LINE Automation in Thailand 2026: SME Guide (THB Pricing)

#The Short Answer: Start With Free Automation

For a Thai SME, LINE OA automation starts free: a rich menu, a greeting message and keyword auto-replies cost nothing and don't use your message quota. You pay only for messages you push — broadcasts and targeted sends — through LINE's monthly packages: ฿0, ฿1,280 or ฿1,780 plus 7% VAT, as of October 2026.

That split should drive your whole plan: automate the conversations customers start before you automate the messages you send. Replies are free at any volume; every pushed message counts toward a monthly quota.

LINE Thailand says an Official Account can reach up to 56 million Thai LINE accounts (LINE for Business), and many customers would rather ask about prices, stock or opening hours in chat than call. A two-person team can't answer every chat at 11 p.m.; a handful of well-chosen automations can.

This guide covers costs in baht, what to automate first, examples by business type, budget scenarios, PDPA basics, the tools landscape and a 30-day plan. If you want replies, AI-made visuals and scheduled campaigns in one workflow, see our LINE OA automation tool.

#What counts as automation on LINE OA

LINE Thailand's help center spells out what counts: broadcasts (including targeted ones), step messages and Messaging API push, multicast and broadcast calls. Chat messages, auto-replies, AI replies, greeting messages and Reply API messages don't count (LINE OA help center).

#What It Costs in THB (October 2026)

LINE Thailand publishes three monthly packages on its official broadcast package page. Prices exclude 7% VAT unless stated:

What the table doesn't tell you:

• Extra messages are opt-in. On Basic and Pro you set a limit for additional messages in LINE OA Manager (Settings → Usage and billing → Dashboard → Edit limit). The Free package stops at 300 messages a month.
• Subscribe on the web, not in the iPhone app. LINE Thailand notes that monthly packages can't be bought on iOS; use LINE OA Manager at manager.line.biz.
• A message is one delivery to one friend. One broadcast to 2,000 friends uses 2,000 messages. Messages aren't delivered to friends who have blocked you.
• The quota resets every month. Unused messages don't roll over.

Optional costs Thai SMEs often add, all from LINE Thailand's own pages:

LINE notes that the AI Chatbot (Beta) isn't available to accounts in some industries. For plans in Japan and Taiwan as well, see our LINE Official Account pricing guide.

#Which package fits

Basic plus extra messages costs ฿1,280 + ฿0.10 for every message above 15,000, so it reaches Pro's ฿1,780 at exactly 20,000 messages a month:

• Up to 300 messages a month: Free.
• 301 to about 20,000: Basic.
• Above 20,000: Pro. It is cheaper than Basic plus extras from that point, and MyCustomer | CRM is included.

If you would pay for MyCustomer | CRM anyway, Pro wins earlier: from about 16,310 messages a month (฿1,280 + ฿369 + extras versus ฿1,780).

#What to Automate First

Work through this list in order. The first five steps cost nothing.

1. Rich menu. The buttons customers always see under the chat: menu or price list, booking or order link, map, opening hours, promotions and "talk to staff". Taps are free and it works 24/7. See how to create and set up a LINE rich menu.
2. Greeting message. Sent when someone adds you as a friend: a welcome, what the chat can do for them, a first-visit offer and a link to your privacy notice.
3. Keyword replies for your top 10 questions. Prices, opening hours, branches, parking, delivery areas, how to pay (PromptPay or bank transfer) and the booking link. Follow our LINE auto-reply setup guide and borrow wording from these LINE OA reply message examples.
4. Response hours and an away message. LINE OA Manager lets you set chat hours and a different response outside them, so someone who writes at 1 a.m. knows when you'll answer.
5. A way to reach a person. Make sure typing "แอดมิน" or tapping "talk to staff" always reaches your team. Automation should never trap a customer.
6. One scheduled broadcast a month. A promotion or a useful update, scheduled in advance. Every recipient counts toward your quota; our LINE OA broadcast guide covers sending and counting.
7. Targeted sends and step messages. Once you know your audience, send only to relevant friends (attribute targeting needs a target reach of at least 100) or let step messages follow up new friends automatically. Both count toward the quota.
8. AI on top. AI routing or an AI chatbot helps once steps 1 to 5 work, and it should answer only from replies you've approved.

