What does it cost to fight?
The Plead-or-Max Simulator shows you years. This page shows you THB. Plug in your own lawyer fees and living costs — the calculator does the time-cost math against the same statutory maxima and the §78 plea discount. No fabricated fee figures.
Inputs
All figures in Thai baht (THB). Defaults come from the same public sources cited across the site; you can change them all.
Offence
Drives the statutory maximum and the §78-discounted sentence.
Lawyer fee — contested defence
The all-in cost of fighting through trial. Negotiated; no public fee schedule exists in Thailand.
Lawyer fee — early guilty plea
Typically a fraction of the contested-defence fee. Still negotiated; still your number.
Monthly lost wages while incarcerated
Default = Thai minimum monthly wage at 26 working days (~USD 245). Higher earners should raise this.
Monthly family-visit travel
Cost of family members visiting the detention facility — bus, fuel, lodging. Default zero; set to your situation.
Expected remand months if you contest
No public dataset publishes per-offence remand time at the granularity needed; 6 months is a conservative starting point, with multi-year remands documented for §112 and Category-1 drug cases.
Three scenarios
Each total = lawyer fee + (months affected × monthly cost of time). The bar length is proportional to the largest scenario shown.
Fight and acquit
6 mo on remand → released. No sentence served.
Fight and convict
6 mo remand + 15 yr statutory maximum, no §78 reduction.
Plead early
7.5 yr — half the statutory maximum (Thai Criminal Code §78).
What this is meant to show. Even with conservative inputs, the cost of fighting and being convicted routinely exceeds the cost of pleading early — and that is before you add the legal-defence fee gap. The plea discount only saves money when you contest, lose, and serve the full maximum; the system is structured so that the rational private decision is to plead, regardless of guilt.
This calculator is a structural illustration, not legal advice. It uses statutory maxima as the conviction-side cost; actual sentences vary case by case. Pre-plea remand and credit-for-time-served interact in ways this page does not model.
Sources
- Daily minimum wage rate by province — effective 1 January 2024 — Thailand Ministry of Labour, January 2024
- World Prison Brief — Thailand — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research, December 2024
Thai Criminal Code §78 — one-half plea reduction · Office of the Council of State.
Simulator
The same logic in years, not THB.
Bail page
Why remand is so often the deciding factor.
Reform proposals
Structural fixes that change the cost math.