Zernio
ManyChat alternative for developers

The ManyChat alternative with a comment to DM API

Keyword comments on Instagram and Facebook become DMs in real time, with a follow gate and typo-tolerant matching. Billed per connected account, not per contact, with the API on the free tier.

  • 2 accounts free forever
  • No credit card required

Official partner on every network you publish to

  • Meta Business Partner
  • TikTok Marketing Partner
  • LinkedIn Marketing Partner
  • Pinterest Partners
  • X Official Partner

Comment to DM

Everything you set up in ManyChat, as one API call

Someone comments your keyword, they get the DM, and the public reply goes up after it. Instagram and Facebook.

  • Any post, one post, or story replies, triggered by Meta's real-time webhook
  • Whole-word, exact or contains matching, with typo tolerance and exclusion words
  • Follow gate on Instagram: one tap to confirm, the real DM follows
  • Text with up to 3 buttons, a product card, or a carousel of up to 10
  • One DM per person per automation, even when they comment 10 times
  • Create it with one API request, from an AI agent over MCP, or in the dashboard

Side by side

What you get that ManyChat doesn't give you

Capability Zernio ManyChat
Comment to DM Instagram + Facebook Instagram + Facebook
Build it from code REST API, every plan API on Advanced plan
Billing model Per connected account Per active contact
A post goes viral Same price Overage per extra contact
Embed in your own product Your UI, your brand Their dashboard
MCP server for AI agents Yes No
Publishing and ads 16 platforms, 7 ad networks No
Free tier 2 accounts forever 25 contacts
“Zernio is great.”

Guillermo Rauch

CEO, Vercel

From flow to request

Your ManyChat flow is one POST

No canvas to rebuild. The trigger, the audience rule and the DM are fields in one request, so they live in your codebase and version with it.

  • Keyword, match mode, typo tolerance and exclusions in the request
  • Follow gate with audience.whenUnknown: 'verify' (Instagram)
  • Logs per automation: every comment, the decision, and why

POST /v1/comment-automations

await fetch('https://zernio.com/api/v1/comment-automations', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${ZERNIO_KEY}` },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    profileId: 'prof_123',
    accountId: 'acc_ig_123',
    name: 'LINK on every Reel',
    keywords: ['link'],
    matchMode: 'word',
    typoTolerance: true,
    excludeKeywords: ['unlink'],
    dmMessage: 'Here you go',
    audience: { followerStatus: 'follower', whenUnknown: 'verify' }
  })
});

Same key as the inbox, publishing and ads.

Predictable pricing

No contact traps. No add-on fees

ManyChat bills per active contact and keeps API access for its Advanced plan. Zernio charges per connected account, with comment-to-DM, the inbox and the API included from day one.

Cost of one Reel that gets 10,000 new commenters in a month
One Reel, 10,000 new commenters ManyChat Pro Zernio
Contacts over the plan 7,500 at $0.05 Not counted
Added to that month's bill $375 $0

ManyChat Pro on monthly billing, 2,500 active contacts included, as published September 2026.

First 2 accounts Free forever
Accounts 3-10 $6 /account/mo
Accounts 11-100 $3 /account/mo
Accounts 101+ $1 /account/mo

No cap, fully self-service at any scale. Past 2,000 accounts self-serve keeps the $1 rate, and enterprise contracts add volume discounts from there.

Comment-to-DM automations
Unified inbox (DMs + comments)
Full API access
Scheduling & publishing
Analytics & metrics
Ad campaigns
Webhooks
8 SDKs
MCP server
Bring your own inbox UI
No credit card required
No contracts or setup fees
Cancel anytime

Managed ads are included on every account, with the first 500 active ads free and $0.01 per active ad per month after that. Never a percentage of ad spend.

Own your stack

A unified inbox you build, extend and own

Zernio ships the inbox as an API, not a dashboard. Build your own multi-platform inbox UI on top of it.

Your UI, your codebase

8 SDKs, REST and MCP. Ship your own inbox in hours.

Your rules, your routing

Custom filters, auto-assign, priority queues. No feature gates.

No vendor lock-in

ManyChat owns the flow logic and the UI it runs in. Here both live in your codebase.

Unified inbox

12 unread

@designstudio DM

Love the new feature! Can we get API access for our team?

2m

+1 (555) 012-3456 WhatsApp

Hi, I saw your pricing page. Quick question about enterprise…

8m

Sarah Chen comment

This is exactly what we needed. Just migrated from Ayrshare

15m

@devtools_daily mention

Just discovered @zernio. One API for all social platforms?

23m

Acme Corp DM

Do you support bulk messaging for our 500 client accounts?

41m

Five platforms. One feed. Your UI.

AI-native inbox

Ask Claude to manage your inbox

One MCP URL. Your agent sets up comment-to-DM automations, reads, triages and replies across every connected platform, then publishes and promotes.

One-line setup

Add the MCP URL to Claude Desktop or Cursor. Done.

AI-powered triage

Claude reads your inbox, flags what's urgent, drafts replies.

Full autonomous loop

Read, reply, publish, promote, measure. No flow diagrams.

