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How the Outreach Trial works

Five confirmed contacts, three new contacts per UTC day, seven days from your first delivery, and what the Trial does not include.

Applies to Ins Autopilot 3.22 and later · Updated 2026-10-18

What this helps you do

The Outreach panel open on the Direct Message sub-tab, with the navigation rail showing Outreach selected and the message composer below.12
Figure 1Outreach is where the Trial lives. The Trial is a sending allowance, not a plan upgrade, so nothing here changes what your plan can do.
  • 1 Outreach in the navigation rail. Direct Message and Bulk DM Queue both sit behind it.
  • 2 The working area. Every send is decided one recipient at a time here.

The Outreach Trial is how you test real DM outreach on the free plan. It is a sending allowance rather than a trial of the paid plan: you get a small, fixed number of first-time conversations so you can see whether people actually reply before you pay anything.

This article is the complete rule set. Every number below is counted per Instagram sender account.

The Trial rules

  • 5 unique confirmed contacts per Instagram sender account. It counts contacts, not messages.
  • One Trial send per contact. Messaging the same person a second time does not use Trial allowance and is not covered by the Trial.
  • At most 3 new contacts per UTC day. The day boundary is midnight UTC, not your local midnight. Retrying the same person does not use another slot.
  • 7 days, starting from your first confirmed delivery. Not from installation, not from opening the Outreach tab, and not from your first click.
  • No credit card. Nothing is charged, and the Trial does not renew day by day. It ends when the five contacts are used or the seven days pass, whichever comes first.
  • Direct Message and Bulk DM Queue share one allowance. Splitting the same five contacts across both tools does not create more room.
  • Only a confirmed send counts. Attempts that end as failed, blocked or skipped use nothing, and a retry after a proven failure is not counted twice.
  • unknown is not confirmed. When delivery cannot be verified the message is held for human review, and it is never resent automatically.
1 5 unique confirmed contacts per Instagram sender account. It counts contacts, not messages. 2 At most 3 new contacts per UTC day the day boundary is midnight UTC, not your local midnight. 3 One Trial send per contact messaging the same person again does not use Trial allowance. 4 7 days starting from your first confirmed delivery — not from installation, not from opening Outreach.
Figure 2How the Trial is counted. Four numbers, and the order they are measured in.

What the Trial is not

It is not a free plan that hands you a few DMs every day. Once the five contacts are used, the Trial is over for that account, and it does not refill.

It is not a Pro trial. The Trial is a DM allowance exception, and using it does not make the account Pro or unlock Pro features.

The Trial does not include AI Draft, Follow-up sequences, Tracked links, Comment, Monitor or multi-account management. Those are Pro capabilities. The Trial gives you room to send a first message you wrote and reviewed yourself; everything that manages conversations at scale stays on the paid plan.

A useful way to think about it: the Trial buys you five conversations. It does not buy you the tooling that runs conversations at scale.

Using the Trial

  1. Confirm which account you are on — open instagram.com in the same browser and check that the extension footer shows your account ID. The Trial belongs to that account.
  2. Open Outreach — choose Direct Message for a single recipient, or Bulk DM Queue for a list. Both draw on the same five contacts.
  3. Write and review the message — the message is yours. Nothing leaves your browser until you press the send button.
  4. Send and read the status — each attempt ends as sent, blocked, failed, skipped or unknown. Only sent uses a contact.
  5. Watch the counter — the extension tracks how many of the five contacts are used and how many new contacts you have started today. When either limit is reached, the next attempt is refused before anything is sent.
1 Check the account the Trial is counted per sender account 2 Open Outreach Direct Message or Bulk DM Queue 3 Write and review the message is yours 4 Send and read the status only sent uses a contact 5 Watch the counter contacts used and new contacts today
Figure 3Using the Trial: five steps, and only one of them can spend a contact.

When the Trial ends

  • Your History and your Relationships ledger stay readable. You are never locked out of records you already produced.
  • Only new outbound messages need Pro, which raises the daily DM cap to 30 on Monthly or 50 on Annual.
  • Replies, outcomes and the Activity timeline keep working exactly as they did during the Trial.
The Stats pane in the side panel, with Stats selected in the navigation rail and the running totals for the signed-in account.1
Figure 4When the Trial ends, your records do not. The totals you built during the Trial stay readable, and only new outbound messages need Pro.
  • 1 Stats in the navigation rail — your own totals for this account.

Limits and important behavior

  • The five contacts are counted per Instagram sender account, not per browser and not per person. Signing in as a different Instagram account starts that account's own Trial.
  • The daily cap counts new contacts. A second message to someone you already contacted is not a new contact.
  • An unknown result uses no contact, and it is never retried automatically. Open the Instagram thread and resolve it by hand first.
  • Daily limits across the product are usage caps, not Instagram safety thresholds. Sending up to the cap does not mean sending is safe, and risk depends on your account's state and on platform limits.
Uses a contact A confirmed send (status sent) A message you reviewed and sent yourself A contacts first message on this account Uses nothing blocked — refused before anything left the browser failed — the send did not go out skipped — deliberately not attempted unknown — held for review, never auto-retried
Figure 5What spends one of the five contacts, and what does not. The allowance tracks what you delivered, not what you attempted.

Troubleshooting

The Trial says I have contacts left, but my send was blocked.
Check the account first. If you switched Instagram accounts in the browser, the allowance belongs to whichever account is signed in now. See Instagram accounts, browser sessions and account matching.
A message shows as unknown, or Needs Review.
Instagram did not confirm the delivery. Open the thread and look before doing anything else, because the message may already be there. It will not be retried automatically. See Sent, blocked, unknown and Needs Review explained.
I want to message the same person again.
On the Trial it is one confirmed message per contact. Reaching the same person again is a Pro capability, and History shows the earlier attempt either way.
My seven days expired, but I only sent two messages.
The seven days run from your first confirmed delivery, so the clock starts on the day you actually reach someone. It does not pause while you are not sending.

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