LINE Official Account or a website, and what each one is actually for

Almost every Thai business has LINE. Far fewer have somewhere for a stranger to land.

LINE · 2026-10-21

A LINE Official Account is a conversation channel: it keeps people who already know you, and LINE counted 54 million monthly users in Thailand at the end of September 2025. A website is a discovery channel: it is what Google shows to someone who has never heard of you. A verified LINE account can appear in Google as a single profile page, but not in Google Maps, and a website cannot hold the chat your customers expect. Most small businesses in Thailand need both, and the order to build them in depends on where your customers come from today.

What each one does

LINE keeps existing customers, answers fast, sends broadcasts, does not show in Google Maps
Website gets found on Google and Maps, works for tourists who do not use LINE
888 ฿ one-off cost plus VAT to verify a LINE account, without which LINE now shows a warning

The verification badge is not cosmetic any more

Since 1 April 2026 LINE shows a caution notice on unverified official accounts, aimed at scam prevention. A new customer opening your chat sees that notice before they see your first message. Verification costs 888 baht plus VAT, once, and requires business documents. If you sell anything through LINE, this is the cheapest trust you will ever buy.

What LINE cannot do, no matter how good your account is

LINE says a verified account can be found through search engines such as Google, but what Google finds is one profile page on LINE's own domain. It does not appear in Google Maps, and it gives you no page of your own for each service or for the questions strangers type. Everything that brings you a customer who does not already know your name happens outside LINE, and it needs an address of your own.

Which one first, honestly

If most of your business comes from people walking past or from friends recommending you, set up LINE properly first and get it verified. If you need people who are not here yet, tourists, expats, companies from Bangkok, then the website comes first and LINE is the button on it. Both cost money, and doing both badly at once is the most common mistake I am asked to repair.

Put LINE on the website, not the website on LINE

I would not build a business on a chat channel I do not own. LINE can change its rules, its pricing and its reach whenever it likes, and it has. Your website is the one address that stays yours, and every LINE button on it is a customer you keep. Doing it the other way round, with LINE as the only shopfront, means renting your entire customer base.

Sources

The site, with LINE where it belongs

Every site I build has the LINE button where a Thai customer expects it, and everything behind it still belongs to you.

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