How Much Does Website Translation Cost in 2026?
How Much Does Website Translation Actually Cost in 2026? (With Real Numbers)
"How much does it cost to translate my website?"
It's the first question everyone asks. And the honest answer is: anywhere from nothing to tens of thousands of euros, depending entirely on how you do it.
That's not helpful on its own. So let's break it down by method, by site size, and by language count — with real numbers you can use to make a decision today.
A note on the numbers: our own prices are exact and current (checked against polyglot-translate.cloud pricing). Competitor prices were checked against each vendor's own pricing page in 2026 — but plans change, so confirm on their site before you buy. Per-word human-translation rates are typical industry ranges, not quotes. Weglot lists prices in USD; everyone else here is in EUR.
The Quick Calculator
Before we dive into details, here's a rough sizing guide:
Your site size:
- Small (30 pages, no e-commerce): ~500 unique strings
- Medium (100 pages + blog): ~1,500 strings
- WooCommerce (100 pages + 100 products): ~3,800 strings
- Large (500 pages + 200 products): ~10,000 strings
Multiply by target languages to get total translation volume.
Example: Medium site (1,500 strings) × 5 languages = 7,500 translations needed.
One thing that trips people up: usage-based plugins meter you in words (or, in our case, characters), not "strings." A typical string is a handful of words, so a 1,500-string site is often 30,000–60,000 words. Keep that in mind when you compare a per-word plan to a per-character one.
Now let's see what each method costs.
Method 1: DIY — Free (If You Speak the Languages)
Cost: €0 What you need: a free translation plugin + you speak the target languages
Install Polyglot Translate (free), Polylang (free), or TranslatePress (free). Manually translate each string yourself.
Realistic for: Personal blogs, small sites, 1-2 languages you actually speak fluently.
Not realistic for: 5+ languages (unless you're a polyglot), sites with 100+ pages, WooCommerce stores, languages you don't speak.
Time investment: 30 seconds per string × 7,500 strings = ~62 hours of work.
Method 2: Hire a Professional Translator
Typical cost: €0.08–0.25 per word, depending on where you source the work:
- Freelance platforms (Upwork, Fiverr): lower end of the range
- Translation agencies: mid-to-upper range
- Specialized industry translators (legal, medical): the highest range
Roughly what that means, if you fully human-translate everything:
| Site Type | Words | × 5 Languages | Ballpark | |-----------|-------|----------------|----------| | Small blog | ~5,000 | 25,000 | a few thousand € | | Medium site | ~15,000 | 75,000 | five figures | | WooCommerce | ~30,000 | 150,000 | well into five figures | | Large portal | ~80,000 | 400,000 | five-to-six figures |
Pros: Highest quality, nuanced, culturally adapted. Cons: Expensive, slow (2-8 weeks), and you still need a plugin to display the translations on your site.
Method 3: Translation Plugin (Subscription Model)
These plugins translate your site automatically using cloud AI and charge based on usage. The defining trait: you pay roughly the same every year, forever — your content barely changes, but neither does the bill.
Weglot (as of 2026, priced in USD)
| Plan | Monthly | Words | Languages | |------|---------|-------|-----------| | Free | $0 | 2,000 | 1 | | Starter | $17 | 10,000 | 1 | | Business | $33 | 50,000 | 3 | | Pro | $92 | 200,000 | 5 | | Advanced | $329 ($3,290/yr) | 1,000,000 | 10 |
Pro works out to roughly $1,100/year, and it scales up sharply from there. Over three years that's well over $3,000 for a site whose content hasn't changed.
The subscription problem: you pay the same amount in Year 3 as in Year 1. Nothing you translated last year reduces this year's bill.
Method 4: Translation Plugin (License Model)
These plugins charge a yearly license — not per word — plus a pool of AI translation credits/words on top.
WPML (as of 2026)
| Plan | Price | Sites | AI credits | |------|-------|-------|------------| | Multilingual Blog | €39/yr | 1 | none | | Multilingual CMS | €99/yr | 3 | 90,000/yr | | Multilingual Agency | €199/yr | unlimited | 180,000/yr |
Extra auto-translate credits are billed on top when you exceed the pool.
TranslatePress (as of 2026)
| Plan | Price | Sites | AI Words | |------|-------|-------|----------| | Personal | €99/yr | 1 | 50,000 | | Business | €199/yr | 3 | 200,000 | | Developer | €349/yr | unlimited | 500,000 |
The license-model advantage: predictable base cost, no per-word surprises. The catch: the AI words refresh each cycle and get consumed — translate the same content again next year and it counts again.
