---
title: "Get started"
description: "The three-step path from signup to a live campaign that answers a real comment on your Facebook or Instagram page with an automatic DM, plus what to read when it stays silent."
canonical: https://docs.afp.monster/start
updated: 2026-08-19
pageType: start
---

Three steps take you from signup to a working auto-reply: create an account, connect a Facebook page or Instagram business account, then build and activate a campaign. Two more pages cover the two ways it goes quiet — a page that never appears in AFP, and a campaign that never replies. The path is built backwards from one outcome: a real comment on your page produces a real automatic DM.

## What do you need before you start?

Three things, and nothing else.

| What | Why it is required |
|---|---|
| A Facebook page or Instagram business account you administer | AFP links a page through a profile that has admin access to it. A page the profile does not administer is skipped during linking. |
| An email address you can receive a code at | Registration emails you a six-digit verification code, and you are not signed in until you enter it. |
| An active subscription | Verifying your email creates one on the default plan. Linking a page and creating a campaign both check for an active subscription first. |

Email and password is the account type to start with, because one account holds several Facebook and Instagram profiles and can link the pages of each of them. [Create your account](/start/create-your-account) covers the Facebook sign-in alternative and what it gives up.

Your plan sets how many pages you can link and how many campaigns you can run. Both limits are checked at the moment you link a page or create a campaign, so the limit you hit tells you which one you reached.

## What is the five-minute path?

```d2 title="Signup to a working auto-reply in four steps"
direction: right
create: Create your account
connect: Connect a page
build: "Build and activate\na campaign"
result: "A real comment gets\nan automatic DM"
create -> connect -> build -> result
```

1. **[Create your account](/start/create-your-account)** — Register with an email address and a password, then enter the six-digit code AFP emails you. Verifying the code signs you in and creates your subscription on the default plan.
2. **[Connect a page](/start/connect-a-page)** — Attach a Facebook profile, then choose which of its pages to link. Pages already linked to another account are skipped, and so are pages the profile does not administer.
3. **[Send your first auto-reply](/start/first-auto-reply)** — Choose the connected page in the canvas header, add the nodes that match a comment and send a DM, click **Save campaign**, and switch the campaign on.

Two pages exist for when a step does not produce what it should, and which one you need depends on how far you got.

| What went wrong | Read |
|---|---|
| The page you want to automate is not in AFP at all, or refuses to link | [Why is my page not showing up?](/start/page-not-showing-up) |
| The page is connected and the campaign is on, but a comment produces no DM | [Why is my campaign not replying?](/start/troubleshooting) |

## How do I know it worked?

Someone comments on a post on your connected page, and AFP sends that person a direct message. That is the success signal the whole path exists to produce; a saved graph and an **Active** toggle are means, not proof.

Three conditions have to hold before a comment can reach your campaign, and each one is visible in the canvas.

- **The campaign is active.** Incoming events are matched only against active campaigns, so a campaign left switched off produces nothing no matter how the graph is built. Switching on a campaign that was inactive asks you to confirm before it saves.
- **The graph is saved.** Events are matched against the saved version of the graph. A campaign that is switched on but has no saved version containing a trigger node never fires.
- **The campaign is bound to the connected page.** A campaign targets exactly one page, chosen in the canvas header, and cannot be activated without one. Creating the campaign also subscribes that page to its events, so there is no separate subscription step.

Activating a campaign from the canvas validates the graph first: at least one trigger node, an incoming connection on every other node, and no node with configuration errors. A graph that fails shows you the errors and is not sent to AFP, so an activation that goes through means the structure is sound even if the keyword never matches.

If a comment arrives and no DM does, [work the troubleshooting checklist](/start/troubleshooting) rather than rebuilding the campaign — the common causes are an inactive campaign, an unsaved graph, and the wrong page.

## Next

- [Create your account](/start/create-your-account)