Access gate and asking for a follow

Dartzo gives you two ways to tie your link to a follow, and they are genuinely different things. The Access gate checks with Instagram whether the person follows you, at the moment they ask for the link. Ask them to follow first is a polite request that nobody checks. Pick the one that matches what you actually want to promise.

What the Access gate does

Normally your DM arrives with the link in it. Switch the gate on and Dartzo splits that into two messages, with a real check in between.

1. 1
   They get the opt-in message

   A short message with a single button and no link in it. This is a new field — your own message is held back for later.
2. 2
   They tap the button

   Tapping is what lets Instagram tell us anything about them, so the check happens here and nowhere earlier.
3. 3
   Dartzo asks Instagram whether they follow you

   A real check against your account, run at that moment. Not a guess, not a scrape.
4. 4
   Following, so they get your message

   Your Message template is delivered now, with your link on a tappable button. Not following, and they get the nudge loop instead.

The fields you can edit

Every word in the gate is yours to rewrite. These are the defaults:

Your link rides a real button rather than a {{link}} placeholder in the text, so a missing placeholder can never swallow it. If you leave the destination link empty, the protected message still delivers after the tap — there’s simply no button on it.

What the check can and can’t say

At tap time Dartzo asks Instagram one question about the person who tapped: do they follow this account? There are three possible answers, and Dartzo treats each one honestly.

The nudge loop

When Instagram explicitly says they aren’t following, they get your Follow-loop message with two buttons: I am following, which runs the exact same check again, and Visit profile, which opens your profile so they can go and follow. Nothing is marked as sent, so the loop stays open — they can follow, come back, tap, and get the link.

On a comment trigger, the comment does the work

When the trigger is a comment, the opt-in button rides the private reply Instagram sends the commenter — so it’s one tap, in the same place they were already looking. If they type a reply back instead of tapping the button, that reply counts as the opt-in and moves the flow along. Either way the follow check runs first, so a typed reply can’t sneak past the gate.

“Ask them to follow first” — a request, not a gate

*(Advanced only.)* This one adds an opening line above your DM asking the person to follow you. It starts as: *“Nearly there. The link is specially for my followers. Right after you follow me, I will send you the link so you can dive straight in.”* — edit it to sound like you.

On its own, that is all it does. The DM, link included, still sends. Instagram gives us nothing to check against at that point in the conversation, so this is a polite ask and the studio says so plainly rather than implying a lock that isn’t there.

You can add an “I followed ✓” button to it, and then a second toggle appears: Verify the follow before sending the link. With verification off, tapping that button sends the link whether or not they followed. With it on, the tap runs the same Instagram check the Access gate uses, including the lenient release after three failed taps — though the loop message uses Dartzo’s wording rather than yours, since the editable loop copy belongs to the Access gate.

Turning the Access gate on disables this section — the gate already includes the ask, and running both would ask twice.

Which one should you use?