Creator Jay Kapoor built SlideDM after his own ManyChat bill hit ₹9,000–₹10,000 a month.
- Your website says SlideDM is Meta approved, a verified tech provider and also an official Meta business partner. Which specific Meta programme or certification is SlideDM enrolled in?
- Can you specify three or four things that make SlideDM different?
- How does Reply Desk work?
- With accounts getting banned or suspended because of DM automation, do you feel SlideDM solves that problem?
- Is there any other feature you would like to talk about? What is Brand Brain?
- Who can actually use SlideDM?
- How has the response been? What have people told you — any feedback or criticism?
- What do SlideDM plans look like?
- Is there any story behind why you started SlideDM?
- What is your retention rate?
- If somebody needs to directly reach you or faces a problem, how can they do that?
Kapoor needed a DM automation tool for his own Instagram account and didn’t want to keep paying for it, so he built an alternative. That tool is now SlideDM, an India-focused Instagram automation platform aimed at creators, with regional-language support, a no-questions-asked refund if a user’s account gets restricted, and a single unlimited plan instead of usage-based billing.
TCI spoke to Kapoor ahead of World Entrepreneurs’ Day about building a product that’s a Manychat alternative, what SlideDM does differently on comment automation, lead capture and account safety, and how his own expense problem turned into a business other creators are now using.
Your website says SlideDM is Meta approved, a verified tech provider and also an official Meta business partner. Which specific Meta programme or certification is SlideDM enrolled in?
We are an official Meta provider, and this is the highest you can get.
Can you specify three or four things that make SlideDM different?
First, there is a feature called Reply to Earlier Comments. For example, if you turn DM automation on and there are already comments, you can turn on that setting inside SlideDM and it will reply to the previous comments also.
Then there is Follow to Unlock. You can set up an automation where it will keep asking the user to follow. You can also ask for an email or phone number. When the user provides that information, the information gets unlocked and sent.
Then there is the Auto Pause feature. I have seen people who use ManyChat or Meta’s official tool still getting banned or restricted. The problem is not the tool. The problem is your category of messages or the way you send them. So we work around that.
We also have lead management. You can ask for an email or phone number and manage those leads. That can be helpful for people like real-estate consultants. And then we have another feature called Reply Desk, which is our innovation.
How does Reply Desk work?
Basically, look at the comment section. For example, I set up an automation saying, “Comment ‘website’ and I’ll send you the link.”
Now there can be 10,000 comments saying “website”. But there can also be 500 genuine queries like someone saying, “Is it safe?”, “Is it trusted?”, or “I can’t find it.” Those are genuine queries. They should get a reply. So you can hide the keyword “website”, and then you see the genuine queries separately. I can reply directly to those comments.
With accounts getting banned or suspended because of DM automation, do you feel SlideDM solves that problem?
Yeah, for sure it solves it. We are so confident about it because we are the only tool that’s giving you a refund guarantee. Our Pro plan costs ₹999, and if your account gets restricted using our tool, you can get a no-questions-asked refund. No other tool in the world offers this.
Is there any other feature you would like to talk about? What is Brand Brain?
It is still in development and it is majorly for D2C brands. For example, you can set it up just by giving your website link. It will read all the data. Then you can connect it with Shopify so we can look at your order data, and then you can connect your logistics partner, for example, Shiprocket. So if somebody asks, “Where is my order?” The chatbot can reply by asking for the order number.
In the backend, we can search for that order because Shopify is connected and Shiprocket is connected. Then the chatbot can answer the status, whether it is in transit or what happened to it. It is a four-click chatbot maker for D2C brands. We haven’t launched it yet. It is still in development.
Who can actually use SlideDM?
Our major market is creators, definitely, and creators who run businesses. Our users are 80% creators and 20% businesses. We have a lot of creators using things like “comment PRICE and I will send you the link”. Creators also use it for reach or engagement.
For example, if you do 10 posts and then do a post with automation, you can clearly see a difference in the engagement and follow counts. I’ve seen accounts grow from 10,000 to 50,000 just by doing this type of thing.
Our biggest user is one Instagrammer. She has sent 72,000 DMs in the last 30 days and she hasn’t faced any issue. So that’s a big win for us.
How has the response been? What have people told you — any feedback or criticism?
We work on feedback every day. For example, this feature was made using feedback, the activity log. With a DM automation, you can see what happened to it, what the success rate is, what the error rate is, everything. People wanted it somehow. They wanted to see, “What’s the activity of my account?”
We talk to 10 users every day and get their feedback. For example, another feature that we are making is the import feature. We know that ManyChat existed, or SuperProfile existed, before us and a lot of people want to switch to us. So we are making a feature where you can just drop in screenshots of your existing automation and we will import all of it in one click.
What do SlideDM plans look like?
There is a free plan. Everything is there, but there is a limit of 200 DMs. Once you cross it, you need to upgrade to the Pro plan, which is ₹999 and unlimited. You can send as many DMs in a month. We won’t say a thing.
Then there are agency plans. You can buy five accounts and distribute them within your team or among your creators. There is no cap on the number of DM. 70,000 is the maximum we had seen at the time, but we don’t cap it. People can send 2,00,000 DMs a month also.
Is there any story behind why you started SlideDM?
The story behind it is pretty simple. It started as an internal tool for me because I was using ManyChat before and I got a bill of ₹9,000–₹10,000.
Then I was like: A, why are we using a firangi tool? And B, why can’t we make a better tool?
So it started with that thought. Brick by brick, code by code, we built it. There were a lot of firsts in the industry. For example, the Reply Desk feature is the first in the industry. So is the DM Variance feature where we automatically tweak the copy that you have written so that Meta does not flag it as spam. And we were the first one to launch it with our iOS app and Play Store app. From day one, we were on both iOS and Android, and the website also works.
It is built for India with 10+ regional languages and we optimise a lot for account restrictions. When we detect a spike, we slow down the DMs instantly. There is an algorithm working for this. So, yeah, that’s pretty much it.
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What is your retention rate?
We launched in May, 2026 and it’s great, actually. Only 20% of paid users have dropped. The rest 80% have retained.
If somebody needs to directly reach you or faces a problem, how can they do that?
We have WhatsApp support. Once they sign in, they will see a WhatsApp button. They can simply tap on it and connect with me.
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