How DMs get sorted
What each category means, and what to do when one is wrong.
How it works
Brand deal — a company offering paid work. Goes to Money. Triggered by sponsorship language, a stated budget, deliverables, usage rights, or a message from a company email address.
Wants to buy — a follower asking your price, availability, or how to order. Goes to Money, because it is a sale you are about to lose by not answering.
Gifting / barter — free product, affiliate commission or “exposure” instead of cash. Goes to Needs a reply: worth answering, not worth interrupting your day.
Question — an order, a refund, a download that will not open. Goes to Needs a reply, and is never auto-answered: a canned reply to a real problem makes it worse.
Fan mail — praise, reactions, emoji. Goes to Auto-handled.
Pitched to you — growth agencies, video editors, “I can 10x your followers”. Goes to Ignored.
Scam — fake copyright strikes, verification phishing, crypto, prize bait. Goes to Ignored and is never auto-replied to. Scam signals deliberately outrank sponsorship language, because the most convincing scams are written to look exactly like a brand deal.
Other — nothing matched confidently. Goes to Needs a reply so you read it yourself, rather than being guessed at.
Set it up
- 1
Re-file a conversation
Open the card and pick a different Category. It applies immediately and pins the conversation so it is never re-sorted.
- 2
Fix a budget
Edit the Budget field on the card. A hand-entered figure replaces the parsed one and drops the “from …” note, since it is no longer a parse of anything.
Tips to get the most out of it
- A link in a message is not treated as suspicious on its own. Brands always send links, so scam detection demands real scam language instead — which is why a deck link from a brand still lands in Money.
- Praise in front of a real offer does not make it fan mail. “Love your work! We’d like to book a paid campaign” is a brand deal.