Short answer
A LINE Official Account can front almost any system that starts with a menu tap or a message: booking, leave requests, order updates, points. The system runs on your own server. Replies are free; pushes count against your plan. In Thailand, Free includes 300 messages a month, Basic 15,000 for 1,280 baht and Pro 35,000 for 1,780 baht, before VAT.
Key points
- Replies are not counted; every push counts once for each person it reaches.
- Thai plans before VAT: Free 300 messages, Basic 15,000 for 1,280 baht, Pro 35,000 for 1,780 baht a month.
- The Free plan cannot buy extra messages: at the limit, pushes stop until the month resets.
- At 300 bookings a month, one push per booking stays free; three pushes need Basic at 1,280 baht.
- LINE Notify shut down on 31 March 2025: keep your records outside LINE, keyed by LINE user ID.
What can you build on a LINE Official Account?
Almost any system that starts with a person tapping a menu or sending a message: booking and queues, staff leave requests, order and delivery updates, points and membership, and a simple customer record that remembers who each LINE user is. The LINE OA is the front door; the system runs on your own server, and LINE carries the conversation.
LINE's own tools cover more than many businesses expect: coupons, a reward card and a paid MyCustomer CRM add-on are built in, and many Thai SaaS products offer booking on LINE for a monthly fee. A custom build earns its cost when the system must follow your own rules, talk to your other software, or keep data you control.
Reach is the reason to start here. LINE for Business says LINE Ads reach more than 56 million LINE users in Thailand, and your own customers probably already chat with you on LINE.
How does a system on LINE OA actually work?
Six pieces from LINE do almost all the work. You rarely need every one, but knowing what each does makes a quote much easier to read.
- Rich menu: the tappable panel at the bottom of the chat. Design one without code in LINE Official Account Manager, or set a different menu per user through the Messaging API, such as one for customers and one for staff.
- Webhook: whenever someone adds your account, sends a message or taps a menu button set to send data, LINE posts an event to your server, and your system decides what to do.
- Reply message: an answer to that event. Replies do not count toward your monthly quota, but each event's reply token must be used once, within one minute.
- Push message: a message your system sends whenever it wants, such as a reminder the day before an appointment. Push, multicast, narrowcast and broadcast all count toward the quota, one message per person reached.
- LIFF: a web app that opens inside LINE, for anything that needs a real screen, such as free slots, a leave form or a points balance. Opened in LINE, it knows who the user is without a login.
- LINE Login: identifies the user by LINE user ID, plus display name and profile picture if they agree. This is how your system links a LINE user to a customer record or an employee number.
How does a booking or queue system on LINE OA work?
The customer taps Book in the rich menu, picks a free slot on a LIFF page, and the booking lands in your system with their LINE user ID. The day before, your system pushes a reminder with buttons to confirm or reschedule, and staff at the counter see the day's list and who has confirmed.
Booking systems differ in the details, which is where free tools usually stop: slots that depend on which staff member or room is free, deposits, a walk-in queue merged with online bookings, several branches, or notes that must never leave your own records. Write those rules down before you compare products; they decide whether a subscription fits or a build is needed.
- Tap BookThe customer taps Book in the rich menu
- Pick a slotA LIFF page opens with the slots still free
- SavedThe booking lands in your system with the customer's LINE user ID
- ReminderThe day before, a push asks them to confirm or reschedule
- At the counterStaff see the day's list and who has confirmed
How does a leave request system on LINE work?
An employee opens a leave form from the company LINE OA, picks the type and dates, and sees how many days are left. The manager approves or rejects it on LINE, and HR gets a record to export to payroll. Each employee links their LINE account to their employee number once, so from then on the system knows who is asking.
The rules are what make it worth building rather than a shared form: entitlements by type and length of service, half days, who approves for whom, cover when a manager is on leave, and history that stays correct when someone changes department. A free form can collect requests; it cannot enforce any of that.
Free form and spreadsheet
- Collects requests
- People type their own name
- Someone checks each request by hand
- HR counts leave days at month end
Leave system on LINE
- Entitlements by leave type and length of service
- Half days
- Each request routed to the right approver
- Cover when a manager is on leave
- History stays correct after a department change
How do order notifications, points and a CRM work on LINE OA?
Order and status updates are the easiest win. Your order or delivery system already knows when an order is paid, packed or shipped, so it pushes one short message per step. Keep to the steps a customer actually waits for: every push counts toward the quota.
