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Integrations14 min readPublished September 2026

One inbox for comments across Instagram, Facebook and TikTok

The APIs exist and they are cheaper than the tools. What stops you is not money and not capability - it is that both platforms want a company, a verified domain and a review queue before they hand over the interesting half.

Why this looks like a weekend project

The ask is modest. Comments arrive under posts on four or five platforms, someone has to answer them, and nobody wants to keep five tabs open to find out whether anything new turned up. Put them in one list. Reply from the list.

Every part of that is a solved problem with a documented API, and the tools that do it charge per seat or per channel. So the obvious move is to spend an evening and build it.

The evening is real. What it produces is a polling script that reads and replies, owned by a company, after a review queue - and the gap between that sentence and "one inbox by Friday" is the whole story. The access itself is not what these platforms are rationing. What they ask for first is who you are.

What can an owner's own app do on Meta without review?

Read and reply, immediately, with no App Review at all - as long as the app is only used by people who have a role on it.

Meta's access levels page is explicit about the trade:

Permissions with Standard Access, however, can only be requested from app users who have a role on the requesting app, and features with Standard Access are only active for app users who have a role on the app.

And Standard Access is not something you apply for:

Business, Consumer, and Gaming apps are automatically approved for Standard Access for all permissions and features available to their app type.

The same page names the intended use, which happens to describe the agency case exactly:

Standard Access is intended for apps that will only be used by people who have roles on them, or used during app development, when testing API endpoints that the calling app has not been approved for.

So an app created inside the business account that owns the pages, with the owner holding a role on it, can pull comments and post replies for Instagram and Facebook Pages without a review cycle. That part of the weekend project survives contact with the documentation.

Threads reaches the same place by a different road, and the difference matters if you plan around the word rather than the mechanism. Access levels apply to apps created with an App Type; a Threads app is built on the "Access the Threads API" use case instead, and what gates it there is a role on the app, not an access level:

Threads testers can grant your app these permissions at any time. In order for app users without a role on your app to be able to grant your app these permissions, each permission must first be approved through the App Review process, and your app must be published.

Two mechanisms, one shape: whoever holds a role on the app works today, everyone else waits for a review.

The boundary is worth stating plainly, because it decides the shape of the whole build: this works for one client's own assets, inside their own app. The moment a single app serves people who do not have a role on it - which is what a multi-tenant service is - the same permissions need Advanced Access, and Advanced Access needs business verification.

Then why is it polling and not push?

Because the notification is the part Meta gates, and that is the half most people assume comes free.

From the Limitations block on the Instagram webhooks page:

Advanced Access is required to receive comments and live_comments webhook notifications.

Two more from the same block change the plan as well:

Apps must be set to Live in the App Dashboard to receive webhook notifications.

The Instagram professional account that owns the media objects must be public to receive notifications for comments or @mentions.

And in the comparison table on that page, the row Business Verification reads Required in every one of the three configurations it lists.

Reading and replying at Standard Access, being told about a new comment at Advanced Access. That asymmetry is the single most useful fact here, because it converts the project from an event-driven inbox into a scheduled poll. A poll is still perfectly good - a check every two minutes is faster than a human opening tabs - but it has a latency floor, it burns rate limit whether or not anything happened, and it is a different promise to make to whoever asked for this.

Is it true that TikTok organic comments are impossible?

No. It is a reasonable conclusion to reach from the documentation, and it is wrong.

TikTok's Accounts API, under Organic API, manages comments on videos you own. The reply endpoint is /business/comment/reply/create/, and its required parameters are business_id, video_id, comment_id and text - no advertiser ID and no ad ID anywhere in the call. Alongside it sit /business/comment/list/, /business/comment/reply/list/, /business/comment/hide/, /business/comment/delete/ and /business/comment/like/.

There is even a push notification, which is more than Meta gives at the same tier. The comment.update webhook sends:

notifications within five minutes of a comment or reply being created, deleted, or the comment or reply visibility settings being modified on any public video under an owned TikTok account

Where does the "impossible" story come from?

From three real dead ends that are easy to hit first, and one endpoint that looks like the right one and is not.

What you find firstWhat it actually is
Display APIThree endpoints, none about comments
Research APIComments included, academics only
"Reply to a comment" in the Marketing APIReplies under ads, needs an ad ID
Accounts API in the Organic APIThe one that does organic comments

The Display API - the obvious self-serve starting point - offers /v2/user/info/, /v2/video/list/ and /v2/video/query/, with scopes video.list ("Read a user's public videos on TikTok") and user.info.basic (Display API overview, read 18 August 2026). No comment endpoints exist there at all.

The Research API does return comments, and is out of reach for a business:

Applicants must fulfill the following criteria to qualify for access: Be located in an eligible region and be affiliated with an eligible organization: Academic institutions in the US, EEA, UK or Switzerland; or Not-for-profit and/or independent research institution, organization, association, or body in the EU.

The trap is the third row. There is an endpoint in the Marketing API called "Reply to a comment", and its documentation says:

For TikTok ads that are created by users linked to TikTok User or Custom User types of identities (identity_type = TT_USER or CUSTOMIZED_USER), users who are linked to these two types of identities and have comment management permissions can reply to first-level comments under the ads.

It requires advertiser_id and ad_id. An organic video has no ad ID, so the call cannot be made, and it is reasonable to conclude the capability does not exist. It does - it is in a different section of the same documentation.

So where is TikTok's actual wall?

At the door, not at the price list. TikTok will not register you as a developer at all unless you are a company.

Currently, we are unable to onboard personal accounts or individual developers

communication email must be a verified company domain email. You will be rejected if you are using a personal email or a temporary email.

