How Much Does Website Translation Cost?

Are you updating or launching a new website in 2022? Perhaps you will be adding or removing certain language versions from your website’s next evolution. Accounting for translation costs is very important as you plan a multilingual website. Entering new markets means equipping your marketing flagship (website) with the right languages to support and communicate with the right locales. So how much does website translation cost?

In the first blog of this five-part series, we provided some useful tips and a tool to help budget for document translations. See: “How much does translation costs: Budgeting for document translation”.

We will cover budgeting for all of GPI’s translation services in future blogs including:

In this blog, I am going to help you budget for website translation projects which can include a new website launch project or any website translation updates by running any scenarios you need through GPI’s Quick Quote Calculator.

Estimating Translation Costs for Websites

To estimate how much it will cost to translate your website and keep it updated, we will use GPI’s Budget Calculator also known as GPI’s Translation Quick Quote Calculator. GPI’s Translation Quick Quote Calculator (QQC) allows budget builders to provide basic metrics and receive a budgetary quote which includes tasks, timelines, and costs per language selected. There are even handy popups to guide you through the steps to get your translation quotes.

Website translation projects are more involved than just translating documents. We would always encourage a marketing team responsible for any website translations to speak to a GPI professional about their business goals, languages, locales, workflows, and platform for their website. We would conduct a walk-through of the website, discuss workflows, and download content to get exact word counts, and images that require localization, and address any cultural correctness issues. But to get a basic estimate, our Translation Quick Quote Calculator can be very helpful.

Using the Translation Budget Calculator

1. To begin, just click on the link https://www.globalizationpartners.com/translation-quote-calculator and select your project type.

2. Answer a few important questions needed to estimate a website translation project.

Questions include:

a) Name, email, word count, and start date
b) Selecting your languages
c) Do you need “formal glossary development”? – This is creating a glossary of all important keywords related to the project such as technical terms or brand names, etc.
d) Do you need “desktop publishing” – This is formatting any translated documents to match the source in terms of design, fonts, and graphics that might be accessible via your website such as brochures to download, etc.

e) Do you need “Copywriting” – This is authoring original content in another language and can sometimes be referred to as “transcreation” which is translation + copywriting and is common for marketing or ad copy.
f) What content management system (CMS) do you use for authoring and publishing your site? – There are many CMS platforms on the market today such as Sitecore, WordPress, Optimizely, Concrete5, Contentful, etc.
g) What is the site’s URL? – GPI’s team will want to take a look at the site and while the QQC provides a basic budget, actual quotes will involve a walkthrough of your site, seeing how it was designed and developed, the platform used such as Sitecore, Optimizely, WordPress, etc., and any cultural customization requirements.

HINT: The Translation Budget Calculator has a pop-up navigator to help you fill in all the fields. 😊

3. After you finish answering the questions, hit “Calculate”.

Then your website translation quote will be generated. The website translation quote will include other useful information such as the exact tasks completed in a website localization project, estimated timelines, and a breakdown of costs per language requested.

4. So now you have your website translation budget! Just print or email yourself a copy of the quote with the push of a button.

HINT: It is easy to calculate various website localization project scenarios by creating as many quotes as you need and adjusting the word counts and/or languages to suit your website translation projects. Complete a larger launch project/word count in one quote to determine what it will cost to launch the website in various languages. Then, do a smaller translation project/word count representing updated projects to get a monthly or quarterly translation budget for keeping your website up-to-date throughout the year.

I hope you found this blog “How much does website translation cost?” helpful. We will be publishing the next blog in the series on “Estimating Translation Costs for Software” soon.

How much does website translation cost? Budgeting for website translation