Here’s your list of services that we use for both our personal and professional life in Thailand.
Personal Services
Finance
Bank Account
Our main bank account is with Kasikorn. They have good English support and an impressive online banking system. My ATM card is also from Kasikorn.
In addition to Kasikorn, Bangkok Bank (good exchange rates, but otherwise prefer Kasikorn) and SCB (great app, and its securities business now operates under InnovestX for buying stocks) also offer a good banking system that works well if you plan to stay here long-term.
Sending Money
Wise is our regular money transfer service when we need to send money internationally. It has one of the lowest fees we’ve found so far. It’s cheaper than Bangkok Bank’s bank transfers for smaller amounts (for high amounts – e.g. US$10,000+, it depends – sometimes Bangkok Bank is cheaper).
Health
Health Insurance
Our founder had been insured with ACS with their health in Asia plan for many years when he was in Thailand. It cost him THB7,444 a month at the time but covered most of his health related costs, including regular visits at Bumrungrad Hospital and dental treatment at BIDC.
Now he is no longer insured with ACS since he moved to the United States.
One thing to keep in mind about ACS is that there is no significant cap on rate increases. In theory an insurance company can stop selling a plan, launch a new plan and then just massively increase the rates on the old plan.
If you’re looking for 20+ years of coverage, a globally-known brand name insurance plan may be a good choice. However, the value-for-money tends to be worse for them (e.g. lower coverage limits, or way higher premiums).
Sometimes the maximum coverage age plan on those make 20+ years of coverage impossible anyway. In the end you get what you pay for and the best you can do is avoid the really bad apples.
This said, he was happy with ACS and wouldn’t hesitate to include them in his list of recommendations.
If you wanted to look for a new plan, you can also take a look at LUMA.
Hospital
Bumrungrad Hospital is our go to hospital for general illnesses and health checkups. It’s one of the most famous hospitals in Thailand with quality medical service and comfortable facilities. It cost us around THB3,500 per visit when we last checked, but everything was reimbursed by an insurance company.
If you have to pay out of pocket, the best value for your money is probably Sukhumvit Hospital, or one of the religious hospitals, like St. Louis or Camillian.
Dental
All of our founder’s dental treatment is done at BIDC. Although they charge around 25% higher than other dentists, BIDC offers international treatment standards and English-speaking doctors. Also, it’s right near my place. His dental treatment costs are also covered in my insurance package.
Fitness
We regularly workout at Fitness 7 Ratchada. It has all equipment I need at THB1,600 a month. The best part? It’s next to our place and it’s open twenty-four hours. WeFitness in Esplanade is also decent. In general, if you like classes, the mall gyms can be good deals. They often have special sales at events (keep an eye open for fitness fairs at convention centers).
Health Checkups
You can do a blood test for creatinine and BUN with BRIA Labs. It was very cheap. Although it looks more like an office than hospital, it’s probably the cheapest way to get a health checkup in Thailand.
Rent
Handypersons
The place we are living has a good handyperson. So, every time we have any problem with the room, I just contact the maid who actually knows all the people around the area. Seekster is another option where you can find both handypersons and maids online.
Maids
Similar to a handyperson, we are using a maid who works inside the building. She charges us 400 baht each time for standard cleaning. For washing our bed set she charges us an additional 250 baht.
Other option would be finding a maid online. Lately there are more websites created specifically for this purpose. The most popular one at the moment is Ayasan.
Laundry
We ask the same maid who cleans our room to do laundry. She charges 5 baht per piece for washing normal shirts that don’t require ironing.
For shirts and pants that need ironing, we use the laundry service inside our apartment building. They charge me 800 baht every month for sixty pieces of clothing.
Shopping
Groceries
Most of groceries are purchased online through Tops, Lotus’s, and Big C. 7-ELEVEN is mainly for water and snacks.
Clothing
Uniqlo is good for clothes. They also offer regular discounts every month, providing at least 30% off of certain products.
Utilities
Internet
True Online is the internet we use in our place. There’s no special reason behind it. But so far our internet has been running stable and fast.
Phone
A lot of us use a postpaid package from dtac, which is now part of True Corporation. They regularly have competitive prices for phone plans, which often include unlimited internet.
Traveling
Flights
Every time we fly, we will research the price first using Google Flights. But when we go through with the actual booking, we use Expedia–but only if the price we find on Expedia is lower than what’s shown on Google Flights. ITA matrix search is good if we fly internationally and want to collect miles (but it lacks lots of low cost carriers).
Hotels
Airbnb is our favorite website when it comes to accommodation bookings. You can get a great room at a good price. In case the place we’re going to doesn’t have Airbnb, we use Priceline or TripAdvisor. Although many times these two sites have similar hotel listings, prices for some hotels can be different because of their respective deals.
Car Rentals
It can be better to rent a car with a driver. You can get the cheapest rates by negotiating with taxi drivers in Bangkok. They’re happy to drive all day, and unlike professional car rentals and drivers, taxi drivers’ rates aren’t charged by the hour.
Tour Company
We don’t have a preference for any tour companies. Every time we travel, we contact a local guide in the area we’re visiting. Usually, we find tour booths at the airport that aren’t a hard sell and have many customers. They tend to provide better prices and services.