Plan for messy Thai keywords. Customers type "ราคา", "กี่บาท", "เท่าไหร่", "เท่าไร" or "price", often with ครับ or ค่ะ at the end. LINE's manual says LINE OA Manager keyword replies fire only when the message matches a keyword exactly (LINE manual, Japanese), so list the variants people really type, or use a bot that finds keywords inside longer messages.

2026 changes in Thailand: LINE VOOM closed in Thailand on 28 September 2026, so VOOM posts no longer belong in a Thai content plan (announcement). The LINE OA Surveys feature stops accepting new surveys and answers on 18 November 2026 and closes on 2 December 2026; download your results before then (announcement).

#Use Cases by Business Type

Messages your staff type in a one-to-one chat don't count toward the quota. Automated reminders sent person by person through the Messaging API (push messages) do.

Industry playbooks: restaurants, beauty salons, clinics, retail and car dealerships.

#Example: a car dealership or service centre

Car buyers ask the same things over and over: the price of a model, current campaigns, test-drive slots, service-centre hours. A practical setup:

• Rich menu with six buttons: book a test drive, book a service, this month's promotions, finance and insurance enquiry, branch map, talk to sales.
• Keyword replies for model names, "ราคา", "ผ่อน" (instalments), "เช็กระยะ" (scheduled service) and branch names, each linking to the right page or form.
• Targeted sends for owners. LINE doesn't know who owns which car. Tag chats as you talk to customers (for example "owner" or the model), or build a list from your own records of customers who chatted with you, then send service reminders to that group only.

#Writing replies Thai customers don't find robotic

• Keep one ending particle across the account (ครับ or ค่ะ) and address customers the same way in every message.
• Give a short answer, then a button or link for the next step, rather than a long paragraph.
• If price is the question people ask most, answer it directly.
• Every automated message should leave a way back to a person.

#Budget Scenarios in THB

These are worked examples with made-up inputs; replace them with your own friend count and sending plan. Prices exclude 7% VAT.

Two costs people forget:

• Staff time. Suppose keyword replies handle 30 repetitive chats a day that take 2 minutes each: that's 60 minutes a day, or about 30 hours a month. Multiply by your team's hourly cost to see what the free automation is worth.
• Visuals. A designer or freelancer (prices vary widely from one provider to another), do-it-yourself templates, or AI generation. In LineBot.pro a rich menu costs 10 credits, a rich message 8 and a banner 8.

#PDPA Basics for LINE OA

Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019), the PDPA, has been fully in force since 1 June 2022 (Personal Data Protection Committee). It covers the customer data you handle in LINE OA — names, phone numbers, addresses, chat history, photos — and the data your tools store. A practical checklist, not legal advice:

1. Say what you collect and why. Link a short privacy notice from your greeting message or rich menu.
2. Ask before you reuse data for marketing. If you collect a phone number or birthday for delivery or a booking, get consent before using it for promotions.
3. Treat health data as sensitive. Clinics and wellness businesses need explicit consent for health information; ask in chat only what you really need.
4. Limit who can read chats. Give staff only the LINE OA Manager role they need (Admin or Operator) and remove people who leave. LINE has made two-step verification mandatory for LINE Business IDs that sign in with email; it can't be switched off since 30 April 2026 (announcement).
5. Message only people who are your friends. Don't upload lists bought or collected elsewhere. LINE user IDs differ from one provider to another, so outside lists won't match anyway.
6. Check your vendors. Any platform connected by webhook receives your customers' messages. Ask where data is stored, for how long, and whether they sign a data processing agreement.

#Tools Landscape

If you used LINE Notify for order alerts, note that it ended on 31 March 2025; here are the LINE Notify alternatives. For a vendor-by-vendor view, read our comparison of LINE OA tools in Thailand.

