LINE Thailand will charge for Reply API messages above 25,000 a month from February 2027

LINE for Business Thailand announced on 30 October 2026 that, from 1 February 2027, every LINE Official Account will get 25,000 free Reply API messages a month, and anything above that will need a paid plan bought through a LINE-designated Agency Partner. The only price LINE has published is an Unlimited plan at THB 5,000 a month. To keep using Reply API at all, accounts must be registered with one of those Agency Partners and moved onto LINE's Agency Global Platform (AGP). Until now, Reply API messages have been free.

The notice was posted in the announcements section of LINE's Thai business site under the title "Important announcement about the Reply API service for LINE Official Account" (read LINE's announcement in Thai). It is short, it is written in Thai, and it leaves several practical questions open. This article sets out what the notice says, what LINE's own developer documentation says about how reply messages work, and what the notice does not answer yet.

What LINE announced on 30 October 2026

LINE's notice says it is changing the way Reply API messages are provided for LINE Official Accounts from 1 February 2027 (2570 in the Thai Buddhist calendar), so that they run under a new service model on the Agency Global Platform. LINE says businesses can still keep using Reply API to answer messages, with no charge for the first 25,000 messages each month, and can choose additional packages if they need more.

The main points, as stated in the notice:

• Reply API messages have been free to send until now. LINE says it is changing the service conditions and setting a free message allowance plus packages for extra use.
• From 1 February 2027, each account can send 25,000 Reply API messages a month at no charge.
• The quota is calculated monthly. Unused messages cannot be accumulated or carried over to the next month.
• Businesses that need more can subscribe to an Unlimited package through an Agency Partner, priced at THB 5,000 a month.
• Businesses that want to continue using Reply API must register through an Agency Partner designated by LINE, which moves the LINE Official Account into AGP.
• LINE says there is no fee for moving the account and no additional Agency service fee. The Agency Partner will help look after the account's use of the AGP system.
• LINE will publish the list of designated agencies, with details, in a later announcement.
• Rates, payment conditions and package details for paid use will be as set and announced by LINE or the Agency.

The new Reply API price table

The notice includes a two-row price table. Here it is as LINE published it, with the effective date added from the same notice.

Those are the only two figures LINE gives. The notice does not say whether the THB 5,000 includes VAT, whether there will be tiers between 25,000 and unlimited, or whether the price differs by agency. It says only that rates, payment conditions and package details "will be as LINE or the Agency sets and announces".

What Reply API is, and how it differs from Auto-response

LINE's notice defines Reply API as automatic replies sent to users from a LINE Official Account through a business's own system connected to the LINE Messaging API. It points out that this is different from the Auto-response feature that businesses set up directly in LINE Official Account Manager. That distinction matters: the change is aimed at accounts with a developer integration, such as a chatbot, a CRM connector, a booking flow or an order-status bot, not at accounts that only use the keyword replies built into the OA Manager app.

How a reply message works, according to LINE's developer docs

LINE's Messaging API reference describes the mechanics. When a user does something the account can respond to, such as sending a message, LINE sends a webhook event to the business's server, and that event carries a reply token. The server then calls the reply endpoint with that token. According to the reference:

• A reply token can be used only once.
• It must be used within one minute of receiving the webhook. LINE says use beyond one minute is not guaranteed to work, and that the time limit can change without notice.
• A single request can carry up to five message objects.

A push message is different. LINE's documentation describes it as a message the account can send to a user at any time, without waiting for the user to act. LINE's developer pricing page currently lists push, multicast, broadcast and narrowcast messages as counted toward an account's monthly message count, and lists reply messages among the sending methods that are not counted. Under the current rules, a reply sent inside the one-minute window does not use up the account's monthly message count. The 30 October notice changes that for Reply API from February 2027. It says nothing about push messages, so nothing in it suggests the existing rules for push, broadcast or narrowcast are changing.

Who is affected, and who is not

Based on the wording of the notice, the change touches any Thai LINE Official Account that answers users through the Messaging API. In practice that includes:

• Customer service chatbots that answer questions automatically.
• Booking and appointment flows run from a business's own system or a third-party tool built on the Messaging API.
• E-commerce bots that answer order, payment or delivery questions.
• CRM and helpdesk tools that send replies back into LINE chats through the API.

Accounts that only use Auto-response inside LINE Official Account Manager are, by LINE's own definition, using a different feature. The notice does not say that feature is changing.

Accounts that send fewer than 25,000 Reply API messages a month will not pay for replies under the published table. They are still affected in one way: the notice says businesses that want to keep using Reply API need to register through a designated Agency Partner and move onto AGP. Read plainly, that applies to every account that uses Reply API, not only to accounts above the free quota. The notice does not say what happens to an account that has not been moved by 1 February 2027.

