When a client leaves an agency, they keep their Instagram account and every message already sent, and the Instagram automations stop once the agency disconnects the account or the client removes inDM's access. The agency can export the contacts as a CSV first. Moving the automations into the client's own inDM workspace is done through support, not a button.
A client leaving is the moment an agency's setup either holds up or does not. The Instagram account was never the agency's, so the question is what the agency built on top of it: the automations, the saved templates, the contacts and the numbers. This page sets out who holds each one, the two ways access ends, what to write into the contract before the first automation goes live, and how to hand a client over cleanly.
Who owns what when a client leaves?
The client owns the Instagram account and everything in its inbox, and the agency's workspace holds what the agency built in inDM on top of it.
- The client's: the Instagram account itself, its followers and posts, and every message already sent. Messages already sent stay in the client's Instagram inbox whatever happens to the connection.
- The agency's workspace: the automations, the saved templates and the contacts those automations collected. The contacts can be exported as a CSV at any time.
The agency does not need the account's password either. A client connects with a connect link, logging in on Instagram's own screen, which is why giving an agency access to Instagram without the password leaves the account with its owner from the first day.
Who gets the contacts and the wording on the way out is not decided by the software. That is a matter for the contract, and a later section covers it.
How does an agency's access to a client's Instagram end?
Access ends in one of two ways: the agency disconnects the account in Settings, or the client removes inDM in Instagram's settings.
The agency disconnects the account. In Settings, disconnecting stops every automation on that account and removes inDM's access to it. The Instagram account and everything already sent are untouched, and the account can be connected again later. Export the contacts before you disconnect.
The client removes inDM. Under Apps and websites in Instagram's settings, a client can remove inDM at any time, without asking the agency. inDM is not notified when that happens. The agency finds out when sends start failing and the account shows as needing to reconnect. If the removal was a mistake, the agency can send the client a reconnect link, which works the same way as a connect link.
Either way, nothing sends from that account afterwards. The difference is who picks the moment: with a disconnect the agency does, and with a removal the client does, and the agency gets no warning.
What should the contract say before the first automation goes live?
The contract should settle four things before the first automation goes live: who keeps the copy and the templates, whether the contacts are handed over as a CSV, the date access ends, and who disconnects. These are points to agree, not legal wording, and a lawyer can turn them into clauses.
- Who keeps the copy and the templates. The DM wording the agency writes sits in the agency's workspace. Say whether the client may take that wording with them, and whether the agency may reuse it as a template for other clients.
- Whether the contacts go to the client. The people who commented and messaged are the client's audience. Say that the agency exports the contacts as a CSV and hands the file over when the work ends.
- The date access ends. A date in the contract gives both sides one day to plan around. The automations stop on it, so the client can have their own set ready first.
- Who disconnects. Name the person who disconnects the account on that date. Because inDM sends no notice when a client removes access in Instagram's settings, the contract is the one place an agency can ask for advance notice, so it is worth asking the client to leave inDM connected until the agreed date.
How do you hand a client over well?
Handing a client over well takes five steps, in this order.
- Export the contacts as a CSV from the client's account in the workspace. Do this first, because disconnecting stops every automation on the account.
- Give the client the wording of their live automations as text. Write down each keyword, opening message, link, public reply and follow-up. A document with every automation's words in it lets the client rebuild them anywhere.
- Tell the client the date the automations stop. Put it in the handover email, so nobody is surprised by silence under a post.
- Offer the client a way to keep running them. A client can start their own inDM workspace and rebuild from your text. Free connects one Instagram account and includes every automation type, the follow gate and the email gate, analytics, the unified inbox, and contacts with CSV export. The client can also ask support about moving the account, which is how a transfer between workspaces is done today.
- Disconnect on the date. An Instagram account is connected to one inDM workspace at a time, so the client's own workspace connects it after the agency has disconnected it.
If the client prefers not to run automations themselves, step 4 is skipped, and the account carries on as an ordinary Instagram account with its inbox intact.
What should the handover email say?
The handover email should give the client the date, the two files and the next step, in that order. A short version, with the brackets filled in, covers all of it:
Hi [client name], our work together ends on [date]. I have attached two files: the contacts your automations collected, as a CSV, and the wording of each automation that is live on your account. The automations stop on [date], when I disconnect your account from our workspace. Your Instagram account, your posts and every message already sent stay exactly as they are. If you want to keep running comment-to-DM replies yourself, you can start a free inDM workspace, connect your account there once I have disconnected it, and rebuild from the wording in the second file.
Sending it a week or two before the date leaves the client time to decide, and leaves you time to answer questions without rushing.
Do templates stay with the agency?
Yes. A template saved from one client's automation stays in the agency's workspace, and it can start the next client's automation: the keywords, the messages and the replies are already written, and only the post and the link change.
That is how an agency's work compounds, and it is also why the contract point about copy matters. A template carries the wording of the automation it came from, so read it through before it goes live on a new client's account, and decide in the contract whether a client's wording may be reused at all. Bringing a new client's Instagram into your workspace covers the next client's first steps, and connecting a client's Instagram without the password covers the link they will open.
The honest boundary: what inDM does not do at a handover
- There is no handover button. inDM has no one-click transfer of an account's automations into a client's own workspace. That is done by asking support.
- There is no client-owned copy of the automations. The automations live in the agency's workspace until someone rebuilds them in the client's. A client has no login to the agency's workspace, and inDM has no client portal.
- There is no notification when a client revokes access. inDM is not told when a client removes it in Instagram's settings, so the agency learns of it when sends fail.
None of these is a surprise once it is written down, and all three are easy to plan around when they are in the contract and the handover email.
What this changes for your next contract
Add four lines to the contract, and a client leaving becomes a date on the calendar instead of a surprise. Instagram DM automation for agencies covers the rest of an agency workspace, and DM automation for creator agencies covers the same ground for agencies that manage talent.