gated behind a free community signup rather than a direct paywall.

MENTIONED ON CAMERA

04:17toolHostinger (VPS hosting, KVM1 plan, $6.99/mo) ↗

04:48toolGoDaddy (domain registrar) ↗

07:21toolResend (transactional email) ↗

08:06toolHealthchecks.io (cron/uptime monitoring) ↗

14:56linkAI Systems for Human Content (free Skool community, install skill download) ↗

Storyboard