LINE WORKSvs
Slack
Slack: If you need a deep app ecosystem and engineering workflows rather than a consumer messaging bridge
LINE WORKS
Business chat built on the LINE interface, aimed at Japanese firms whose staff and customers already use LINE
As of 31 August 2026, LINE WORKS has a free plan and paid plans start at 450/month. A work messaging and collaboration suite from Japan that mirrors the consumer LINE app and can message consumer LINE accounts directly. Softwr lists it under Communication. LINE WORKS is made by Works Mobile Japan Corp., available on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
Overview
What LINE WORKS does
LINE WORKS is a business communication suite from Works Mobile, a company in the LY Corporation group. It combines chat, voice and video calls, a shared address book, calendar, drive, a bulletin board and, on higher tiers, business email. The interface deliberately copies the consumer LINE app, including stickers and read receipts. The distinguishing capability is that LINE WORKS accounts can exchange messages with ordinary consumer LINE accounts. In Japan, where LINE is the default messaging app for most of the population, this means an estate agent, clinic or car dealership can talk to customers on the channel those customers already use, from a managed corporate account with retention and audit applied. No Slack or Teams deployment can do that. It is why LINE WORKS shows up in front-line and customer-facing Japanese businesses rather than in engineering organisations. Buyers are Japanese small and mid-sized companies, retail and service chains, and the Asian subsidiaries of larger groups. The trade-off is reach and pricing currency. Pricing is published in yen at 450 yen per user per month on the annual Standard plan and 800 yen on Advanced, with a free tier capped at 30 users and 5GB total. Documentation, support and the third-party integration ecosystem are strongest in Japanese; if your organisation is not operating in Japan or Korea, the external LINE bridge is worth nothing and you are buying a weaker Slack.
What people use it for
- A Japanese retail or service chain whose customers expect to book and enquire over LINE rather than email
- A clinic, dealership or estate agency that needs customer conversations on LINE but under corporate retention and audit
- A Japanese SME under 30 staff that wants managed business chat at no licence cost on the free tier
- The Japanese subsidiary of a foreign group that needs a local tool for front-line staff alongside the group standard
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about LINE WORKS.
- The external LINE bridge, which is the main reason to choose it, only matters where LINE has consumer penetration, so buyers outside Japan, Taiwan and Thailand are paying for a feature they cannot use.
- The free tier caps total storage at 5GB across the whole organisation, not per user, so a team sharing photos or documents exhausts it within weeks and is pushed onto a paid plan.
- Business email is only on the Advanced plan at 800 yen per user, so an organisation wanting both chat and mail pays nearly double the Standard rate for every seat including staff who only chat.
- Developer documentation, support and the integration catalogue are strongest in Japanese, which makes it awkward to administer from a non-Japanese IT function.
- It has no serious developer or engineering workflow story, so organisations that also run Slack or Teams for technical teams end up maintaining two chat systems and two directories.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of LINE WORKS
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- LINE WORKSvsLark
Lark: If you want an all-in-one suite with docs, sheets and chat across Asian and Western markets
- LINE WORKSvsChatwork
Chatwork: If you want a Japanese business chat tool without tying your customer channel to LINE
- LINE WORKSvsKintone
Kintone: If the real requirement is Japanese-market business apps and workflow rather than messaging
Pricing
What LINE WORKS costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Free
Free
- Up to 30 users
- 5GB total storage
- Chat, calls, calendar and address book
- External LINE messaging
Standard
$450 /mo
- Unlimited users
- 1TB shared storage
- Annual contract price, 540 yen monthly
- Bulletin board and drive
- Admin and audit controls
Advanced
$800 /mo
- Everything in Standard
- Business email
- 100TB shared storage
- Annual contract price, 960 yen monthly
Capabilities
Features
External LINE messaging
Chat with consumer LINE users from a managed corporate account
Chat and channels
Group and one-to-one messaging with stickers, read receipts and file sharing
Voice and video calls
Built-in calling and meetings without a separate conferencing licence
Shared address book
Company-wide directory that populates chat and calling
Calendar and bulletin board
Scheduling and internal announcements in the same app
Drive
Shared file storage, 1TB on Standard and 100TB on Advanced
Business email
Included on the Advanced plan only
Admin controls
Message retention, audit logs and device policy for regulated use
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Can LINE WORKS really message ordinary LINE users?
Yes. That is its core differentiator and the reason Japanese customer-facing businesses buy it.
Is there a free plan?
Yes, up to 30 users with 5GB of total organisation storage.
Does the Standard plan include email?
No. Business email is Advanced only, at 800 yen per user per month on an annual contract.
Is it worth buying outside Japan?
Generally no. Without the consumer LINE bridge it competes poorly against Slack, Teams or Lark on features and ecosystem.
Keep looking
Where to go from LINE WORKS
- LINE WORKS alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- LINE WORKS pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- LINE WORKS badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Communication softwareThe full category
- Best Communication softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Communication software for
Compare LINE WORKS with
- Slack
- Chatwork
- Lark
- Naver Works
- Kakao Work
- Line
- Webex by Cisco
- Microsoft Teams
- Flock
- Loom
- Gupshup
- Disciple
- Google Chat
- Grasshopper
- Mattermost
- Kakao Work
- Flock
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for LINE WORKS, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on LINE WORKS
LINE WORKS alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
LINE WORKS pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare LINE WORKS
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