Checkout DM Free Plan: Limits and When to Upgrade

Before paying for any tool, most sellers want to know whether they can try it properly first. Checkout DM has a Free plan at ₹0 that lets you take real orders from real customers, with two clear limits. This guide explains what the plan includes, where it stops and how to tell when it is time to move up.

What Free includes

Free is not a demo. It includes the core DM checkout, so a customer can browse your catalog, build a cart, give a delivery address and pay through a checkout link sent in the same chat. Specifically, you get:

• Full DM checkout automation with the catalog, cart and payment link handled inside Instagram DMs.
• Payments your way. UPI, bank transfer and QR code with manual confirmation, or Razorpay, Stripe and PayPal for automatic confirmation.
• Return and exchange handling in DMs, with your return policy, exchange policy and FAQs shown automatically.
• A shipping fee at checkout and shipped emails to your customers.
• Digital delivery, so a digital product can be sent by link after payment.
• Email support.

The two limits

Products. You can list up to 5. That is enough to test your best sellers, but not a full catalog.

Conversations. Free handles 15 unique customer conversations per month. When you reach the limit, new customer conversations pause until your monthly limit resets, or until you upgrade to a paid plan with unlimited conversations.

What Free leaves out

These features start on a paid plan, so you will not see them on Free:

• Comment-to-DM automation starts on Creator.
• Removing Checkout DM branding. Creator removes it from DMs, and Starter removes it everywhere.
• Delivery status tracking and automatic stock updates start on Starter.
• Abandoned-cart information starts on Starter, and automatic multi-step recovery starts on Growth.
• Coupons and offers start on Growth.
• Product-matched Story replies start on Growth. Free uses generic Story replies.
• Team members start on Pro. Free has one user.

How to test properly on Free

A free plan is only useful if you learn something from it. Here is a simple way to spend your first two weeks:

1. 1Connect your Instagram Business account. If you hit an error, our guide to connecting your Instagram account to Checkout DM covers the common fixes.
2. 2List your best five products with clear photos, prices and sizes. Our catalog tips help here.
3. 3Set up how you get paid. UPI or bank transfer works with manual confirmation. For automatic confirmation, see how to connect Razorpay.
4. 4Place a test order from a second account and walk through the whole flow as a customer.
5. 5Tell real customers. Post a Story or Reel that points people to your DMs and see how many message you.
6. 6Note what you wish you had. After two weeks, the missing feature you keep wanting tells you which plan to pick.

When to upgrade

Move up when a limit or a missing feature costs you more than the plan would. These are the usual signals:

• You have more than 5 products to sell. For physical products, Starter lifts the limit to 500. For digital products only, Creator allows 150.
• You are close to 15 conversations a month. Every paid plan has unlimited conversations.
• You want Comment-to-DM on your Reels. That starts on Creator. See how Comment-to-DM works.
• You do not want Checkout DM branding in front of your customers.
• You are chasing late deliveries and abandoned carts by hand. Starter adds delivery tracking and cart information, and Growth automates the recovery.

For a plan-by-plan match, read which Checkout DM plan you should choose. For current prices and the full feature lists, see the Pricing page.

What Free does not charge

There is no commission or transaction fee on Free or on any other plan, and your customers never pay Checkout DM anything. Payments go directly to your own payment account. The only costs outside the plan are your own: the fee your payment gateway charges if you use one, and your courier. Our guide to what Checkout DM really costs walks through each of them.

Changing plans later

You can upgrade or downgrade at any time without losing your products, orders or customer history, and there is no long-term contract. That means starting on Free carries no risk of being stuck: you can leave it the day a limit starts to hurt.