We’re working on a change in WPML accounts, aimed to improve sustainability and give you better ongoing support.
Today we offer both yearly and lifetime accounts for WPML. The content of these accounts is identical, except for the renewal terms. Everyone who already has a Lifetime you will keep getting updates and support without any renewal payments, but we’ll stop selling new Lifetime accounts. We’ll also stop offering account upgrades from yearly to Lifetime.
The new kinds of accounts and renewals
The new kinds of accounts that we’ll offer will be:
| Account name | Initial cost | Renewal cost | What’s included |
|---|---|---|---|
| $29 | $21 |
|
|
| $79 | $59 |
|
|
| Multilingual Agency | $159 | $119 |
for yourself and 3 additional translators |
What happens with existing clients
Your current accounts will continue working normally. Our aim is to make sure that you get what you paid for and the updated pricing doesn’t disrupt your business.
Current Lifetime account holders
If you already have a Lifetime account, you keep getting updates and support without any renewal payments. You already paid for it.
Yearly account holders
As you’ve noticed, we’re adding a cap on the number of sites that you can build with the lower-cost accounts. You might be asking yourself how can this cap possibly help you and the answer is actually simple.
Today, the majority of WPML clients build several sites. Some clients build dozens and hundreds of sites. We want to give the best possible service to everyone. We love clients who build many sites with WPML and we also love clients who only need WPML for one or two sites.
By separating the account types, we can assign the right resources to both kinds of clients. If you only build a few sites, you don’t want to wait in line for support while we handle the “heavyweight” clients. And, if you’re building many many sites, you typically need different kinds of support than a developer who’s just starting out with multilingual sites.
So, by knowing who needs what, we can improve the support for everyone.
Also, we believe that if you’re using WPML to build 30 sites per year, you can afford higher support cost than a developer who uses WPML for one site and that’s it.
So, after this lengthy introduction, here’s the plan.
If you have a current Blog account, you’ll be able to stay on that account or upgrade to the new Standard account on our expense. Mind you, next year’s renewal will be $59 instead of $21.
If you have a Multilingual CMS account, you can choose to move to the new Standard account or the new Agency account. The Standard account will cost you $59/year and allows to build only 3 sites. The Agency account costs $119 per year and allows to build unlimited sites.
Higher cost and higher value
There’s no doubt, this change increases the cost of WPML. Together with upping the cost, we’re also doing our very best to increase the value that you’re getting.
A new Advanced Translation Editor
In the last year, we’ve been working on a brand new translation editor for WPML, which drastically improves translation accuracy and speed. We call it WPML’s Advanced Translation Editor.
This translation editor will have:
- High accuracy segmentation for convenient translation units
- Your own Translation Memory
- Your own Translation Glossary
- Built in spell checker
- Machine translation which you can run on each translation unit
To make a long story short, the new translation editor in WPML is at the same level as the best translation tools on the market. It’s something that translators typically pay hundreds of dollars for and you’re getting it as part of WPML.
Real-time support
We hate it when clients need to wait hours, or sometimes a whole day, to get help from our support. In the very near future, we’ll be adding real-time support to WPML. It’s going to remain a ticket system, like it’s now, but you’ll need to wait up to a couple of minutes and a supporter will take your ticket “live”. You’ll see when a supporter is reading your ticket and replying to you and the supporter will wait for your reply before moving on to the next ticket.
Why? Because we’ve checked and we see that a lot of the support tickets need a bit of back and forth for us to understand what the problem is. We realize that it’s frustrating for you to wait several hours, just to get a reply that asks you for more details. If a supporter and you work together, using live updates, to understand the problem, we’ll be able to resolve most issues in a matter of minutes.
Of course, if we need to take a copy of your site for debug, we’ll need to get back to you a bit later. However, the vast majority of the support tickets don’t need this longer debug and shouldn’t wait in that queue.
WPML’s features in the coming months
Besides a (much) better translation editor and live support, we’re working on a number of things that you’ve asked.
- Gutenberg integration – Gutenberg will soon ship as part of WordPress and WPML will be ready for it. The upcoming release of WPML already resolves all issues with the current version of Gutenberg (and there are a few). The next release will also use Gutenberg’s blocks API to offer easier translation for Gutenberg texts (we can’t do this yet as the API is still evolving).
- Media Translation for WPML’s Translation Editor and professional translation – The new Media Translation is a complete rewrite, making it possible to upload replacement images for translated content. I’ll write a lot more about it very soon.
