bangkok / sukhumvit / english-first
web design, ai integration, custom apps, erp koppeling and landing pages for expat-led f&b groups, retail brands and hospitality operators in bangkok.
we are a brussels-founded, bangkok-resident dev shop building for the western expat-business tier in thailand. western senior craft, physically in bangkok, dual eu plus pdpa compliance baked into every build, usd pricing, productized in 21 working days for the ai layer and 6 to 12 weeks for the rest. no theatrical sales cycle, no agency middlemen, no disappearing freelancer. fixed price per phase, fixed delivery date, you own the code from commit one.
book a 30 minute call01 . who this is for
the first archetype is the f&b group founder. australian, british, french or american, 40 to 55, 8 to 20 years in bangkok, married into a thai-operational reality, runs two to six venues across thong lor, ekkamai, phrom phong or sukhumvit soi 11. revenue thb 60 to 200m per year (usd 1.7 to 5.7m). the systems are duct tape. pos is a thai pos on ipads (loyverse, storehub or ocha per restaurant scale), accounting is flowaccount, payroll is on paper plus excel, the venues each have their own facebook page with no unified booking flow, and the e-commerce shop is a 6 year old squarespace that loses to lazada and shopee on every commodity line. james whitford is the archetype: he has hired three freelancers and one local agency, all of them either vanished mid-build or shipped something he could not maintain. he is looking for the bangkok dev shop that actually answers in english within 24 hours.
the second archetype is the retail or dtc operator. european or american, 35 to 50, runs a single brand with two to five physical points (asok terminal 21, central embassy, emquartier, iconsiam) plus a webshop. revenue thb 40 to 120m per year. the brand identity is strong, the photography is on point, the back of house is a mess. inventory lives in a google sheet, the website is shopify on a generic theme, the mailing list runs on klaviyo for some segments and mailchimp for others, and the line official account has 12k followers nobody is reading. the buyer here wants a unified surface (web + line + pos) that doesn't ask them to learn a new tool every quarter.
the third archetype is the boutique hospitality owner. european founder, 45 to 60, owns one to three properties (a 30 room boutique hotel on sukhumvit 31, a heritage building hostel on charoenkrung, a serviced apartments block in ari). 200 to 400 keys total. revenue thb 80 to 250m. the property management system is eZee or cloudbeds, the booking flow leaks meaningful margin to ota commissions, the direct-booking site is slow on mobile, and the staff still write check-ins by hand. the buyer here wants ai-driven yield management, direct-booking conversion lift, and a guest-facing line and english bot that doesn't insult either audience.
what these three archetypes share is the trust filter. they will not buy from a foreign agency that is thinking about expanding into thailand. they want a real bangkok studio, a real bangkok phone number that picks up, and a founder who is physically in the city. they also will not buy from a typical local agency that cannot run a serious english conversation about react state management, ai prompt engineering or eu+thai compliance overlap. the gap between those two failure modes is exactly where piexels operates: western senior craft, bangkok-based since 2024, ai-native stack, productized pricing, no theater.
the bangkok-expat market is bigger than it looks. bangkok hosts a sizeable working-western-expat population plus the long-tail of japanese, korean and singaporean operators. the expat-led economy in greater bangkok spans f&b, retail, hospitality, professional services and creative industries. amcham thailand lists hundreds of us-affiliated members, beluthai (the belgian-luxembourg chamber) maintains an active member directory, and the franco-thai and german-thai chambers each carry their own. the typical expat-led venue carries 8 to 35 employees and a software stack that grew accidentally. the addressable market for senior english-speaking dev capacity here is significantly underserved by the existing tier of bangkok agencies.
02 . what we build
01
claude integration on the operational layer. claude on the booking inbox, on the menu translation flow, on guest feedback triage. not a chatbot bolted onto the homepage, a real operational ai layer behind it. eu ai act + pdpa compliant by design, 21 working days from kickoff to live. the asymmetric play: most bangkok agencies still sell chatbot widgets, we sell the time you get back during peak season. read about ai integration→
02
web design for expat brands. next.js, framer or webflow for f&b groups, hospitality operators, retail dtc brands and creative studios. mobile lighthouse 95+, bilingual english + thai routing standard, integrated to your booking engine, pos or line oa. usd or thb billing, mollie or stripe, no plugin sprawl. read about web design→
03
custom apps and dashboards. internal dashboards for bookings, inventory, voucher systems, event registration, multi-venue reporting. next.js, supabase, you own the code from commit one. typed schemas, audit log, row-level security. built to run for 5 years without us, not built to keep a maintenance contract alive. read about custom apps→
04
erp integration for bangkok groups. flowaccount, peak, businessplus or odoo bridged to your booking layer, pos layer or webshop. soap, rest or csv connector in production. audit-log standard, pdpa-safe data flow, no manual excel reconciliation on the 27th of the month. read about erp integration→
05
landing pages for event-driven sales. rapid creative under a fixed deadline. opening weekend for a new venue, techsauce booth lp, pop-up at iconsiam, podcast launch, restaurant week takeover. 7 day delivery on a single high-converting page, line + email capture, ga4 + meta pixel ready. read about landing pages→
06
line and whatsapp business integration. line official account integrated to your crm, with multilingual templated replies, scheduled broadcasts, and pdpa-compliant opt-in flow. whatsapp business api for the english-speaking guest tail. the channel layer most bangkok agencies skip because they don't know how to wire it. read about messaging integration→
07
compliance hardening for dual eu plus thai operators. pdpa register, gdpr article 30 register, cookie consent that satisfies both, data residency mapping, dpa templates per vendor, breach-response runbook. you operate in two regulatory regimes, your stack should not pretend you only live in one. read about compliance work→
03 . expat-business case
04 . the method
phase 01
1 to 3 weeks
interviews with the founder or operations lead, audit of the current site or webshop, technical spec. paid discovery, refundable on no-fit. inventory of seasonal peak, language tail, payment methods, and any existing booking, pos or erp coupling. usd or thb pricing visibility for both the scoping and the build, so there is no rate surprise after kickoff.
