Shipping and delivery: the Facebook comment reply template
Two questions wearing one coat: what does shipping cost, and when will it arrive. This template gives both a fee and a cut-off time in the reply, and shows where splitting them into two rules works — and where it quietly does not.
Late-stage. Shipping cost is the single biggest cause of abandoned orders, so a reply that names a number beats a reply that says "we'll DM you".
Checked against the product on
When this fires
Paste these into the rule’s keyword list. Any one of them matching is enough — keywords are an OR list, not an AND list.
shippingshipping feehow much is shippingdelivery feehow much to shipwhen will it arrivehow long is deliverymagkano shippingค่าส่งส่งกี่วัน
How Mentbot reads them
- Matching is a plain substring test, not a whole-word test. A keyword matches anywhere inside the comment — which is why the list below matters.
- Case is ignored, and text is NFKC-folded first, so ＳＡＬＥ matches sale and full-width or styled characters still match.
- Thai, emoji and any other script work the same way: the comment is compared as text, with no language detection.
- Leading and trailing spaces in a keyword are trimmed, and a blank keyword row never matches anything.
The public reply
Add these as separate reply variants on the rule. Mentbot picks one at random each time a comment matches, so the same post does not fill up with one identical sentence.
- Variant 1
Shipping is $5 flat, free over $50 📦 Order before 3pm and it goes out the same day. Details in your inbox.
Name the number in public. This is the reply that converts.
- Variant 2
$5 anywhere, free over $50 — same-day dispatch on orders before 3pm 🚚 We've messaged you the rest.
- Variant 3
Flat $5 shipping, 2–4 working days. Sent you the full breakdown in Messenger 💬
{comment} is replaced with the commenter’s own text. It is the only token Mentbot substitutes — there is no {name} or {page}.
The Messenger DM
The private reply Mentbot sends to the same commenter. On Facebook this is a Messenger private reply to the comment, so it only works while Facebook’s reply window for that comment is open.
Hi! About "{comment}" — • Shipping: $5 flat, free over $50 • Cut-off: 3pm for same-day dispatch • Delivery: 2–4 working days, 5–7 to remote areas • Tracking: sent by email once it ships Want us to work out the total for your order?
Settings to turn on
The four switches on the rule, and what this scenario needs from each.
| Setting | This template | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Reply once | On On. The shipping answer does not change between their first ask and their second. | Answers each commenter once per post for this rule — and an attempt Facebook refused still counts as that once. The same person commenting again on the same post gets nothing more from this rule, but a different rule can still answer them, and the same rule answers them again on a different post. |
| Mention the commenter | Off | Puts an @mention of the commenter at the front of the public reply. It applies to the public reply only, never to the Messenger message. |
| Hide the comment | Off | Hides the comment once this rule has answered it. The author and their friends still see it; everyone else does not. Separate from your Page’s moderation filters, which run earlier. |
| Like the comment | Off Optional here. A shipping question is a logistics query, not something to celebrate — the reply is the acknowledgement. | Likes the comment from the Page, straight after the public reply goes out. |
Scope
Where the rule is allowed to fire.
The rule runs on every post but only on comments containing one of its keywords.
Keywords on every post. Shipping questions are not tied to a particular product, so scoping to posts would only create gaps.
When two rules could both answer
Exactly one rule answers a comment. Mentbot ranks every rule that qualifies and runs the most specific one; the rest are recorded as outranked, not run.
- A rule limited to a list of posts wins first — even if it also has keywords.
- Then a rule with a hashtag or keywords.
- Then the catch-all with neither.
- If two rules tie on that rank, the older one wins. There is no priority field to set.
What will not match
Comments a seller expects this rule to catch, and does not. Each one follows from the matching rules above.
| The comment | Why it does not fire |
|---|---|
| A comment containing what looks like a tracking number | If your phone-number moderation filter is on, any run of nine or more digits — spaces, dashes and brackets allowed — is read as a phone number, and the comment is hidden before any rule runs. Tracking numbers routinely look exactly like that. This is the one that surprises people. |
| "When do I get it?" with none of your keywords in it | Substring matching, no paraphrasing. Add the phrasings your customers use. |
| "How much is shipping and when does it arrive?" — if you split this into two rules | Both rules are keyword rules, so they rank equally, and the older one wins. Splitting by wording only works when the wordings do not co-occur in one comment, and here they do. Keep the fee and the timing in one reply unless you have a reason not to. |
| A sticker or emoji-only comment | A sticker carries no text, so a rule with keywords never matches it. An emoji-only comment is ordinary text, but none of the keywords above is an emoji. |
What Mentbot will not do here
Stated plainly, so you do not build a workflow on top of something that is not there.
- Mentbot does not calculate shipping. It cannot weigh an order, read a postcode or call a courier — the fee in the reply is a number you typed.
- It cannot look up a tracking number or an order status. Those questions need a person, which is what the Telegram unread alert is for.
- There is no schedule on a rule, so the "order before 3pm" cut-off in the copy above is a claim your reply makes, not something the rule enforces. After 3pm it keeps saying the same thing.
Cost at your comment volume
Rules are not metered separately — you pay for comments handled per day across all your Pages, and every plan includes every feature. Prices come straight from the pricing page.
| Comments per day | Plan | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Basic | $9 |
| 1,000 | Pro | $19 |
| 3,000 | Premium | $29 |
Unlimited Pages on every plan, and a 14-day free trial.
Questions
Should I split shipping cost and delivery time into separate rules?
Only if your customers ask them separately. They usually do not — "how much and how long?" is one comment — and two keyword rules tie on specificity, so the older one answers and the newer one is recorded as outranked. One rule that answers both is more reliable.
How do I force one of two tied rules to win?
Give it a post list. A rule scoped to specific posts outranks any keyword rule, even one that also carries keywords. There is no priority setting, so scope is the only lever — and among rules of equal rank, the oldest wins.
Can the reply say a different fee for different regions?
Not automatically. A rule has no idea where the commenter is. Name your commonest fee in public and handle exceptions in the Messenger thread.
Why did my shipping rule stop answering some comments?
Check your moderation filters first. They run before rules and stop the comment entirely — the phone filter in particular catches long digit strings, and the URL filter catches anything that looks like a domain on a common TLD.
Other templates
Related guide
The long-form version of this, and the tool comparisons.
Every behaviour on this page is checked against Mentbot’s own source. If the product changes and this page does not, tell us.