- Better and faster word count – Many sites need translation, but it’s hard today to know how much time it will take and how much it will cost. We’re rewriting the word count tool to cover all content types (including content from page builders) and produce the word count quickly and accurately.
- Taxonomy slug translation – You’ll be able to translate the slugs of taxonomy terms.
Of course, our top priority is on stability, compatibility and performance. It goes without saying that we only add new features when existing features and integrations are stable. Our compatibility team (of 6 developers) works closely with the authors of leading theme and plugins to ensure ongoing compatibility. The dev team always prioritizes stability and security issues. We know that if your site has a problem, it’s a lot more important than a shiny new feature that we’re working on.
When
We’re working on changing the accounts system right now. The change will be ready sometime during May (it’s still “in progress” so we don’t have an exact date yet).
You can upgrade your current accounts to Lifetime now and lock-in future updates and support. You probably know that we’ll prefer to have more clients with yearly accounts than Lifetime clients, but it’s your right.
Why WPML needs to make this change
Today WPML is doing fine. We have strong development and support teams and we’re living up to our obligations. Every year, we have more clients and more websites to support. Our support team started with just one person and today includes over 35 people, speaking 10 languages. If we sell more Lifetime accounts, at some point in time we will not be able to afford the support that our clients need. Annual renewal payments for updates and support will prevent us from running into this situation. More clients » more websites » more supporters.
"What’s in it for me if I pay for yearly renewals?"
Of course, there’s a benefit for us when you pay us yearly renewals. This way, we get ongoing revenue which we’ll use for the ongoing development and support for you.
If you give it a second thought, you’ll notice that there’s a benefit for you as well. When you pay us for yearly renewals, you know that we’ll fight to make you happy. After all, if we can’t make you happy and you no longer see the value of WPML for your business, we know that you’ll cancel the renewals. When we need to make you happy every year, it’s like getting mini-married again every year. Wouldn’t it be fun if your spouse kept courting you again and again every year? That’s how we want to be for you 🙂
Ideas? Thoughts? Questions?
Please leave your comments, tell us if we’ve missed anything and we’ll get back to you.
Hi Amir,
Fair enough! Providing only lifetime accounts does put the future sustainability of a great toolset in jeopardy. You guys handled this difficult step like pros. Kudos.
Hello again!
Although you repeat that the lifetime license is for life and we do not have to pay more with your new pricing policy, in my profile, in the account settings a message is displayed that says: WPML complementary expires on 2019 -09-04.
Can you assure me that my lifetime license will be respected? Why is this message displayed?
Best regards,
I guess that you’re talking about your Toolset account. We checked and your Toolset account is not a lifetime account. You paid for a yearly Toolset account ($149). The confusing part is probably due to the fact that you originally signed up for a free account in Toolset, to use Access plugin.
Hi Amir,
I am so sorry. This time has been my mistake! Everything is correct.
Best regards.
Your message says that you will “stop offering upgrades to Lifetime accounts,” but then that “all clients with existing Lifetime accounts continue getting support and updates for life without additional charges.”
Can you please clarify, what are “upgrades,” and what are “updates”?
Sorry for the confusing language. Anyone who has a lifetime account will continue receiving updates to new versions of WPML and our support. In a few weeks, we will stop selling lifetime accounts. This includes new lifetime accounts and account upgrades from yearly to lifetime.
Thanks for letting us know about this! Can we upgrade to Lifetime (apply what we spent for Multilingual CMS to the Lifetime price) or do we have to repurchase (pay full price on top of what we’ve already paid)?
You can upgrade your existing account to Lifetime. To do this, log-in to your account in WPML.org and click on the Account Upgrade link. You will only need to pay the difference.
Hi there,
Thank you for the information!
One question though. I have a Lifetime account and I currently manage 2 websites with it: will I be able to add more websites in the future?
Thanks a lot 🙂
Yes. There’s not going to be a limit on the sites that you can register with your lifetime account.
Ok that’s great! Thanks a lot for your quick reply 🙂
If I did misunderstand, please just delete my comments. 🙂
No worries. Clients who have lifetime accounts keep getting lifetime support and updates. This change only applies to new accounts.
I ordered this life time offer a few years ago knowing I was not ready for it just yet but knew some day soon I would.