phase 02
4 to 12 weeks
fixed price per phase. weekly demos. you own the code from the first commit. one engagement lead per project, no ticket system between us. next.js, framer, webflow or shopify depending on the scope. bilingual english + thai routing in the architecture from kickoff. line oa + whatsapp business api wired in as default channel layer.
phase 03
1 to 2 weeks
fixed deadline. lighthouse 95+ on mobile as acceptance criterion. security review for platform builds, audit log tested for erp bridges. pdpa register + gdpr article 30 register populated. wcag 2.1 aa accessibility. dns migration or cutover with your it partner or hosting vendor present on the call.
phase 04
90 days, included
weekly uptime check, performance triage if needed, bugfixes without limit, a small batch of adjustments per month on request, two workflow-tuning rounds for ai builds. no second contract needed to make it through high season. usd or thb billing continues, no surprise foreign-exchange line item.
05 . questions from bangkok expat operators
01
can you help with work permit or visa structuring for the project?
we are not a thai immigration lawyer, so we do not draft the work permit application itself. what we can do: introduce you to two bangkok-based legal partners who handle b visa, work permit, and thai entity setup for foreign operators, and structure the engagement so our deliverables map cleanly to a thai company's books regardless of which entity you eventually run the business under. for ongoing work, billing through your thai ltd is the cleanest path. if you are pre-entity, usd invoicing from piexels covers the gap until the thai structure is live on your side.
02
how do you handle pdpa plus gdpr dual compliance?
every build ships with both regimes covered. pdpa b.e. 2562 (sections 19, 23 to 29, 37, cross-border per section 28) register tracks thai data subjects (your thai staff, your thai customers, your thai-resident guests). gdpr article 30 register tracks eu data subjects (your eu-resident customers, your eu staff if any, eu-resident guests booking through your site). cookie consent satisfies both standards in one banner with separate granular controls. data residency mapping documents where customer data physically lives, with aws region of your choice and an eu region available where eu residents are in scope. dpas signed with every subprocessor. this is not optional and not charged extra.
03
is there a belgium-thailand tax treaty consideration on the invoices?
yes, and it is in your favor. the belgium-thailand double tax treaty has been in force since 1980 and prevents double taxation on professional services rendered between the two jurisdictions. piexels invoices in usd for international clients and in eur for european clients. for a bangkok-based thai ltd buying services, the usd invoice is the cleanest treatment with zero thai withholding required under the standard professional-services article. your thai accountant will confirm the specific filing path.
04
do you bill in usd or thb?
primary billing is usd via stripe for thai ltd clients with foreign currency capability or wise transfer for clients who prefer it. thb billing is possible through a bangkok-based partner accountant for thai-domestic clients who require local-currency invoices, with a small fx and admin uplift. eur billing is available for eu-headquartered clients. the choice is yours at the contract stage, not a constraint we impose.
05
thai entity or foreign entity, which one runs the project?
it depends on where your revenue lives. if the project serves a thai-resident customer base (a bangkok f&b group, a thai retail brand, a hospitality operator with thai guests), running it through your thai ltd is the cleanest path for vat, for local enforcement, and for any future audit. if the project is primarily for an offshore parent or an export-only customer base, a foreign entity invoicing flow is the simpler path. we help our clients evaluate boi activity 8 promotion eligibility for their digital products. if that path is open to you, we build with it in mind.
06
do you communicate over line, email or whatsapp?
default is email for project artefacts and contracts (audit trail, attachments, formal signoff). line oa or whatsapp for in-day operational chat (deploy windows, urgent fixes, weekly sync). we are physically in bangkok so face-to-face at your venue or in a coworking in asoke or thong lor is available for kickoff and go-live. the channel mix is per client, not per agency policy.
07
how do you compare to seven peaks, outsourcify or the other expat-led shops?
honestly, those are good shops and they win the engagements where the buyer wants a 30 to 80 person team. we field a small senior team (one engagement lead plus one bangkok-based senior engineer and a remote ops partner), which means lower fixed cost, faster response, and a single accountable engagement lead. for a project under usd 50k where the buyer wants speed, ownership and an ai-native stack, that is a structural advantage. for a project north of usd 200k with a 6 month delivery window and a 12 person ramp, they are the right answer. we will tell you which side of that line you are on at the discovery call.
06 . keep going
ready to talk?
start a project or ask for a 30 minute call. we answer within 24 hours, back to you with a first scope sketch or an honest no. bangkok studio, brussels hq, six years in. usd, eur or thb invoicing per buyer setup. last updated 2026-05-19.