Running a LINE Official Account in 2026: The Complete Nine-⁠Stage Guide From Setup and Pricing to AI Customer Service

Which stage are you at?

A LINE Official Account (LINE OA, the business side of the LINE messaging app that most people in Taiwan use every day) does not have to be learned from chapter one. Find your position on this chart, then jump to that section.

The nine stages follow the order in which a customer meets them: first they find you, then they learn what they can do, and only then is it your turn to speak first. Skipping around does not break anything. It just costs more.

The nine stages in one table

This table is the contents page. The last column matters most: it tells you whether a step makes your LINE bill bigger.

Stage 1: open the account

Applying for a LINE Official Account is free: sign in with a LINE account or a business account, fill in the required details, and you have a standard account. LINE states that standard, verified and enterprise accounts share the same basic features and billing; the difference is whether the account has passed LINE's review. Verification requires buying a premium ID (a custom @ handle) first and submitting documents. Unverified accounts do not appear in LINE's search results, and after a rename you cannot rename again for seven days, so decide the name and whose login opens the account before you start.

Detailed guide: LINE Official Account setup, account types and a first-⁠week checklist.

Stage 2: work out the cost

The cost is a fixed monthly fee plus overage message fees. The Light plan is NT$0 with 200 messages, Medium includes 3,000 and High includes 6,000. From November 1, 2026, the Medium and High monthly fees go from NT$800 and NT$1,200 to NT$1,000 and NT$1,400, all before tax. Only broadcasts, targeted messages and API pushes count toward quota, and the count is sends multiplied by target friends. Medium cannot buy extra messages; on High, extra messages 1 to 50,000 cost NT$0.2 each and NT$0.15 each from message 50,001.

Detailed guide: LINE Official Account pricing 2026: monthly fees and message costs.

Stage 3: bring in friends

LINE's official ways to add friends are the add-⁠friend link, QR code, add-⁠friend button, in-⁠store poster, and coupons and reward cards; friend-⁠add ads are open only to verified accounts. The key tool is the friend-⁠add channel setting in the account manager: give each entry point a channel, a source and a campaign name, then read how many people each one brought in on the analytics page. Data updates the next day, and a channel only shows under its own name once its count for the period is above 20. The welcome message can hold up to 5 messages, LINE recommends 3 bubbles or fewer, and it is not billed.

Detailed guide: Adding friends to a LINE Official Account: links, QR codes, ads and tracking.

Stage 4: rich menu

The rich menu is the fixed menu at the bottom of the chat. Each area can be assigned a coupon, a URL, text, a reward card or no action, but not every area can be left with no action. Only one menu is shown at a time, and display periods cannot overlap. The image must be JPEG or PNG, 800 to 2500 pixels wide, at least 250 pixels high and no more than 1 MB. LINE's developer documentation states that rich menus do not appear in LINE for desktop, and a menu set through the API takes priority over one set in the account manager, which is usually why a change you made there does not show.

Detailed guide: LINE rich menu sizes, button layouts by industry and planning templates.

Stage 5: auto-⁠replies

LINE auto-⁠replies come in three layers: the welcome message, keyword auto-⁠response messages, and AI. A keyword only fires when the customer's text matches it exactly, ignoring upper and lower case and full-⁠width versus half-⁠width characters. LINE's manual sets the limit at 51 registered keywords and 5 bubbles per response. Responses with no keyword are sent at random, so keep just one as a signpost. If the account manager's auto-⁠response and a webhook both answer the same keyword, the customer receives two replies.

Detailed guide: LINE auto-⁠reply setup: response modes, keyword design and 15 examples.

Stage 6: segmented broadcasts

Segmenting is not a separate feature. It is the choice of recipients when you send a broadcast, and it is billed the same way: sends multiplied by target people. Filtering by attribute requires more than 100 target friends and an estimated 50 or more people after filtering; audiences can be built from chat tags, friend-⁠add channels, message clicks and more. The free tier allows 5 tags in total and 1 per chat; the Advanced Chat plan raises that to 300 and 30. Apart from chat-⁠tag audiences, audiences expire after 180 days, and click or impression audiences must be created within 60 days of the send.