For points and membership, start with LINE's own tools. The built-in reward card gives points when a customer scans a QR code; since June 2024 only friends of your account can use it. The MyCustomer CRM add-on adds membership sign-up, points by phone number or QR code, rewards, and customer import and export. Build your own when points must come from your POS or website automatically, follow rules the add-on cannot express, or sit in the same database as the rest of your customer data.
A simple CRM on LINE means one record per customer, keyed by their LINE user ID: who they are, what they bought or booked, and which messages they agreed to receive. Once that record exists, the booking, order and points features all hang off it instead of each keeping its own list.
Free tools, LINE's own features, SaaS or a custom build?
Start with the cheapest option that follows your rules, and move up only when you hit its limit. Third-party prices vary, so check them yourself.
| LINE OA built-in features | Free form and spreadsheet linked from the rich menu | SaaS product that works with LINE | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Good for | Coupons, reward card, broadcasts, auto-reply, one-to-one chat | Collecting requests when a person checks each one by hand | Standard booking, queues or membership | Your own rules, links to your other systems |
| Cost | Free plan, or Basic 1,280 and Pro 1,780 baht a month before VAT; MyCustomer CRM 369 baht a month unless you are on Pro | Free | A monthly subscription; how it is priced varies by product | A one-off build, then hosting and maintenance |
| Knows who the LINE user is | Yes, inside LINE's features | No, people type their name | Usually | Yes, through LINE Login and LIFF |
| Enforces rules such as slots, quotas or approvals | No | No | The rules the vendor built | Any rule you define |
| Connects to your POS, HR or accounting | No | By hand | Only the integrations it offers | Yes |
| Where the data lives | With LINE | In the form owner's account | With the vendor | Where you choose |
| Time to start | Today | An afternoon | Days | After scoping and the build; depends on the scope |
| Who sets it up | You or a colleague, in LINE Official Account Manager | You or a colleague | You configure it; the vendor runs it | A development team you hire, such as SyncEdge, which builds on LIFF, the Messaging API and LINE Login |
How much do LINE OA messages cost in Thailand?
It depends on how many push and broadcast messages you send each month, not on how many customers chat with you. As of 23 September 2026, LINE for Business lists three plans for Thailand, priced before 7% VAT.
Two rules from LINE's developer documentation matter most. Replies to a customer's message or menu tap are not counted. Everything else is counted per person reached: one push to 500 customers is 500 messages, however many bubbles it holds. Messages to users who have blocked you are not counted.
At the limit, extra messages are not delivered; LINE's API returns an error instead. The Free plan cannot buy more, so a reminder system that runs out of quota on the 20th stops reminding people until the month resets.
| Free | Basic | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | 0 baht | 1,280 baht | 1,780 baht |
| Messages included each month | 300 | 15,000 | 35,000 |
| Each extra message | Cannot buy more | 0.10 baht | 0.06 baht |
| MyCustomer CRM add-on | 369 baht a month | 369 baht a month | Included |
How much does the design change the bill?
More than the plan choice does. The chart prices a booking system built two ways under the plan prices above: three pushes per booking (confirmation, reminder, thank-you), or a reply to confirm and one push to remind. It assumes one booking per customer and the cheapest plan at each volume.
At 300 bookings a month the difference is the whole bill: one push per booking fits the Free plan's 300 messages, while three pushes need Basic at 1,280 baht a month before VAT. Higher up, the gap shrinks to a few hundred or a couple of thousand baht a month, but the Free-to-Basic step is where most small businesses sit.
- Three pushes per booking
- Reply to confirm, one push to remind
| Bookings per month | Three pushes per booking | Reply to confirm, one push to remind |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 300 messages: Free, 0 baht | 100 messages: Free, 0 baht |
| 300 | 900 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht | 300 messages: Free, 0 baht |
| 1,000 | 3,000 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht | 1,000 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht |
| 5,000 | 15,000 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht | 5,000 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht |
| 10,000 | 30,000 messages: Pro, 1,780 baht | 10,000 messages: Basic, 1,280 baht |
| 20,000 | 60,000 messages: Pro, 3,280 baht | 20,000 messages: Basic or Pro, 1,780 baht |
What should a business like yours build on LINE OA? Four example scenarios
These four are illustrative composites of common requests, not real clients. Volumes are assumptions; message costs use the plan table above, before VAT. Swap in your own numbers.
