The assistant
In short
Why does the AI assistant in Reply not respond to my messages?
Most often the daily message allowance is gone; every plan sets how many messages a day you can send the assistant, and the count resets the next day. If every message is refused and you have never had a single answer, your plan does not include the assistant: on some plans the icon still appears and the panel still opens even though the allowance is zero. The remaining reasons are a message that is too long, a request with more steps than the assistant can take in one go, and an action it cannot perform at all.
Quick fix
- Wait for the daily reset and try again. If the assistant answered earlier today and stopped later, this is almost certainly it.
- If it has never answered you (not once, on any day) your plan most likely does not include the assistant. Check what your plan covers on the pricing page.
- Shorten the message. If you pasted a long list, a transcript or a full email thread, cut it down and send the key part.
- Split a multi-part request into separate messages. Ask for one thing, wait for it to finish, then ask for the next.
- Check that what you are asking for is something the assistant can actually do. It cannot buy anything on your behalf.
Didn't work? Contact Reply support; the team can check your account directly.
Symptom
The AI chat panel is open. You send a message and either nothing comes back, or you get a short refusal instead of an answer. In some cases the assistant starts on a task, does part of it, and then stops without saying it has finished.
What the assistant is, before anything else
The assistant is not only a question-and-answer chat. It can carry out real work in your account, across sequences, contacts, mailboxes, reports and settings. That matters for this page, because "it did not answer" and "it could not do that" look identical from the outside and have different fixes.
Why the assistant goes quiet
| Cause | What it looks like | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Daily allowance used up | It worked this morning and refuses now | Wait for the daily reset |
| Your plan does not include it | It has never answered, on any day | Check the plan; upgrade or use the interface |
| Message too long | One specific message is refused, shorter ones work | Trim the message |
| Too many steps in one request | It starts, does part of the task, stops | Break the request into steps |
| The action does not exist | It explains it cannot do that, politely | Do it in the interface |
1. The daily message allowance is used up
Every plan sets a number of messages a day you can send the assistant. The count resets on a daily cycle, so an allowance that ran out this afternoon is back tomorrow.
Two things about this allowance are worth knowing. Warm-up-only plans do not include the assistant at all. At the other end, the top AI SDR tier has no daily cap.
The figure itself is a plan value, so there is no single number to quote. The pricing page shows what each plan includes, and support can confirm the figure on your account.
How to recognize it: the assistant was answering normally earlier in the day and then began refusing. A heavy session (several long tasks, or a lot of back-and-forth refining one request) uses the allowance faster than it feels like it should, because every message you send counts, including the short follow-ups.
What to do: wait for the reset. If you hit the cap most days, either move the routine work into the interface or look at a plan with a larger allowance.
2. Your plan does not include the assistant, but the entry point is still there
This is the one that wastes the most time, because nothing tells you what is happening.
On some plans that do not include the assistant, the icon is still shown and the panel still opens normally. Behind it, the allowance is zero. Every message you send is refused, and the refusal does not say "your plan does not include this", so it reads as a fault rather than as an entitlement.
How to recognize it: the panel opens, the interface looks completely normal, and every message is refused, starting with the very first one you ever sent. You have never had a working answer out of it. Waiting for the next day changes nothing.
What to do: treat it as not included. Check your plan on the pricing page, and if it should be included on your plan, contact support with the exact wording the assistant gave you.
3. The message was too long
A single message has a maximum length. Paste in a long list of contacts, a full email thread or a page of notes and the message is rejected before the assistant reads it.
How to recognize it: one particular message fails and a short "hello" sent straight afterwards works. The failure follows the message, not the day.
What to do: send the essential part rather than the whole thing. If you genuinely need the assistant to work across a lot of material, describe where it lives in Reply and let it look it up, rather than pasting it in.
4. The task needed more steps than the assistant can take at once
Carrying out work in your account takes the assistant several steps: find the sequence, check its settings, make the change, confirm it. There is a ceiling on how many of those steps it can take in response to one message. A request that bundles several jobs together can run out of room before it reaches the end.
How to recognize it: the assistant clearly understood you and clearly started. Part of what you asked for was done. It then stopped, without an error and without saying the job was finished. Compound requests ("clean up this list, then add them to the sequence, then change the schedule") are the usual shape.
What to do: ask for one thing at a time. The assistant is considerably more reliable on a single clear task than on a compound one, and each step's result tells you whether to go on. Confirm the first part landed before asking for the second.
5. There is no action for what you are asking
The assistant can only do what it has an action for, and some areas of Reply have none. Buying is the clearest example: it has no purchasing action of any kind, so it cannot buy domains or mailboxes for you, whatever way the request is phrased.
How to recognize it: the reply is a clear, specific "I cannot do that" rather than a refusal or a silence. The assistant is telling you the truth here.
What to do: do it in the interface. It is worth asking the assistant where the setting lives, even when it cannot change it for you; describing a screen is something it can do.
The assistant in the mobile app
There is a separate assistant in the Reply mobile app, and it has its own message allowance, which is tighter than the one on the web. Running out on the phone does not mean you have run out on the web, and the reverse is also true.
FAQ
Does the assistant use credits?
No. It draws on a daily message allowance, which is a different thing from the credit balance used for enrichment and validation. Running the assistant hard for a day does not reduce your credits.
Can it do everything I can do in the interface?
No. The action list is broad (sequences, contacts, mailboxes, reports, settings) but it is not the whole product, and it will never grow to cover purchasing. Anything that spends money is done by you, in the interface.
Is the assistant in the mobile app the same one?
It is the same assistant, but with its own, smaller daily message allowance. Treat the two counts as separate.
Still stuck? Contact Reply support
If these steps didn't solve the problem, the Reply support team can look at your account directly. Open the Reply Help Center and send the team a message.
To get an answer faster, include:
- the exact wording of what the assistant replied
- whether it has ever answered you successfully, and roughly when
- what you asked for, in full
- whether this was on the web app or the mobile app
Don't send passwords, API keys, or access tokens.
Related
- Why does a connected tool return nothing in the assistant? – the assistant answers, but a third-party tool comes back empty
- Why did nobody answer after the assistant escalated to support?
- Limits – what your plan sets
Build with Reply
- MCP: docs.reply.io/mcp – work with the same Reply data from your own AI assistant instead of the in-product one
- REST API: docs.reply.io/api-reference – script the account changes you would otherwise ask the assistant for