Detailed guide: LINE segmented messages: official rules for broadcasts, audiences and tags.

Stage 7: campaigns

Coupons, reward cards and lucky draws are all built into the account manager, and we found no mention of a separate feature fee on LINE's pages; what costs money is how many friends you broadcast the campaign to. A coupon can be claimed unconditionally, by lucky draw, or through friend referral, and the lucky draw is a setting inside the coupon. Since June 12, 2024, reward cards are limited to friends of the account, and once you stop publishing a card it cannot be restored and the points are deleted. LINE's two documents disagree on whether a saved coupon can still be edited, so save a draft and check first. Lucky draws also raise legal points in Taiwan, which the detailed guide covers.

Detailed guide: LINE coupons, reward cards, lucky draws and five small-⁠shop campaign templates.

Stage 8: notification messages

A LINE notification message (LON) uses the customer's mobile number to deliver notices such as arrivals, bills and bookings into their LINE, even when they are not a friend. The published price is NT$0.2 per notification, charged only when delivery succeeds. The bar is high: the account must be verified or enterprise, each use case must pass LINE's review, promotional content is banned outright, and it takes a contract and system integration. LINE estimates 10 to 20 working days for the process, not counting development. Most small shops do not need it; turning customers into friends at the moment of sale is more practical.

Detailed guide: LINE notification messages (LON): cost, eligibility and small-⁠shop alternatives.

Stage 9: add AI

There are three routes to AI replies on LINE. The native AI chatbot (β) requires the Advanced Chat plan, which LINE's column lists as an NT$100 subscription; it holds up to 100 FAQ entries, is recommended for accounts with fewer than 25,000 friends, and may be unavailable to medical, financial, legal and some other industries. Only when a conversation needs earlier context or rule-⁠based data collection do you need a ready-⁠made AI customer service tool or your own build on the Messaging API. According to LINE's developer documentation, reply messages do not count toward quota and push messages do, so ask any vendor which one it uses.

Detailed guide: LINE AI auto-⁠reply: native features, ready-⁠made tools or building it yourself. If you have already decided on a tool, read LINE AI customer service tools: 5 options compared.

A checklist for the first 30 days

This order is our suggestion, not a LINE requirement. The principle is to finish everything that is free before you start spending.

A version to copy and tick off:

[LINE Official Account: first 30 days]
[ ] The owner is an admin, with one backup admin
[ ] The account name is the real shop name (follow the verification naming rules if you may apply later)
[ ] Welcome message: who we are, what we will send, one easy question
[ ] A response mode is set for response hours and for off hours
[ ] Every rich menu area has an action; text actions match a keyword exactly
[ ] Only one auto-⁠response has no keyword
[ ] Every auto-⁠response ends with an exit such as "找客服" (ask for a person)
[ ] Counter, parcel card, Instagram and website each use their own friend-⁠add channel
[ ] Before closing each day, tag the customers who replied
[ ] Before month end: sends x target friends = next month's message count
[ ] A secondary payment method is set in the Billing section

Do not rush into full broadcasts in the first month. When a customer messages first and you reply in chat, nothing is billed, and that is also the easiest time to build up tags.

What changed in 2026

Only items already checked against LINE's official announcements in our detailed guides are listed.

The free message quotas are unchanged. LINE also recommends setting a secondary payment method before October 27, because a failed payment can switch a paid plan to Light automatically. The full explanation and worked examples are in LINE Official Account pricing 2026.

The most common mistakes in running a LINE Official Account

All seven have one thing in common: the action came first, and the question "what will the customer run into after this step?" came later. LINE marketing sounds big, but taken apart it simply means someone is there to catch each step.

FAQ