Another hint for finding off-the-beaten track tour guides are the forums or Q&A sections of local forums on couchsurfing.org.
Another favorite method is to ask officials at national parks whether they are interested in doing part-time work as a personal guide.
Travel Insurance
Every time we travel, we’re likely to purchase travel insurance from World Nomads. They have good prices, coverage, and cover many countries, including Thailand. We’re not sure if they’re actually the best.
However, our site founder had one major claim with them involving hundreds of thousands of baht. And they approved the claim.
Transportation
Grab
Grab is a good method for calling a taxi in Bangkok, especially when we need to be picked up from a specific location, like our apartment. Other than this, we commute regularly via MRT and BTS because our apartments are close to the MRT station.
Language
Learn Thai
Our site founder can speak, listen to, read, and write Thai at a competent level. He can handle basic communication in daily life as well as working in the company with our Thai employees. He learned Thai using private tutors and through the Thai intensive program at Chulalongkorn University.
Due to privacy reasons, we are unable to list the names of his private tutors. If you’re interested, please contact us directly through this page.
Legal
Tax
For personal tax issues in Thailand, including filing taxes, we use Switchaya Nukhan. She’s the same accountant we use for our company in Thailand. Because we trust her, she handles everything. All we need to do is add our signatures.
Professional Services
Legal
Accounting and Tax
All accounting and tax matters are handled by Switchaya Nukhan. This includes payroll, tax filing, social security, tax refunds, and so on.
Visa and Work Permits
We hired an office manager in the company that handles all visa and work permit issues for every expat in our company. Being supported by BOI, most of the time our visa and work permit issues are resolved in only a few visits to the One Stop-Service Center.
Other
For a lot of general, run-of-the-mill stuff, we ask Pongkarn Khunphasee from Banchee Legal House for advice. For mission critical stuff (things that can get the company sued or steeped in hot water, or for very high value stuff), we work with Tilleke & Gibbins and check which of their lawyers is highly specialized for the issue at hand. For tax stuff we like Law Alliance.
Finance
Credit Cards
We use credit cards from Bangkok Bank as our main corporate credit cards. They were one of the first banks that approved us in Thailand. They also have one of the best exchange rates. This helps us because many services we use are from overseas.
Bank Accounts
We have two bank accounts for our company: Kasikorn and Bangkok Bank. Kasikorn Bank is used for dealing with local companies and transferring salaries, while Bangkok Bank is used for receiving money and paying service providers in other countries. Exchange rates are the main reason we use them.
Another reason we use Bangkok Bank is because they were willing to accept USD checks right away, whereas Kasikorn said we needed to have the company for six months and the account for three months before they accepted checks in USD.
HR
Recruitment
Every time we need to recruit new employees, we will post ads on Jobsdb by SEEK. Although the advertising rate is higher than other job posting websites, the quality of the candidates is also better.
Another effective way to recruit new employees is through personal connections. We offer a 5,000 baht referral fee to anyone who can help us successfully recruit a new candidate.
Sometimes people we know just recommend promising candidates without us having to pay anything.
Networking with people who work at universities is also a good practice. They tend to give us a heads-up when there is a promising graduate, or they can pass on our job ads to those promising graduates.
Offices
Office Spaces
We use a serviced office from Regus. With the cost combined, it’s slightly more expensive than our previous physical office at Forum Tower in Ratchada. However, it also lessens our administrative work as well.
Office Supplies
Every month we order all office supplies online from Officemate. They have all the supplies we need and can deliver directly to our company within a day or two.
Office Furniture
Officemate is still our go to place when it comes to buying furniture. Our favorite branch is in Central Rama 9. The store is big and is located next to a supermarket.
We also buy furniture from Ikea. They have many choices, styles, and good prices.
Websites
Domain Registration
Due to the nature of our online business, we have tried many domain registration services. As of now, we use internetbs because of its free privacy service.
Web Hosting
ExpatDen is hosted on Hetzner. So far we’re happy with their service.
Security
To improve security and performance of our website, we use a paid service from Cloudflare. In short, it’s a CDN and security service that can help improve performance and block spam and attacks.
Freelance Services
Content Writing
In addition to our in-house editorial team, we use strict editorial guidelines and recruit authors through freelancing websites like Upwork and textbroker–our two favorites.
For other freelance work, we use fiverr.
Other
Messenger Services
In the past we used a motorcycle taxi for any messaging services, including sending documents to other companies or picking up important documents from the Department of Business Development.
However, when we moved to a new location, we couldn’t find a reliable motorcycle taxi anymore. So, we use skootar instead.
Data Storage
Running a business in Thailand requires a lot of paperwork and we simply don’t have enough space for that.
So, we use a data storage service from DataSafe and keep all unused documents there. If we need a document, they can deliver the document to us within a day or two.
Transportation
We use Grab every time our employees need to go out for company business. You can set up a company profile using their app and have the expense paid directly through your company’s credit card.
File Management
We use dropbox business plans to keep all company documents and website backed up. This way all my employees can have access to the company’s document no matter where they are. This is especially useful for my accountant and administrative team.
Communication
In addition to traditional email, we use Google Meets for my group video call meetings and international calls. For sending sensitive data such as passwords, we use Signal. It’s an encrypted messenger service that can automatically delete messages after a set amount of time.
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