Classify and route cold email replies using Claude and Instantly.ai

Overview :

Automatically reads every reply to your cold email campaigns in Instantly.ai, uses Claude AI to understand the intent, and takes the right action . No need ofmanual inbox checking needed.

How it works :

A lead replies to your cold email in Instantly.ai , this workflow starts automatically. Claude AI reads the reply and labels it: Interested, Not Now, Unsubscribe, or Referral. Each label triggers a different action calendar email, 30-day follow-up, opt-out removal, or referral ask. Every reply gets logged to a Google Sheet automatically.

Setup steps :

Instantly webhook — In Instantly → Settings → Webhooks, add a new webhook. Paste the URL from the Receive Instantly Reply node and set the trigger to Reply Received. Claude AI — Click the Claude Haiku node, add your Anthropic API key from console.anthropic.com. Costs less than $0.01 per reply. Google Sheets — Create a sheet with these column headers: Timestamp | First Name | Last Name | Email | Company | Reply | Classification | Campaign. Connect your Google account in all four Log to Sheets nodes. Gmail — Connect your Gmail in Send Calendar Link and Send Referral Reply. Replace {{CALENDAR_LINK}} with your booking link. Slack (optional) — Connect Slack in Notify Slack - Hot Lead and pick a channel. Don’t use Slack? Right-click the node → Disable. Instantly re-sequence — In Re-add to Instantly Sequence, add your Instantly API key and replace {{SEQUENCE_ID}} with your follow-up sequence ID. Activate the workflow and send a test reply to confirm everything works.