If your startup or company is entering new markets, it's certainly great! This also means you shall learn to navigate better in the translation and localization industry. What is the best way to translate a website, software, product descriptions, terms, blog and campaigns?
We made a shortlist of the most notable tools to make the translation process more efficient:
Website translation software
App translation software
Platforms to find freelance translators
Machine translation engines
Collaborative translation tools
Leading tools for website translation:
WPML enables building multilingual sites and running them on WordPress. If your website is already built on WordPress, WPLM is the easiest choice to add different language translations to the same domain without additional integrations.
Budget from 138 USD per year for Multilingual CMS, plus machine translation cost from 2 USD to 72 USD per month
Weglot is a popular plugin that offers machine translation to 100 languages and access to professional translators if needed. Learning all the features takes 1-2 months.
The cost of a website in 10 languages will cost around 170 USD per month.
A similar feature package will cost far more in Weglot compare to WPML and WIX.
If the previous two solutions rather require involving a developer, Wix lets you create a professional-looking website in multiple languages on your own. Still, it takes time, but the platform is one of the most user-friendly on the market and you can roll out a landing page in 5 languages within a few days.
Budget starts from 0, without WIX ads in the footer 8-15 USD per month.
Leading tools for app translation:
Crowdin is the leading online translation editor to manage the app localization process. It supports various file formats and enables you to create the workflow for your team. Expect around 1 month to set-up and learning process, as the tool has various features to discover.
Budget from 25 USD per month, be ready to pay 45 USD per month for more features.
The closest competitor to Crowdin, also providing similar features over the API. Although they claim the set-up is simple, you must involve a developer and also be ready to invest 1 month of your worktime to set it all up and feel comfortable using this tool.
Budget around 90 USD per month.
Leading machine translation tools:
The leading machine translation engine with over 500M users, Google Translate is the most famous machine translation in the world. It supports 140 languages.
Online translator is free of charge.
Deepl is a new machine translation engine, but already very popular. It supports English, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Polish languages. Many users confirm it's more trustworthy than Google Translate.
Pricing starts at around 6 USD per month.
Very similar to Google Translate, the second most popular translators that support over 70 languages. You can find it on Skype and Microsoft Office.
Online translator is free of charge.
Leading tools to find freelance translators
Upwork allows you to search for various freelancers and hire them online in a fast and convenient form. You can see previous completed works, ratings, and feedback for every freelance translator. You'll find a translator or proofreader for a budget as low as 5-10 eur per hour up to a professional lever of highly experienced interpreters.
An easy-to-use platform with a simple search will bring up a range of freelancers just in a couple of clicks. It's very similar to Upwork, so it's up to you
It's an online community and workplace dedicated to professional translators. You can find the largest number of translators and also translation agencies as well as and contact them directly via the ProZ platform.
Collaborative translation tools
Google Drive is used mostly to create, collaborate, and store content. We see often teams choose Google Drive to bring also their multilingual content and people together. There you can apply machine translation and share with the native speakers for proofreading, also see the changes. When your news, blog posts or product content gets ready, you paste it to your website.
Budget starts at 1.99 USD for individual use and 9.99 USD per month for larger volumes and teams.
Unlike Google Drive, this platform is designed for creating multilingual content, it also provides the world's reading machine translation and a more convenient editor to create content simultaneously in different languages.
You can add text and photos, add styles, and choose one or many languages from 140 available. Share with the team or invite freelance translators to proofread.
Budget starts at 1.99 USD and 8.99 USD per month for larger volumes.
To wrap it up, the choice of translation solutions is wide.
For more solutions, we recommend taking a look at Nimzdi Translation Solutions Atlas 2020.
As former South African President Nelson Mandela said:
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart,”
Hopefully, this shortlist will help you to navigate better in the translation industry.
Thanks for reading!