| Situation | What to build | Monthly messages and plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hair salon or massage shop | About 300 bookings a month taken over chat and written in a book. Slots get double-booked and customers forget. | Booking through a LIFF page from the rich menu, confirmation by reply or on screen, and one reminder push before the appointment. | 300 bookings at one push each is 300 messages: exactly the Free plan's limit, 0 baht, with no room left. One more booking or one extra push and you need Basic at 1,280 baht. |
| Company with 40 employees | Leave requests are on paper or in a chat with the manager, and HR counts leave days by hand every month end. | A LIFF leave form linked to employee numbers, a push to the manager to approve, and a push back to the employee with the result. | If each person files two requests a month, that is 80 requests at two pushes each, or 160 messages. Free plan, 0 baht, with 140 to spare. |
| Online shop | About 2,000 orders a month, and customers message every day to ask whether theirs has shipped. | LINE Login and an add-friend step at checkout, then two pushes from the order system: paid and packed in one message, shipped with the tracking number in the other. | 2,000 orders at two pushes each is 4,000 messages, past the Free plan, so Basic at 1,280 baht with 11,000 left. Even three pushes per order (6,000) stays within Basic. |
| Café or restaurant | Wants regulars to come back more often. About 800 friends on the LINE OA and two promotional broadcasts a month. | Start with LINE OA's built-in reward card, scanned by QR code at the counter; no build needed. Build your own when points must flow in from the POS automatically. | The broadcasts use the quota: 800 friends twice a month is 1,600 messages, so Basic at 1,280 baht. One broadcast a month to a chosen group of 300 or fewer fits the Free plan. |
Another example: a dorm system that sends rent bills and takes slips on LINE
Ready-made LINE tools or a system built by SyncEdge: what is the difference?
A ready-made tool starts quickly and bills monthly. A system we build takes longer, but follows every rule you set and connects to the software you already run. If LINE OA's own features or a SaaS product already cover what you need, use them: the café in the scenarios above needs no build at all.
We run our own customer contact through LINE OA @syncedge, so this is a channel we use every day. A build with us starts with scoping, and you see progress continuously throughout development.
| Ready-made tool (LINE's features or SaaS) | Built by SyncEdge | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | Today, or within days | After scoping and the build; how long depends on the scope |
| Cost pattern | A plan or subscription each month, priced differently by each vendor | A build cost set by the agreed scope, then hosting, and an optional monthly support retainer |
| Fit to your workflow | What the tool was built to do; you adapt your process to it | Designed around your rules: slots, leave quotas, approval steps |
| Message-cost control | Sends what the tool is set to send, adjustable only as far as its settings go | Designed so most messages are replies, with pushes kept for what a customer must know |
| Connection to your other systems | Only the integrations the vendor offers | Connects to your POS, HR, accounting, ERP or SaaS through their APIs |
| Data and PDPA | Held by LINE or the vendor, under their terms | Hosted in Thailand or where you choose, with encryption, access control and consent designed in |
| Who maintains it | The vendor maintains and updates it | The team that built it looks after it monthly; full documentation lets your team take over if you choose |
How do you keep the message bill down?
Make most messages replies, and push only what a customer would miss if it never came. Six habits do most of the work.
- Confirm by reply. A booking made in a LIFF page has no chat event to reply to, so have the page send the customer's own message into the chat (LIFF can, with the user's permission) and answer it, or show the confirmation on screen.
- Push only what people wait for: the appointment reminder, the parcel shipped, the leave approved. Skip the thank-you and the "we received your request" if the screen already said so.
- Merge steps: one "paid and packed, ships tomorrow" message costs a third of three separate ones.
- Send only to the people concerned: a broadcast costs one message per friend; a push to the 40 customers booked tomorrow costs 40.
- Watch the quota from your system: LINE's API reports this month's limit and usage, so alert yourself at 80% rather than finding out when reminders stop.
- Move frequent staff alerts elsewhere: manager approvals are pushes too, and a daily summary costs less than one message per request.
What does PDPA require from a LINE OA system?
Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act covers everything your system stores, not only what LINE holds. Tell people what you collect and why before you collect it, keep only what the purpose needs, and be able to delete or export a person's data when they ask.
