Start on Free. No card needed. Business or Creator Instagram account required.
Animated product story · sample data
knit.bio / illustrative product view
k.
Comment ShieldYour community. Your rules.M
Keep the useful conversationSample moderation thread
R
Riya
This setup is so helpful. Which light did you use?
P
Promo account
Claim a free prize at example.com
A
Aarav
Could you share a behind-the-scenes Reel?
Allowlist first. Rules next. Activity you can review.
01 / 03
Made for your next move.
2,000 comments / monthA useful place to begin
Official Instagram APIConnect with Meta, without sharing your password
Your next creative move.Connected to the rest of your creator toolkit
THE SHORT ANSWER
What is Instagram comment moderation?
Instagram comment moderation is filtering the comments on your content: hiding spam, bot replies, scam links, competitor promotions and abuse so your real audience sees a clean thread. Instagram has a basic keyword filter built in. A moderation tool adds rules you can tune, separate handling for paid posts, an allowlist, and a record of what it did.
Comment Shield works through Instagram’s official API. Every rule picks an action (hide, delete or flag for review) and a scope (all posts, organic only, or ads only), and when several rules match one comment the strictest action wins.
MADE FOR THE WORK YOU WANT TO DO
Your community. Your boundaries.
“Which camera did you use?”
Keep the useful conversation.
THE THREAD
01 / THE THREAD
Keep spam out of the way.
Apply rules for spam, suspicious links and unwanted promotion on the posts where they matter.
Your words. Your rules.Review the match before the action.
THE EXCEPTIONS
02 / THE EXCEPTIONS
Protect your own replies.
Allow your domain, campaign codes and trusted accounts before applying broader rules.
Allowlisted · kept01
Link rule · hidden02
Action recorded03
THE REVIEW
03 / THE REVIEW
Know what happened.
Review the matching rule and action in Activity. Check false positives and adjust your setup.
FOLLOW THE WORKFLOW
See how the pieces connect.
The example thread contains a genuine question and an unwanted promotional reply.
01 / 03
Illustrative workflow · no account actions performed.
knit.bio / illustrative product view
k.
Comment ShieldYour community. Your rules.M
Keep the useful conversationSample moderation thread
R
Riya
This setup is so helpful. Which light did you use?
P
Promo account
Claim a free prize at example.com
A
Aarav
Could you share a behind-the-scenes Reel?
Allowlist first. Rules next. Activity you can review.
SAMPLE DATA / FICTIONAL CREATOR EXAMPLE
MAKE IT YOUR OWN
How to set up comment moderation
Start with a rule bundle, protect your own links and test a sample comment before relying on the rules.
Essentials covers bot spam, scams and profanity on everything you post. Ad shield adds link, promo-code and contact-harvesting rules to ads and dark posts only. Both are one click and need no configuration.
02
Protect your own links and codes
In “Never touch these”, add your domain, your active promo codes and any teammate who replies from their own account. The allowlist is checked before any rule and always wins.
03
Try a comment before you trust a rule
Paste something a spammer would write into “Try a comment” to see what your rules would do. Nothing is posted to Instagram.
04
Check the Activity tab weekly
Every action is logged with the comment text and the exact word that matched, so a false positive is easy to diagnose. Anything caught wrongly can be put back from there.
THE DETAILS THAT MAKE IT USEFUL
What Comment Shield catches
knit.bio / illustrative product view
k.
Comment ShieldYour community. Your rules.M
Keep the useful conversationSample moderation thread
R
Riya
This setup is so helpful. Which light did you use?
P
Promo account
Claim a free prize at example.com
A
Aarav
Could you share a behind-the-scenes Reel?
Allowlist first. Rules next. Activity you can review.
01 / 03
The complete workflow · illustrative sample
Spam, scams and profanity
Built-in lists you do not have to write, which match through obfuscation such as “f*ck”, “c h e c k m y b i o” and “ch3ck my b1o”.
