Is Ootto Free? What It Costs to Connect Claude to Your Instagram

No, connecting Claude to your Instagram through Ootto is not free. Claude is, and so are our skills.

This is the question we get most in our comments and DMs, in every version: "Otto is paid?", "Ootto requires payment to connect with claude right?", "I connect my account to Ootto but it shows plans options". So here is the straight answer, with what costs money, what doesn't, and the free route if you would rather not pay anything.

The short answer

There are two pieces, and only one of them costs money.

• Claude: any Claude plan works, Free included. Anthropic lets Free users add one custom connector, which is all Ootto needs (Claude Help Center).
• Ootto: the connector that lets Claude read your Instagram, make your reels and post them is a paid plan. A free Ootto account does not get a connector.

So yes, if a reel told you to "connect Claude to your Instagram", that part needs an Ootto plan.

What is free

You can get a lot done without paying us anything.

• Our Claude skills. The skills behind our reels are public on GitHub under the MIT license: research, hooks, scripts, captions, comment replies and the master skill that runs the whole reel loop. Install them in your own Claude and use them on anything you paste in.
• The guides. Every step of how we make our reels is written up on this blog, starting with the full method. Nothing is held back behind a payment.
• Claude itself. The Free plan is enough to try the skills and to add Ootto as your one custom connector.

What the free route can't do is touch your Instagram. The skills work from what you give them: a reel link you paste, your numbers copied in, a script to rewrite.

What needs a paid plan

Anything where Claude acts on your real Instagram account goes through the Ootto connector, and the connector is paid.

That is:

• Reading your own reels, reach, saves and watch time, and telling you which ones flopped and why.
• Researching the creators and reels that are working in your niche.
• Making the reels: script, voice, scenes, captions, rendered as a finished video.
• Posting or scheduling them, only after you approve each one.
• Replying to your comments and sending the link in DMs.

The plans:

• Weekly, $10/week: the connector a week at a time, for one brand. Good for trying it.
• Self-serve, $48/month: the connector with everything in it, including niche research and AI influencers, for up to 50 brands.
• Starter, $199/month, and Done-for-you, $499/month: we make the reels for you every week and you approve them. No Claude needed.

Weekly and Self-serve can be cancelled any time, and on every plan nothing is posted until you approve it. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.

We charge because the work costs real money every time it runs: reading Instagram, researching your niche, generating the voice and rendering the video.

Why you see plans after you sign up

A few people told us they signed up, connected their account, and then got a page of plans instead of a working connector. That is the paid step above, not a bug.

Signing up at Ootto is free and saves your brand. The connector address only works with Claude once you are on a plan. If you pick one and Claude still doesn't connect, message us on Instagram or email [email protected] and a person will sort it out.

Is it safe to connect my Instagram?

Another question that keeps coming up in our DMs: is linking your profile to AI a trick to take your information?

Here is exactly what happens:

• You approve the connection on Instagram's own screen. You never type your Instagram password into Ootto or into Claude.
• You see the permissions before you say yes: your profile, your posts and comments, and the ability to reply, send DMs and publish for the actions you turn on.
• Nothing is posted until you approve it. That is true on every plan.
• You can disconnect any time from Accounts in Ootto, and we stop using the connection from that moment.

The details, including what we store and how to have it deleted, are in our privacy policy.

Do it free, by hand

If you want to stay on the free route, this is how we would start. Install the skills in Claude:

Then give Claude a reel that worked in your niche and ask it to take it apart:

You do the posting, the numbers and the comment replies yourself. It works. It is how we ran our own account before Ootto existed.

Or connect Ootto and let Claude run it

If you would rather Claude did the Instagram side too, connect Ootto once. Every step, with a link that fills in Claude's connector form for you, is in the connector guide.

Frequently asked questions