What the announcement does not say

The notice leaves several questions open. Until LINE answers them, planning should treat them as unknown rather than guess:

• LINE has not named the designated Agency Partners. It says the list will come in a later announcement.
• The notice says 25,000 "messages" but does not say whether one reply request carrying several message objects counts as one message or several.
• It does not say whether an account that has not moved to AGP by 1 February 2027 loses Reply API, gets a cap, or keeps working under other terms.
• It mentions that businesses can choose additional packages, but publishes only the Unlimited price.
• It says the Agency Partner will help manage the account's use of AGP. It does not describe what permissions the agency gets or how a business changes agency later.
• It is posted on LINE's Thai business site and addressed to Thai LINE Official Account users. It says nothing about other countries.

What to check in your own LINE Official Account

None of this needs action today, but the February date is close enough that budgets for 2027 should account for it. These checks rely only on what LINE has published.

1. Find out whether you use Reply API at all

If your account replies through a chatbot, a CRM, a booking system or any tool that asked for a Messaging API channel or a channel access token, it almost certainly uses Reply API. If all your automatic answers are set up as keyword replies inside LINE Official Account Manager, you are using Auto-response, which LINE describes as a separate feature.

2. Measure your monthly reply volume

LINE's Messaging API reference includes an endpoint that returns the number of messages sent through the reply endpoint on a given date. The date is set in the format yyyyMMdd, in the UTC+9 time zone, and the reference says the count is normally ready by the next day. It also notes that this figure does not include messages sent from LINE Official Account Manager. Your developer or chatbot vendor can pull daily figures for a few recent months, add them up and compare each month to 25,000. Spread over a 30-day month, 25,000 messages works out to roughly 833 a day, which gives a quick sense of where an account sits.

3. Look at peaks, not averages

Because the quota resets monthly and cannot be carried over, a quiet month does not offset a busy one. If you run sales campaigns, such as double-date shopping days, look at those months on their own. Plan around the busiest month in your data, not the average.

4. Budget for the plan you would need

If your busiest month goes over 25,000, the only published option is THB 5,000 a month for Unlimited, or THB 60,000 a year if you stay on it for twelve months. Whether that is cheap or expensive depends on what the bot replaces: staff time, missed sales after hours, or slower answers.

5. Prepare questions for whichever agency you register with

Once LINE publishes its list, ask the agency what access it will have to your account in AGP, how billing for paid packages works, and how you would move to a different agency. Keep your own admin access to the LINE Official Account and the Messaging API channel. LINE says the migration and agency service carry no extra fee; confirm that in writing with the agency.

What this means for Thai marketers

Until now, Reply API messages have been free to send. From February 2027, high-volume accounts face a new line item of THB 5,000 a month, and every account using Reply API faces an administrative step: registering through an Agency Partner and moving onto AGP.

Two practical points follow. First, the cost question is easy to answer with data: measure reply volume now, so the decision about the Unlimited plan is made on numbers rather than guesses. Second, the agency question is about control as much as cost. A business should know who can see and change its account after the move, and should keep its own admin rights regardless of which partner it registers through.

For marketers running LINE alongside paid media, this is also a moment to review what the bot actually does. Replies that answer real customer questions earn their keep. Replies that only send a menu, a sticker or a "thank you" each time a user taps something still count toward a monthly allowance from February, and may be worth trimming. If you advertise on LINE to drive people into chat, see how LINE Ads campaigns and the chat experience fit together, because the volume of conversations an ad campaign creates now has a cost attached at the high end. Brands that run chat across several platforms can compare this change with how they manage social ads and messaging elsewhere.

FAQ

When do LINE's new Reply API charges start in Thailand?

They start on 1 February 2027, according to LINE for Business Thailand's notice dated 30 October 2026. From that date each LINE Official Account gets 25,000 free Reply API messages a month.

How much does LINE charge for Reply API above 25,000 messages?

LINE quotes THB 5,000 a month for an Unlimited plan bought through a designated Agency Partner. The notice does not say whether that includes VAT, and it says other rates and package details will be set and announced by LINE or the agency.

Does my account need to move to the Agency Global Platform even if I stay under 25,000 replies?

The notice says any business that wants to keep using Reply API must register through a designated Agency Partner and move onto AGP, and it does not limit that to accounts above the quota. It does not say what happens to accounts that have not moved by 1 February 2027.

Which agencies are LINE's designated Agency Partners?

LINE has not named them yet. The notice says the list of designated agencies, with details, will be published in a later announcement.

Does this change affect Auto-response in LINE Official Account Manager or push messages?

The notice does not say it does. LINE describes Reply API as different from Auto-response set up in LINE Official Account Manager, and the notice does not mention push, broadcast or narrowcast messages.

Next steps

The cheapest preparation is a number: your highest monthly Reply API count over the last few months. With that, the choice between the free quota and the THB 5,000 plan is simple, and you will be ready to register once LINE names its partners. Relevant Audience is not named in LINE's announcement, and LINE has not yet published its partner list. If you would like help reviewing how your LINE Official Account, chatbot and LINE ads work together before February, the Relevant Audience team is happy to take a look.