LINE Notify Alternatives: Migrate to the Messaging API

#What Happened to LINE Notify?

LINE Notify ended on March 31, 2025. LINE announced it on October 7, 2024 (LINE Developers news), and since April 1, 2025 every LINE Notify feature is unavailable: the API, token issuing and service registration. Scripts that still call notify-api.line.me fail. LINE's closing notice points developers to the Messaging API, which sends messages from a LINE Official Account.

LINE Notify was popular because it was simple. A personal access token and one HTTP POST put a message in your own chat or in a group, free of charge, within a default limit of 1,000 API calls per hour per token (per the archived API document). Shops, IT teams and hobbyists in Thailand, Japan and Taiwan used it for order alerts, server monitoring, CI/CD jobs, Google Apps Script automations and IoT sensors.

Moving to the Messaging API changes three things at once:

1. The sender: messages now come from your LINE Official Account (LINE OA), not from the "LINE Notify" account. People must add your LINE OA as a friend, or you invite it into a group.
2. Authentication and target: a channel access token replaces the personal token, and every request names its recipient, a user ID or a group ID.
3. The cost: push messages count against your LINE OA's monthly message quota, once per recipient. Notify was free.

#Your Options at a Glance

#Option 1: Messaging API push messages (the official path)

This is the closest replacement. Your script calls POST https://api.line.me/v2/bot/message/push with a recipient and up to five message objects. You can send text, images, stickers and Flex Messages (card layouts with buttons), which Notify couldn't. The trade-offs: a heavier setup, a webhook to collect IDs, and every push uses your quota.

#Option 2: Broadcasts from LINE Official Account Manager (no code)

If your "notifications" were really announcements to people (a schedule change, a promotion, a closure), a person can write and schedule them in LINE Official Account Manager without touching an API. Our LINE OA broadcast guide walks through it. Broadcasts use the same quota.

#Option 3: Keep machine alerts out of LINE

If the only recipients are you and your ops team, a LINE OA may be more than you need. Telegram bots, Discord and Slack webhooks, ntfy and email don't charge per message and take minutes to set up. Companies on LINE WORKS, a separate business chat app common in Japan, can use its talk bot API, which its help page says is available on all plans (LINE WORKS help). Many teams moved server alerts to one of these and kept LINE for customers.

#Option 4: Have the integration built

If the notifications come from a booking system, a POS or a shop backend and you don't have a developer, the whole migration (LINE OA, channel, webhook that collects user IDs, push calls) can be done as custom LINE development.

#Migrating to the Messaging API, Step by Step

1. Create a LINE Official Account. The free plan is enough to start; see the LINE Official Account setup guide.
2. Enable the Messaging API in LINE Official Account Manager (Settings → Messaging API). Since September 4, 2024, Messaging API channels can't be created directly in the LINE Developers Console: enabling the API in LINE OA Manager creates the channel, which then appears in the LINE Developers Console (LINE Developers).
3. Issue a long-lived channel access token on the console's Messaging API tab. It doesn't expire and a channel has one at a time (channel access tokens). Store it like a password.
4. Find the recipient. Your own user ID appears as Your user ID on the channel's Basic settings tab. Other people's user IDs reach your webhook in source.userId when they add the account or write to it (getting user IDs). Someone who hasn't added your LINE OA as a friend can't receive pushes.
5. For group alerts, turn on Allow bot to join group chats on the Messaging API tab (it's off by default), invite the LINE OA into the group and save the groupId from the webhook events. Only one LINE OA can be in a group chat at a time (group chats).
6. Swap the HTTP call in your scripts (next section).

Steps 4 and 5 need a webhook URL that receives LINE's events, so a small server or a serverless function. Notify needed none, and this is the part most teams underestimate.

#Code Migration: Before and After

Before: LINE Notify (no longer works)

curl -X POST https://notify-api.line.me/api/notify \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer NOTIFY_TOKEN' \
  --data-urlencode 'message=Backup finished OK'

After: Messaging API push

curl -X POST https://api.line.me/v2/bot/message/push \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer CHANNEL_ACCESS_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "to": "U1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef",
    "messages": [{ "type": "text", "text": "Backup finished OK" }]
  }'

What changes:

Google Apps Script. Replace the UrlFetchApp.fetch call to Notify with a JSON POST, and keep the token in Script Properties rather than in the code:

function notifyLine(text) {
  const props = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties();
  UrlFetchApp.fetch('https://api.line.me/v2/bot/message/push', {
    method: 'post',
    contentType: 'application/json',
    headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + props.getProperty('LINE_CHANNEL_ACCESS_TOKEN') },
    payload: JSON.stringify({
      to: props.getProperty('LINE_TO'), // user ID (U...) or group ID (C...)
      messages: [{ type: 'text', text: text }],
    }),
  });
}