Links, on the posts where they matter
An “any link or URL” rule that also catches bare domains and “site (dot) com”. On paid posts use Ad shield instead of an account-wide link rule: links under an ad are almost always competitors or scams, while links under an organic post are often your own community.
Competitor promo codes and contact harvesting
Catches other brands’ discount codes under your posts, and emails, phone numbers and “message me on WhatsApp” replies aimed at your audience.
Your own words and patterns
Add a keyword, a custom banned word or a regex. Free can have 3 rules of your own, Essentials 20, and Pro and Studio are unlimited. The built-in bundles do not count.
Zero tolerance and an AI rule (Pro and Studio)
Zero tolerance deletes instead of hiding. The AI rule reads intent, so it catches hate, harassment and threats that a keyword list would miss. It is optional, works alongside your word rules rather than instead of them, and sends comment text to an AI provider, so it is off until you switch it on.
Undo, allowlist and escalation
Hidden comments can be restored in one click. An account that keeps tripping your rules is escalated from hidden to deleted after three catches in 30 days. A Pause switch turns every rule off at once without deleting them.
It runs before your automations
A comment hidden or deleted by a rule does not also trigger an auto-DM. A comment that is only flagged for review still can. See comment-to-DM automation.
Protect your best fans
One tap on a Superfans inner-circle member adds them to the allowlist, so a keyword or spam rule can never hide a comment from the people who matter most.
CHOOSE FOR THE JOB YOU NEED
A useful start on Free.
Comment Shield is available on every plan. Screening allowances, custom rules and optional AI capabilities vary by plan.
Instagram has no undelete. A deleted comment cannot be restored, so start with Hide, or Flag for review on any rule you are not certain about. Hidden comments can be put back.
Comments over your monthly screening allowance are not screened until the 1st (2,000 on Free). You are told at 80% and again at 100%, and nothing is charged as overage.
Rules are pattern matching. Even a good rule can catch a legitimate comment, which is why the allowlist, the Activity log and Try a comment exist. Review Activity weekly at first.
Comment Shield moderates comments only. Direct messages are sorted separately by the Money Inbox.
The AI rule reads comment text through an AI provider and is metered monthly by plan. At the limit it falls back to your word rules, which keep working.
BEFORE YOU CONNECT
Questions worth asking.
How do I automatically hide spam comments on Instagram?
Connect your Business or Creator account, open Comment Shield and add the Essentials bundle. It hides bot spam, scam links and profanity on every post, including versions written to dodge filters. Hidden comments are invisible to other visitors, and you can put any of them back from the Activity tab.
Can I block links in Instagram comments?
Yes. The “any link or URL” rule catches links, bare domains and “site (dot) com” spellings. Add your own domain to the allowlist so a customer sharing your link is never treated as a spammer. For paid posts, the Ad shield bundle applies link rules to ads only.
What is the difference between hiding and deleting a comment?
A hidden comment is invisible to other visitors and can be restored. A deleted comment is gone for good, because Instagram has no undelete. Use Hide for anything you are not sure about, and Delete only for what is unambiguous, or switch on zero tolerance if you want deletion by default.
Does it work on ads and dark posts?
Yes. Each rule has a scope: all posts, organic only, or ads only. The Ad shield bundle applies link, promo-code and contact-harvesting rules to ads and dark posts. See how to protect paid Instagram posts from comment spam.
Will it hide comments from my real followers by mistake?
It can, as any rule can, which is why several safeguards exist: the allowlist always wins, you can protect Superfans in one tap, Try a comment shows what a rule would do before you rely on it, Flag for review records a match without touching the comment, and every action is logged with the exact word that triggered it and can be undone.
Is comment moderation free?
Yes. Comment Shield is on every plan. Free screens 2,000 comments a month with 3 custom rules; Essentials screens 25,000 and Pro 100,000; Studio is unlimited. Zero tolerance and the AI hostility rule are on Pro and Studio.