You will be notified of the review result in three business days

On top of that, the Accounts permission scope has needed its own application form since March 2026:

To ensure proper use of the Accounts API, starting March 20, 2026 at 00:00 (GMT+0), developers must complete the Accounts API Access Application Form before submitting a new developer app or requesting a scope increase that includes the "TikTok Accounts" permission scope.

TikTok's general guidance on scope increases says that review "may take between two and three business days" (Update app permissions), so budget for that on top of the three days for the developer account itself.

Notably absent from the requirements: TikTok Marketing Partner status. This is not a closed club - it is open to any company willing to be identified as one.

What does building it actually cost?

Not money. Calendar time and a legal identity.

Add up what the two platforms are really asking for:

  1. A company with a domain. A verified company domain email for TikTok, a business that can pass verification for Meta's Advanced Access. A freelancer with a Gmail address is refused at step one, on TikTok, in writing.
  2. Review time before anything runs. Three business days for the TikTok developer account, two to three more for the Accounts scope. Meta's Advanced Access adds business verification on top if you want webhooks.
  3. A decision about whose account it lives in. This is the one people skip, and it determines everything else.

That third point deserves the space. An app inside the client's business account clears every gate above cheaply, because the client already is a company with a domain and already owns the assets. An app of yours that serves many clients is a multi-tenant service: Advanced Access on Meta, business verification, and a review queue that judges a product rather than a tool. Same code, entirely different project - the same split that shows up whenever a platform has no connector and you have to go direct.

When is buying simply better?

When the volume is small or the seat count is high - the two ends of the range behave very differently.

At the low end, the answer may be free. Buffer's free plan states "Free forever" and "Connect up to 3 channels", and its feature table lists Reply to comments as Included on Free (Buffer pricing, read 18 August 2026). Three channels and comment replies at no cost is hard to beat with an evening of work, and it needs no company, no domain and no review.

At the other end, the seat model is what makes people start building. Sprout Social's Standard plan is listed at "$199 per seat/month" on annual billing, for five social profiles and a consolidated inbox (Sprout Social pricing, read 18 August 2026). That is per seat: a team of four answering comments is a different order of expense from a team of one, while the build cost does not change with headcount.

Both figures are subscriptions, which is the comparison people get wrong in both directions: a build is a one-off cost with a maintenance tail, a subscription is a smaller number that never stops. The same arithmetic decides what a fix is worth paying for at all.

So the honest rule is unglamorous:

  • Under three or four channels, one or two people: buy, or use a free tier. Building is not cheaper than free.
  • Many seats, or platforms your tool covers for scheduling but not for comments: building starts to pay, and the deciding factor is whether you have the company identity the platforms ask for.
  • Several client accounts, each needing their own: build, one app per client account, and price it per account rather than as a product.

Check the second case before assuming your tool covers it. A platform listed as supported may be supported for scheduling posts and not for pulling its comments into an inbox - two different features that a feature list can present under one name. Confirm the comment case specifically, for the platforms you care about.

Where to start, in order

  1. Write down which platforms actually matter. Not the ones with accounts - the ones where comments arrive and go unanswered. This list is usually shorter than expected, and it decides whether a free tier already solves it.
  2. Check whether the tool you already pay for does comments on those platforms, as opposed to scheduling. If it does, stop here.
  3. Decide whose business account the app lives in before writing any code. Client's account: Standard Access, no review, one app per client. Your account serving everyone: Advanced Access, business verification, and a product review.
  4. Start the TikTok registration early if TikTok is on the list. Three business days plus two to three more for the scope is a week of waiting that runs in parallel with everything else, and it needs a company domain address.
  5. Build polling first, add webhooks later. Polling works at the access level you already have. The webhook is an upgrade that depends on a review, and designing around it before it is granted is how these projects stall.

When this is a job to hand over

An evening is a fair estimate for the code, and a misleading estimate for the project. The code is a loop, some tokens and a table. What takes the time is knowing which of the four TikTok surfaces is the right one, that the Meta webhook is gated differently from the Meta read, and which account the app has to live in so that none of the reviews are needed twice.

It stops being a personal project when the comments are a channel the business earns from, when several client accounts each need their own app, or when someone already burned a week discovering that the endpoint they built against wants an ad ID. That is scoped work with a known shape and a known price, and it is what Fix M and L are for.

Sources

  • Access levels - Meta for Developers, read 25 August 2026. Applies to apps created with an App Type. Standard Access is automatic for the permissions and features available to that app type, and limited to users with a role; Advanced Access needs business verification.
  • Webhooks for Instagram - Meta for Developers. Advanced Access required for comments and live_comments notifications, app must be Live, account must be public, business verification Required in all configurations.
  • Get started - Meta for Developers, read 25 August 2026. Threads runs on a use case rather than an App Type: testers can grant permissions at any time, anyone without a role needs App Review and a published app.
  • Manage comments on owned TikTok videos - TikTok API for Business. The organic comment endpoints and the comment.update webhook with its five-minute window.
  • Reply to a comment - TikTok API for Business. The ads-only reply endpoint that requires advertiser_id and ad_id.
  • Register as a developer - TikTok API for Business. No personal accounts or individual developers, company domain email required, three business day review.
  • Accounts API - TikTok API for Business. The Accounts API Access Application Form required from 20 March 2026.
  • Update app permissions - TikTok API for Business. Scope increase review of two to three business days.
  • Display API overview - TikTok for Developers. The three endpoints and two scopes, none of them comments.
  • Research API - TikTok for Developers. Eligibility limited to academic institutions and not-for-profit research organisations in named regions.
  • Buffer pricing - read 18 August 2026. Free forever, up to 3 channels, Reply to comments included on Free.
  • Sprout Social pricing - read 18 August 2026. Standard at $199 per seat/month on annual billing, five social profiles, consolidated inbox.

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Written by the Fixmation team.