LINE gives you little, by design. LINE Login provides a user ID, display name and profile picture; an email address only if LINE approves your channel for it and the user consents. The Messaging API can read the profiles of users who added or messaged your account, but not of anyone who blocked you. User IDs differ for each LINE provider, so put your LINE OA and your LINE Login channel under the same provider or the two will not match.
Everything else you collect yourself (phone numbers, booking history, leave records, points), so protecting it and recording marketing consent is your job. Leave records are employee data, and a clinic booking can reveal health information, which PDPA treats as sensitive. Keep that detail in your own system and send only a short notice through LINE, such as "your appointment is tomorrow at 10:00", never the reason for the visit.
What are the steps to build a system on LINE OA?
A system on LINE is ordinary custom software with LINE as its screen, so it follows the same steps. Most of the effort goes into agreeing the rules and testing them on real phones; connecting to LINE is the well-documented part.
- ScopeWrite down the rules, the people involved and the messages that must be sent, before any code
- LINE setupLINE OA, Messaging API and LINE Login channels under one provider, the plan, the rich menu
- BuildThe webhook server, LIFF screens, staff admin screens and links to your existing systems
- Test on real phonesiOS and Android, inside LINE and in an external browser, with staff doing a normal day
- LaunchMove customers or staff to the new menu; check the first month's message count against the estimate
- Run itHosting, monitoring, and updates when LINE changes its APIs or policies
What are the risks of building on LINE?
The main risk is that LINE sets the rules and can change them. LINE Notify, the free alert tool many Thai businesses used, shut down on 31 March 2025, and LINE pointed its users to the Messaging API. Plan prices and quotas can change too, and your costs move with them.
Keep what matters outside LINE. Store customer and booking records in your own database, keyed by LINE user ID but not dependent on it, with a phone number or email for each person in case they block your account or you ever leave LINE. Build the part that talks to LINE as one replaceable layer, so a change on LINE's side is a small fix, not a rebuild.
Before you build on LINE OA
- Have you written down the rules the system must follow, such as slots, entitlements or approvals?
- Have you tried LINE's own coupons, reward card and MyCustomer CRM for the parts they cover?
- Which messages must be pushed, and which can be replies or shown on screen?
- How many push messages a month will that be, and which plan does it put you on?
- Are your LINE OA and LINE Login channel under the same provider, so user IDs match?
- Do you tell people what you collect and record their consent for marketing messages?
- Is sensitive detail kept in your own system rather than sent in chat?
- Do you keep a phone number or email for each person in case LINE is not an option?
Frequently asked questions
How do you build a booking system on LINE OA?
Put a Book button in the rich menu that opens a LIFF page showing free slots. The booking is saved in your own system with the customer's LINE user ID, the confirmation is sent as a reply or shown on screen, and one push reminder goes out the day before. The LINE side is well documented; most of the work is in your own booking rules.
Is there a free online booking system for LINE OA?
LINE OA itself does not list a booking feature among its Thai features, so free options are a form linked from the rich menu, or a free tier of a booking SaaS. These work while someone checks each booking by hand. Once you need slots that fill automatically, several staff or branches, or deposits, expect a subscription or a custom build.
Can employees request leave through LINE?
Yes. Employees open a leave form from the company LINE OA, managers approve on LINE, and HR gets an exportable record. Each employee links their LINE account to their employee number once, through LINE Login, so the system knows who is asking. The value is in enforcing entitlements and approval chains, which a plain chat or form cannot do.
Is there a free online leave request system?
A free form and spreadsheet can collect leave requests, and some HR products have free tiers. What they usually cannot do is check the balance for each leave type, route the request to the right approver and keep history correct when people move. If HR still reconciles leave by hand each month, that is the gap a custom system closes.
What is a CRM on LINE OA?
A customer record keyed by each person's LINE user ID, holding who they are, what they bought or booked, and which messages they agreed to receive. LINE's MyCustomer CRM add-on covers membership and points for 369 baht a month before VAT, free on the Pro plan. A custom CRM makes sense when it must connect to your POS, website or other systems.
Do notifications through LINE OA cost money?
Push messages do: each one counts toward your plan's monthly quota, per person reached. Replies to a customer's message or menu tap do not count. As of September 2026 the Thai Free plan includes 300 messages a month, Basic 15,000 for 1,280 baht and Pro 35,000 for 1,780 baht, before VAT.