LLM-optimized docs

Feed them to any model for instant context on the full API.

claude-desktop-config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zernio": {
      "url": "https://mcp.zernio.com"
    }
  }
}

Then just ask Claude

  • "DM the guide to anyone who comments GUIDE on my latest Reel, followers only"
  • "Show me all unread DMs and comments from the last 24 hours"
  • "Triage my WhatsApp messages. Flag anything urgent, draft replies for the rest"

Trusted by developers

70,000+ developers build on Zernio

"API is straightforward, well-documented, and simple. It just works."

Zernio user review

"Integration was incredibly easy. Had everything up and running in less than an hour."

SaaS developer, purplepalm.ai
SOC 2
GDPR
99.7% uptime SLA
Cancel anytime

70,000+ developers

What developers say after shipping

  • Elena Zarino
    Elena Zarino Web Developer

    I integrated Zernio's API and MCP into my Claude Copilot and Claude Code setup, and it filled a gap I'd been working around for a while.

  • Leon
    Leon Founder, Moving Monkey

    We're integrating Zernio into our coaching app's WhatsApp inbox and love how clean the SDK is. Thank you for that.

  • Justin
    Justin Founder, StandoutResults

    We'd been using the HighLevel API for social posting, every post stuck in draft, a lot of hassle. Zernio has been a breeze to work with.

  • Marko
    Marko Developer, Meta Ads API

    It works flawlessly now. Superb, as always. You and the team rock, keep up the amazing work.

  • Razvan Ghetiu
    Razvan Ghetiu Founder, purplepalm.ai

    I use Zernio for my SaaS purplepalm.ai. Integration was incredibly easy, had everything up and running in less than an hour. The API is super straightforward.

  • Dev Singh
    Dev Singh Founder, ad-attribution SaaS

    I love the speed and quality here, the API is awesome. I've never seen anyone ship integrations this fast.

  • Jim
    Jim Developer

    Zernio makes programmatic multi-platform posting as simple as I've ever seen it. The API is straightforward, well-documented, and it just works.

  • Chris
    Chris Founder, captureflow.ai

    I'm building captureflow.ai on Zernio and I love the platform. Super happy to be using you guys.

  • Zahareus
    Zahareus Developer

    I spent a long time looking for a simple way to integrate a self-hosted stack. Zernio was just perfect, and I highly recommend it.

Questions

What ManyChat users ask before they switch

How much work is it to migrate off ManyChat?

The connections are the work, and they are quick: create a key, send each social account through the hosted OAuth screen, and the inbox is live. What does not transfer is your ManyChat flows. Those are their canvas, so the logic gets rewritten as code or as agent instructions on your side.

Do I have to drop ManyChat to use Zernio?

No. They authenticate separately and do not conflict, so plenty of teams keep ManyChat for the marketing automations their team already knows and use Zernio for the inbox, publishing and ads their product needs programmatically.

Can I move my comment-to-DM automations over?

Yes. Each one becomes a single request with the keyword, the match rule, the audience rule and the DM, or you describe it to an AI agent through the MCP server. Instagram and Facebook are covered, including Instagram story replies.

Does the follow gate work the same way?

On Instagram, yes. Instagram only reveals who follows an account once that person has messaged it, so the gate sends one DM with a button, the tap counts as a message, and the real DM follows. If Meta does not answer, the DM is delivered anyway. There is no follow gate on Facebook.

Does Zernio have a visual flow builder?

No, and that is the trade. There is an automation editor for comment-to-DM with a keyword tester, but no drag-and-drop canvas for multi-step conversation flows. The inbox, the routing and the replies are endpoints, so longer logic lives in your codebase or in an AI agent through the MCP server.

So who is this actually for?

Teams with a developer. If you want a marketer to build a chatbot flow without writing code, a builder like ManyChat is the right shape of tool. If you are shipping a product that needs a multi-platform inbox, publishing or ads inside it, the API is.

Am I locked in?

Your connected accounts stay yours, your ad spend goes to the platforms directly, and disconnecting an account stops its charge immediately. The OpenAPI 3.1 spec is published, so nothing about the integration itself is proprietary, and the inbox UI is yours because you built it.

How does the cost compare with per-contact billing?

It is a different meter. ManyChat bills per active contact, so a post that works costs more: on Pro, a Reel that brings 10,000 new commenters in a month adds $375 at $0.05 per contact over the 2,500 included. Zernio bills per connected account: your first two are free forever, then $6 each per month, dropping to $3 and then $1 with volume, and the number of people who comment never changes the bill.

Which platforms does the unified inbox cover?

Eleven, including Instagram, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Threads, TikTok and YouTube, with DMs, comments, mentions and reviews in the same feed. Publishing reaches more platforms than the inbox does, because not every network exposes messaging to an API.

What does support cost?

Nothing extra. Support is included on every account rather than sold as a tier, and every feature is on every account, so there is no API plan to buy your way onto.

Comment to DM without the contact bill

Instagram and Facebook comment automations, the inbox, publishing and ads behind one API key. Your first 2 accounts are free.

  • 2 accounts free forever
  • No credit card
  • One API