Method 5: Polyglot Translate (Translation Memory Model)
Here's where the math changes. Polyglot Translate has two ways to buy:
WordPress bundles (annual — all five addons included)
| Bundle | Price | Sites | Characters / month | |--------|-------|-------|--------------------| | Bundle ALL | €79/yr | 1 | 1M | | Bundle Pro | €129/yr | 3 | 1.5M | | Bundle Agency | €199/yr | 10 | 5M | | Bundle Agency+ | €299/yr | 25 | 10M |
Prefer addons à la carte? Pro is €39/yr, WooCommerce €29/yr, Elementor €25/yr, SEO €25/yr, and Contact Form 7 support is free. The Pro addon also adds a +500,000 characters/month bonus on top of your baseline while it's active.
Cloud API plans (monthly — for developers integrating directly)
| Plan | Price | Characters / month | |------|-------|--------------------| | Free | €0 | 10,000 | | Starter | €9/mo | 1M | | Growth | €29/mo | 4M | | Scale | €79/mo | 12M | | Enterprise | €199/mo | 30M |
And the free tier — 10,000 characters every month, 1 language, no card — is a real starting point, not a time-limited trial.
The Translation Memory effect on cost
The key difference from every plan above: you're metered in characters, and the first time a string is translated it's stored in your Translation Memory. Every later request for that same string is served from memory — free. Duplicate strings on a page are even deduplicated locally before any cloud call is made.
So your usage curve bends down over time:
Month 1: Translate everything. Heavy character use. ← the one big spend
Month 3: TM already covers repeated content. Usage drops.
Month 6: Most requests are TM hits. Usage is a fraction of month 1.
Year 2: New/changed content only. Baseline mostly untouched.
A stable catalog on Bundle Pro (€129/yr, 1.5M chars/mo) typically settles well under its monthly character pool after the first push — so in practice Year 2 and Year 3 are the flat €129 renewal with characters to spare, not a fresh full-price translation run.
Three-year shape: Medium WooCommerce site, 5 languages (as of 2026)
| Method | Cost pattern over 3 years | |--------|---------------------------| | Human translator | Very high Year 1, plus updates every year after | | Weglot Pro | ~$1,100/yr, every year — over $3,000 total | | WPML Multilingual CMS | €99/yr license + credits as you consume them | | TranslatePress Business | €199/yr, with AI words consumed each cycle | | Polyglot Translate — Bundle Pro | €129/yr, and effective usage trends down as TM fills |
At list price, Polyglot's Bundle Pro is in the same ballpark as the license-model plugins. The difference is the direction: with a consumable-credit plugin your translation allowance resets and gets spent again every year; with Polyglot the memory you built last year keeps serving this year for free.
Method 6: MTPE (Machine Translation + Post-Editing)
The professional translation industry's own approach: AI translates, humans review and fix. Typical cost is €0.05–0.15 per word — meaningfully cheaper than pure human translation, at near-human quality on your important pages.
The pragmatic hybrid most stores land on:
- Critical content (your top pages, checkout, key products — say 10% of the site) via MTPE.
- Everything else via Polyglot Translate's Magic Translate, where Translation Memory drives ongoing cost toward zero.
You get human-grade quality where it matters and automated coverage everywhere else, for a fraction of translating the whole site by hand.
Which Method Is Right for You?
| Your situation | Best method | |---------------|-------------| | Personal blog, 1-2 languages, you speak them | DIY + free plugin (€0) | | Small site, trying it out | Polyglot Translate free tier (10K chars/mo) | | Business site / WooCommerce store, several languages | Polyglot Translate Bundle Pro (€129/yr) | | Agency, multiple sites | Polyglot Translate Bundle Agency / Agency+ (€199–€299/yr) | | Enterprise, legal/medical content | Hybrid (Polyglot + MTPE on critical pages) | | Everything must be perfect | Human translation + MTPE |
The Real Cost of NOT Translating
Here's the number nobody calculates: the cost of staying monolingual.
- A large majority of consumers spend more time on — and are far more likely to buy from — sites in their own language.
- A store making €10,000/month can leave a meaningful slice of international revenue on the table simply by shipping in one language.
A €129/yr Bundle Pro pays for itself the moment it earns you a handful of extra international sales. Translation isn't an expense — it's an investment with a measurable return.
Start Free, Scale When Ready
You don't have to commit to anything today. Polyglot Translate's free tier gives you:
- 10,000 characters every month
- 1 language
- Full Translation Memory
- No time limit
- No credit card
Translate a few pages. See the quality. Watch TM start saving you characters. Then decide if you want more languages or one-click Magic Translate.
Related reading:
- WPML vs Weglot vs TranslatePress vs Polyglot — feature-by-feature comparison
- AI Translation vs Human Translation — when to use each
- How to Translate Your WooCommerce Store — step-by-step guide
- What Is Polyglot Translate Cloud? — how Translation Memory works