Thanks again guys. 🙂
Hello,
I’m not sure of well understanding what I’ve read:
If you have a current Blog account, you’ll be able to stay on that account or upgrade to the new Standard account on our expense. Mind you, next year’s renewal will be $59 instead of $21.
I currently have a Multilingual Blog account, so in my case as I don’t want to upgrade to a “Standard” at $59, is the new equivalent account for me will be the “Starter” at $21 ?
Best,
Yes, exactly.
Good afternoon, I imagine the hustle and bustle of answering so many questions. The answer to what I planned to consult and I saw in the comments … I have a subscription “Multilingual CMS for life (No expiry)” and understand that it will continue to function normally and have technical support, without having to make additional payments or renewals cumbersome, being able to add websites in the future. Currently, as an independent developer I only have one website, but I will add others later.
The current accounts of “Multilingual CMS for life (No expiry)” may have access to the new modifications they plan to implement in the coming months?
In short, the change in your subscription and payment plans affects the accounts of the type “Multilingual Blog” and “Multilingual CMS”, since the subscription of the type “Multilingual CMS Lifetime” for new users is no longer available.
Greetings.
Exactly
Huge kudos to WPML on how you handled this decision. Lifetime licensing is not sustainable for a software product that needs constant updating and support. Most organisations realise that by now but are incapable of communicating this and discard their existing customer base by only offering important updates to “monthly” or “yearly” paying customers. On top of that they’ll say they keep “supporting” lifetime customers to safe face.
For pretty much all of those companies I dropped my license and moved to a different product. For WPML I’ll consider changing my lifetime subscription to yearly in support of the company.
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate your feedback and understanding!
Thank you for the information and for being so transparent about the comming changes. You developed a great plugin that is key to the functioning of so many websites and your support is 5 stars. I think is only understandable that you need to take care of the financial sustainability of your business.
Kind regards
Paula
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Hi, we have bought $79 CMS version 2 weeks ago. Will it a full value Lifetime Licence with unlimited domain usage If I make an upgrade to Lifetime version in next dayxs?
thanks,
cstibi
Yes
Amir,
It is indeed a good move to inform the major changes in WPML before it actually happens – a thumbs up for this.
I am a lifetime user for WPML already. Actually I owned the WPML product (yearly license + upgrade at a later time) way before the Toolset.
However, I still don’t understand how technically difficult to re-activate the lifetime upgrade for Toolset. We all work in IT industry and there is nothing impossible.
By the time of the post, a new user can still purchase the WPML lifetime license which is quite surprising.
We all understand that it is not financial viable to offer lifetime license but your sudden change in policy is really pulling your old customer away.
For the most time, it is just a gesture of goodwill but the user will really appreciate what you make them special, just like what you did for all current WPML customer.
I know my comment will taste a bit bitter but this is just my thought for the whole incident happened for Toolset.
Dom
It’s not “impossible”, but it’s a lot more hassle than it appears. We already took out the old WooCommerce products that led to the Lifetime purchases. Adding them now would actually be a lot of headache and would likely lead to glitches in the system. Sure, we can resolve these glitches, but it’s not one click on one button.
To work around this, we offered Toolset clients compensation for the sudden change. Mercedes (our admin) is sending partial refunds for the difference between the old renewal rates and the new ones for clients who needed to update recently. Going forward, Toolset is a huge project with a lot of development and support. Typically, Toolset requires significantly more support than WPML. This is due to the nature and the flexible usage of the plugins. So, we really think that yearly subscriptions for Toolset support are essential to keep the plugins healthy.
For Toolset, absolutely every Lifetime account that we sold needs to be supported by NEW clients. You can see how problematic this can be, right? You probably would not want to own a Lifetime account to a product which goes out of business, or that starts getting neglected.
Hi, what exactly mean in Standard “…Usage of WPML’s new Advanced Translation Editor* for yourself”?
Is it that on this account I will not be able to use professionals translation?
The new Advanced Translation Editor that we’re adding doesn’t replace the interface with professional translation services. It’s an upgrade to WPML’s built-in translation editor. The new translation editor is also intended for people who use their own translators. It’s just a far better translation tool, which allows translators (your own translators) to be more productive.
Hi Amir, This new Advanced Translation Editor sounds very cool!
When do you plan to launch it?
We’re preparing for a beta next week and we’re about 4 weeks (very rough estimate) from a production release.
When will this Advanced Translation Editor become available?
It will be available with WPML 4.0, which we’re planning to have ready in a few weeks (less than 2 months from now). We’re going to have a beta with it very soon.
