Instagram cold DM reply rates: benchmarks from 10,677 messages

If you send cold DMs on Instagram, the first thing you want to know is whether your reply rate is good. Most numbers quoted online are guesses. These are measured: 10,677 first messages sent through Nousify.ai campaigns from 23 Instagram accounts, and how many of them got an answer.

The headline number: 9.5%

Out of 10,677 cold DMs, 1,012 got a reply. That is 9.5%, or roughly one reply for every ten or eleven messages. If you are somewhere near that, you are doing about as well as the typical account.

The range between accounts is huge

The average hides the most useful finding. The same tool, sending the same kind of message, produced reply rates from under 1% to over 23% depending on the account.

• Six of the 23 accounts were above 15%.
• Ten were above 10%.
• Eight were below 5%.

A spread that wide, on identical software, points at two things that differ between accounts: who they message and what they say. Sending more of a message that gets 3% does not fix it.

A simple scale for your own number

What moves the reply rate

We compared messages by what they contained. These are patterns in the data, not controlled tests, so read them as direction.

Who you message matters too

Reply rates were steady across small and mid-sized accounts, and dropped for the largest ones.

Accounts with more than 50,000 followers replied about a third less often. Their inboxes are full, and a stranger's message is easy to miss. If your customers are large accounts, expect a lower rate and plan for more volume.

How fast replies arrive

Do not judge a campaign on its first day. Half of all replies came in within about five hours, but a quarter took more than a day.

Give a batch of messages three days before you read its reply rate. Checking after one day undercounts by roughly a quarter.

How to improve a low reply rate

1. Check the list first. Open twenty of the leads you messaged. If fewer than fifteen are people who could actually buy, the list is the problem.
2. Use warmer sources. People who commented on a post about your topic reply more than a general follower list.
3. Filter before you send. Let AI qualification mark who fits, and message only those.
4. Give before you ask. Offer something useful in the first message instead of asking for a call.
5. Make the first line specific. If it could have been sent to anyone, rewrite it.
6. Change one thing at a time, send at least a hundred messages, wait three days, then compare.

How we measured this

The figures cover first messages sent through Nousify.ai campaigns up to October 2026. We included accounts that sent at least 50 cold DMs and had replies recorded, which left 23 accounts and 10,677 messages. A reply is counted when the lead answers at any point after the message was sent. Accounts differ in niche, offer and audience, so the comparisons between message types show association, not cause.