What Is Follow Gate?
Follow Gate adds an extra step before your final DM. Instead of sending the link immediately, CreatorFlow first sends a message asking the person to follow you.
The person sees two buttons: Visit Profile (opens your Instagram profile) and I'm following (they tap this to receive the link).
Where Do I Find Follow Gate?
Follow Gate is in Step 3 of the automation builder, under "They will optionally get."
Three pre-DM options exist: Opening DM, Follow Gate, and Email Gate. These are mutually exclusive. Pick one or skip all three.
Follow Gate is available on Pro and Growth plans. It moved to paid plans on April 1, 2026. If you had automations using Follow Gate on the Free plan, they are paused (not deleted). Upgrade to Pro to reactivate, or edit the automation to remove Follow Gate.
How Does It Work?
Someone comments your keyword on a post
The automation trigger fires when a matching keyword is detected.
CreatorFlow sends the Follow Gate DM
The person receives a DM asking them to follow your account.
The person taps "Visit Profile" and follows you
They visit your profile and (optionally) follow your account.
The person taps "I'm following"
They confirm they're following to proceed.
CreatorFlow sends the final DM with your link
The promised content is delivered after the follow step.
Is the Follow Verified?
No. Follow Gate runs on an honor system.
CreatorFlow cannot check if someone followed you. When a person taps "I'm following," the link sends regardless of whether they followed. In practice, most people do follow before tapping the button.
What's the Trade-Off?
If growing your follower count is a priority, Follow Gate is worth it. If maximizing link clicks matters more, skip Follow Gate.
You'll see 20-30% fewer people completing the full flow.
You'll gain more followers from each post.
When to Avoid Follow Gate
Non-followers + Follow Gate = double barrier.
When someone who doesn't follow you receives a DM, Instagram places it in their Message Requests folder. Most people don't check Message Requests.
If you add Follow Gate on top of that:
The person may never see your Follow Gate message
It's sitting in their Message Requests folder, not their main inbox.
They can't tap "I'm following"
They never interact with the Follow Gate DM.
They never get the link
The flow breaks at the Follow Gate step.
If your audience includes many non-followers, consider skipping Follow Gate or asking your audience to follow you in your post caption before commenting.