Hi,
existing lifetime subscribers will continue to get updates, but will we be able to add new sites to our lifetime accounts?
Bulent
Yes!
Currenty with every type of account I can manage unlimited websites. Will this be the same with the new account types? Or can I manage only one site with a starter account and three sites with a standard account?
Does this mean I must upgrade to a agency account if I currently manage more than three websites?
Oder what does “Automatic updates and support” mean?
How many accounts do you have? Normally a developer needs to have only one account. You don’t need a separate account per each client.
The account change that I described in this post isn’t “live” yet. Anyone with a Lifetime account will also get “unlimited sites”. We announced this change in advance, so if you need to upgrade, you can do this and get all the benefits.
After we change our accounts system, only people with old Lifetime accounts or new Agency accounts will be able to register unlimited sites.
Upgrade -> Change the account from one kind to a bigger kind.
Update -> Get new versions of WPML.
I hope this helps.
My main question is: Currently with EVERY ACCOUNT I can add unlimited websites.
What will happen if I have a blog account with 20 websites??? Do I have to delete some pages?
We came to these account changes after we carefully checked how many different WPML clients actually build. Almost nobody with the Blog account had built 20 sites. If you do, please contact us separately and we’ll make sure that you don’t need to pay a huge difference going forward. Of course, nobody needs to delete pages. The account changes relate to how many websites you can register for automatic plugin updates. What’s the point of deleting pages from these sites?
Hello – How about nonprofits? Thanks.
If you got a non-profit account from us, we’ll extend it for you without additional payment. Our admin will have a quick look to check that non-profits are indeed using our complementary accounts as intended.
Hello,
For lifetime Accounts how many translators can use WPML’s new Advanced Translation Editor?
Also, I only have one site, but if I remain yearly is there a way to have more than 3 translators with access to WPML’s new Advanced Translation Editor?
Thank you
We’re not sure yet about the pricing for the new translation editor. Our plan is to make it free for our clients (the people who buy WPML from us), but to ask for some payment from the people who run the sites that you build. If you are building sites for yourself, you will not need to pay for the new translation editor. When you build sites for your own clients, we will ask them for some small payment to use it.
Once we launch the beta, which will be free for all, we will ask clients and end-users for feedback. We want to make this a helpful tool, which drastically speeds up translation work and is worth its cost.
Hi Amir,
Will the WPML CAT-Tool (new translation editor) be a separate program/application, which I can download to my computer or will it be on the server connected with the website?
When I have a blog with multiple guest authors will all of them be able to use the translation editor?
I have used Trados to make translations. Will it be possible to transfer Trados translation memories to WPML translation editor? Is there some limit, how big the translation memories can be?
Best regards,
Anni
Sorry for the slow response. I was away and just got back today. Our new translation editor (CAT) is hosted software. It runs on our server and integrates directly with WPML. So, it’s not something that you’ll be able to download to install locally.
We’re still working out the pricing options for this new translation editor. We want to make sure that you get good value and you don’t feel like using this translation editor only makes sense for huge projects.
I’ll also check about importing translation memories. Do you think that the imported translation memory will significantly reduce translation time, or is this “nice to have”?
A translation memory definitely helps to manage translations. Because everything is saved in the memory, there is no need to translate something twice. It is a huge help when your texts have recurring content. When you edit a text you can translate only part of it first and later continue with a new version and all partial translations you did before come automatically.
As I got Trados almost 20 years ago, I felt it was too good to be true.
Is there the auto-suggest feature in WPML translation editor? That the editor suggests words from your glossary (vocabulary database) as you translate?
It would be better that there is also a possibility to manage translations without Internet connection (in case that the connection is down). That is why I would prefer a software that I can download to my computer. Why not develop the translation editor to a fully-featured CAT software that can upload the texts from my computer to the website (while updating translation memories in the same time)? I would not expect you to give me the software free of charge. The hosted software could be free, but I would be ready to pay for a software that I can use without Internet connection.
Thanks. Sure our Advanced Translation Editor will have a Translation Memory. We know how important it is. Right now, we don’t have an importer from the TM of Trados. I was asking about the importance of this import. I’m asking because we did run a sample import on a very large site and we noticed that the TM that’s accumulated from many years doesn’t often cover NEW texts. In our benchmark, the real power of a good TM is to handle texts that often repeat in close proximity on the same site. At least, this is what our data shows.