Node.js. The official @line/bot-sdk wraps the same call:

import { messagingApi } from '@line/bot-sdk'

const client = new messagingApi.MessagingApiClient({
  channelAccessToken: process.env.LINE_CHANNEL_ACCESS_TOKEN,
})

await client.pushMessage({
  to: process.env.LINE_TO,
  messages: [{ type: 'text', text: 'Backup finished OK' }],
})

For the webhook side (collecting user and group IDs), our @line/bot-sdk Express tutorial has working code. One real upgrade over Notify: pushes can carry Flex Messages, so an alert can become a card with a colored status and a button. The rich message and Flex Message guide explains the format.

#What It Costs Now: Message Quotas by Country

How the Messaging API counts, per LINE Developers:

• Reply messages are free, but they need a reply token from a user's message or event. A notification script doesn't have one.
• Push, multicast, broadcast and narrowcast messages count, once per recipient. The number of message objects in a request doesn't matter. A push to a group chat of five people counts as five messages.
• Messages to users who blocked you aren't counted. Once the monthly limit is reached, the API returns an error and the message isn't sent.

LINE OA plans as of October 2026 (excluding tax):

Sources: LINE for Business Thailand, LY Corporation Japan, LINE Biz-Solutions Taiwan. Plan details and the November changes in Taiwan are in our LINE Official Account pricing guide.

Do the math before you move a chatty alert system. A monitor that pings every 5 minutes sends 8,640 messages in a 30-day month to one person, and five times that if it posts into a group of five. Free plans cover 200 to 300. Three fixes:

1. Aggregate: batch low-priority events into one daily digest.
2. Filter: push only alerts someone must act on.
3. Split channels: send high-frequency machine noise to Telegram, Discord, Slack or ntfy, and keep LINE for customers and business-critical events.

You can check usage from code with GET /v2/bot/message/quota and GET /v2/bot/message/quota/consumption.

#Comparison of Alternatives

The split that works for most businesses: keep customer-facing notifications on LINE, where your customers already are, through the Messaging API; move internal machine alerts to a free developer channel.

#Where LineBot.pro Fits (and Where It Doesn't)

LineBot.pro is not a drop-in replacement for LINE Notify. It has no API or webhook endpoint for your scripts, so it can't forward server alerts, form submissions or order events. Where it does help:

• Announcements a person writes. In Campaigns, you describe the message; AI writes the copy and draws a 1200 × 675 image, and code assembles a Flex Message card (image, headline, text, one button) for 8 credits. You then send it to all friends or to a pasted list of LINE user IDs, now or at a scheduled time. Sending costs 0 credits; LINE's quota applies.
• Answering what comes back. The keyword bot answers 1:1 messages with Rich Message cards you approved. Replies to incoming messages don't count against LINE's quota.
• Assets for your own code. The AI rich message maker exports Flex Message JSON you can paste into a push request.

New accounts get 50 free credits with no card needed. After that, credits come in one-time packs: no subscription, and they don't expire. If you need event-driven pushes from your own systems, that's custom development.

Create your first campaign →

#Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I still use my LINE Notify token?

No. LINE Notify ended on March 31, 2025, and since April 1, 2025 all of its features, including the API and token issuing, are unavailable. There is no legacy mode.

Q: What is the official replacement for LINE Notify?

LINE's closing notice recommends the Messaging API, which sends messages from a LINE Official Account. The push endpoint is the closest match to a Notify call.

Q: Is the LINE Messaging API free?

Partly. Creating a LINE OA and enabling the Messaging API costs nothing, and replies are free. Push messages count against the monthly quota: 300 a month on Thailand's free plan and 200 in Japan and Taiwan (October 2026), then a paid plan.

Q: How do I send notifications to a LINE group like Notify did?

Turn on "Allow bot to join group chats" on the channel's Messaging API tab, invite your LINE OA into the group, save the group ID from the webhook events and push to that ID. Each push counts once per group member.

Q: I don't write code. What's the easiest option?

For announcements, write and schedule broadcasts in LINE Official Account Manager, or design them with LineBot.pro Campaigns. Automatic alerts triggered by another system always need some code, or a developer to build the integration.

Q: How do I fix my Google Apps Script that used LINE Notify?

Point UrlFetchApp at the push endpoint, send a JSON body with "to" and "messages", and put the channel access token in Script Properties. The recipient must be a friend of your LINE OA or a group it has joined.

Next steps:

• Create the account with the LINE Official Account setup guide
• Compare plans in the LINE Official Account pricing guide
• Copy webhook code from the @line/bot-sdk Express tutorial
• Send designed announcements with LineBot.pro Campaigns (50 free credits at sign-up)