An activated contact is how Inrō measures usage. It's the unit your plan is built around, so understanding it keeps your costs predictable and under your control.
The short version
A contact becomes activated the first time it receives a message from one of your automations or campaigns in a billing period. After that, every other action on that same contact for the rest of the period is free. When the next period starts, the count resets to zero.
So activated contacts count the unique people you reached by automation or campaign this period, not the number of messages you sent.
When does a contact get activated?
A contact is activated the first time any of these happen in the current period:
It receives a message from a scenario (an automation)
It's reached by a campaign send
The AI Agent replies to it (the AI Agent works inside your scenarios)
That's it. One activation per contact per period, no matter how many scenarios, campaigns, or AI replies follow.
When does a contact NOT get activated?
These don't count:
A contact messages you but doesn't get a reply from Inrō
You add a contact to a folder (no message goes out)
You send a manual reply yourself from the Inbox
A contact property is updated without a message being sent
Only outbound messages sent by your automations or campaigns count.
How many times can one contact be activated?
Once per billing period. Say 150 people comment on your post and your comment-to-DM scenario replies to them: that's 150 activated contacts. If you then send those same 150 people a campaign in the same period, that adds zero new activations, because they're already activated. You could run ten more scenarios on them and it stays at 150.
When the next period begins, everyone resets to zero. If those 150 people comment again, they activate again.
How activated contacts relate to your plan
Your plan sets how this is billed:
On Free, Annual, and Trial, you get a fixed allowance (100, 10,000, and 1,000). When you reach it, automations stop messaging new contacts until the period resets or you upgrade.
On Pro, there's no cap. Activated contacts are metered, and the price scales with how many you activate. You're never blocked.
For the full breakdown of plans, prices, and limit behavior, see Subscription & Plans: How Billing Works in Inrō.
Where do I check my count?
Go to Profile → Subscription & add-ons. The Activated contacts meter shows how many you've activated this period and the allowance for your plan.
🐾 Netsuke's Tips
Activated contacts are not the same as your total contacts or your followers. A contact is anyone who has interacted with you; an activated contact is one your automations actually messaged this period. For how contacts get into Inrō in the first place, see How Are Contacts Added to Inrō? and Why Do I Have Fewer Contacts Than Followers?.
Your count resets on your billing date, not the 1st of the calendar month. Check your renewal date in Subscription & add-ons to know when.
Before a big campaign, check how many of your contacts are already activated this period. The ones that are won't count again, so your real cost can be lower than you expect.
The meter can lag by a few minutes after a burst of activity, so give it a moment to catch up.
What's next?
For everything about plans, pricing, and what happens at your limit, see Subscription & Plans: How Billing Works in Inrō. To understand which contacts can actually receive your messages, see Understanding Contact Status.