We haven’t considered auto-suggest coming from glossary. This is a great idea and I’ll add it to our wishlist.
I understand now why you’re looking for a downloadable tool. Unfortunately, what we’re building can only work online. However, it does have auto-save, so if the connection goes down, you’re only losing the segment you’re typing in right now.
Theoretically, we could have implemented this in different ways. Each has pros and cons. We went with an online editor. I realize that it has some disadvantages compared to a local tool, but it also has some very significant advantages. For instance, there’s no IT cost for you, you get updates continuously and it all “just works”. This sounds like a small thing, but we’re talking about pretty complex material to translate. There’s a very big benefit in being able to deploy updates quickly.
If there is no TM importer from Trados, it would be a huge help that one can create translation memories quickly using old texts. In Trados there is the feature, where one can align an article in two languages, and mark which sentences go together/are equivalent.
For software this important it does not mean so much, if there is something to pay for it. The cheapest version of Trados would cost me round 500 €. With updates and so on I have in recent years had no problem. I still use Trados 2009 and it works perfectly for me, although I have not had any updates, because Trados don’t support it any more. It just works.
The main reason, why I would like to have a local translation editor is that when I am translating I would like to have all browser capacity for searching vocabulary. I usually have 10-20 pages open and sometimes the connection gets very slow. It would be really annoying to wait for the translation editor to respond.
Outrageous, I just payed $195 in October 2017, I want my money back!
Robin, no changes for you. All our customers with existing Lifetime accounts continue getting support and updates for life without additional charges.
I’ve misread, the e-mail clearly states:
All clients with existing Lifetime accounts continue getting support and updates for life without additional charges. If you have a yearly account, this upcoming change affects your renewal or upgrade options.
Happy as a kite!
Yes, exactly. I’m glad you found it.
I’m glad that I trust in your services early on and decided to stick with wpml for lifetime.
I’m glad that you guys respect that trust of mine to continue our promised.
And I wish you don’t change your mind on that.
I plan to make a content about making website and I will include wpml in the translate option.
Thank you for your hard work guys.
– Topper
Hi guys!
I hope the new “starter” edition will be limited to one site, but full featured. I just made a new website with Flotheme. They say I need the WPML CMS version. And I find it way too expensive (here in Eastern Europe we still have smaller incomes.
I’d actually been thinking about this over the past 6 months or so, in that how can it be sustainable and that it would be fairer at some point to change to an annual renewal.
I’ll work out when my account would expire given the new pricing model and change to a yearly account at that stage.
Something i’m not fully understanding… If we were to upgrade to the lifetime account now, which level of account would that give us when you change to the three tier structure?
Do lifetime accounts become Standard or Agency accounts?
This will determine what i will suggest that our company do.
Thanks,
Glen Allan
IS Coordinator
BASSBOSS
Lifetime subscriptions will be always Lifetime. This is covered here “You can upgrade your current accounts to Lifetime now and lock-in future updates and support.”
My specific question is about what level the account would be since the types of accounts will be different.
I’ll qualify it slightly more:
Does a ‘Multilingual CMS Lifetime’ account become a Standard account or an Agency account?
Thanks!
The Multilingual CMS Lifetime will continue to exists and will maintain the same name. This is not going to be changed.
I’m asking about feature parity. The name is incidental. The question is whether the Current CMS Lifetime account will have the same features and benefits of which kind of account (?).
For instance, the agency account type will now have multiple user access to the advanced editor (when it’s available). Will the CMS Lifetime account also have this, or will it have the features of just the standard account?
Please answer regarding the new account types and the features they have. Just saying it will be the same does not address the questions being asked.
thanks,
Glen Allan
Customers with Lifetime subscriptions have access to all WPML plugins and features, no changes here. The only “new” thing that is mentioned in the blog post is the new translation editor. People with current Lifetime account will also get free access to our new translation editor, like clients who will buy the new accounts.
Smart,
The response times for support are probably justified by the massive amount of plugins you have to at least try to adapt to. I think wpml has a lot of room to improvement on the already great product.
Keep it up!
Hi
I didn’t know this, i have purchased a lifetime license, now i am confused, i will have what i have purchased(Multilingual CMS Lifetime – Pay once, get everything and UNLIMITED website + UNLIMITED updates) or not?
Hello Ivan,
Yes the existing lifetime subscriptions will remain untouched.
Best,
OK, thanx!
That means i finally get something good!