#Where LineBot.pro Fits

LineBot.pro is a pay-as-you-go AI toolkit for LINE OA. It covers three parts of the plan above:

• Visuals in the right LINE sizes. Describe what you need in Thai or English and get a rich menu (image plus tap areas, 1 to 6 buttons, 2500×1686 or 2500×843), a rich message (image plus Flex JSON) or a banner. You then upload the rich menu in LINE OA Manager yourself; the app doesn't publish menus to LINE for you. Failed generations are refunded automatically.
• Replies from answers you approved. Connect your LINE OA with its Channel ID, secret and access token, paste the webhook URL into LINE Developers, then set up to 8 intents in the Visual LINE agent, each with up to 15 keywords. A keyword counts wherever it appears in the message, so "ราคา" also matches "ราคาเท่าไหร่คะ". Each intent replies with a rich message you approved, and keyword matches cost 0 credits. Optional AI routing picks the right intent for messages that match no keyword (1 credit each, with a daily cap you set); the AI never writes free-form answers. Customers who type "แอดมิน" or "เจ้าหน้าที่" are handed to your team, and auto-replies pause for that customer.
• Campaigns. Describe a promotion, get a rich message, then broadcast to all friends or to a pasted list of LINE user IDs, now or scheduled. Sending costs 0 credits; LINE's own monthly quota applies.

What it doesn't do: open and click analytics, tag-based segments, drip sequences, booking or loyalty systems. Use LINE OA Manager or a CRM for those.

New accounts get 50 free credits, no card needed — enough for 5 rich menus. After that you buy one-time credit packs: no subscription, and credits don't expire (pricing). Set up your first automated replies.

Prefer an expert review first? Our LINE OA setup and audit service includes a one-time ฿2,500 audit with a 30-minute call and a written report in 3 to 5 business days.

#30-Day Setup Plan

Week 1: foundations (free)

1. Complete your profile: name, profile picture, cover, business hours and location. No account yet? Start with how to create a LINE Official Account.
2. Read the last month of chats and list the 10 most common questions.
3. Write the greeting message and prepare your privacy notice link.

Week 2: always-on answers (free)

1. Build the rich menu (LINE OA Manager templates allow up to 6 buttons).
2. Set keyword replies for the 10 questions, with Thai and English variants and common misspellings.
3. Set chat response hours and an away message.

Week 3: first campaign (uses quota)

1. Choose a package from the budget table; on Basic or Pro, set an extra-message limit so costs can't run away.
2. Schedule one broadcast on a date that matters: payday, a festival or a new menu.
3. Add UTM parameters to your links so your web analytics shows sales from LINE.

Week 4: measure and refine

1. Check Insight: friends added, blocks, and the opens and clicks of your broadcast.
2. Rewrite the replies customers still escalate to staff.
3. Choose the next step: targeted sends, step messages or an AI layer.

#FAQ

Q: How much does LINE OA automation cost for a Thai SME?

The replies themselves can be free: rich menus, greeting messages, keyword auto-replies and chats don't use your quota. Pushed messages do: 300 a month on the Free package, 15,000 on Basic (฿1,280) or 35,000 on Pro (฿1,780), excluding 7% VAT, as of October 2026. Common add-ons are the OA Chat Package (฿555 a month) and MyCustomer | CRM (฿369 a month, included in Pro).

Q: Does the LINE Messaging API cost extra in Thailand?

There is no separate fee. Push, multicast and broadcast messages sent through the Messaging API count toward the same monthly package as broadcasts from LINE OA Manager, while Reply API messages that answer a customer are free.

Q: Do auto-replies and greeting messages use my message quota?

No. LINE Thailand's help center lists chats, auto-replies, AI replies, greeting messages and Reply API messages as not counted. Only broadcasts (including targeted ones), step messages and Messaging API push, multicast and broadcast messages count.

Q: Should a small business choose Basic or Pro?

Up to about 20,000 messages a month, Basic (plus ฿0.10 for each message above 15,000) is cheaper. Above 20,000, Pro is cheaper and includes MyCustomer | CRM. Multiply friends by sends per month before you decide.

Q: LINE Notify has ended. What can send order alerts now?

LINE Notify closed on 31 March 2025. Businesses now use the Messaging API to push alerts to staff (these count toward the quota) or a third-party notification tool. Our guide to LINE Notify alternatives compares the options.

Q: Does PDPA apply to my LINE OA?

Yes, whenever you collect or use customers' personal data in Thailand, such as names, phone numbers, addresses or chat content. Publish a privacy notice, get consent for marketing use, treat health data as sensitive and limit staff access. This isn't legal advice; check your own case with a PDPA adviser.

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Next steps:

• Compare the best LINE OA tools in Thailand side by side
• Check every plan in Thailand, Japan and Taiwan in our LINE Official Account pricing guide
• Set up your first replies with the LINE auto-reply setup guide
• Try the Visual LINE agent with 50 free credits