You use credits to pay for automatic translation in WPML. You can buy prepaid credits and assign them to a website, or choose the pay-as-you-go model and get an invoice at the end of the month.
How do automatic translation credits work?
In WPML, credits act like currency. When you send text for automatic translation, WPML calculates the cost in credits. Translating one word into each language will cost you:
| Translation Engine | Number of Credits |
|---|---|
| Private Translation Cloud (PTC) | 4 |
| Google Translate | 2 |
| DeepL | 2 |
| Microsoft Translator | 1 |
How do I get credits?
If you have a Multilingual CMS or Multilingual Agency account, WPML gives you 90,000 and 180,000 free credits respectively, which are typically enough to translate medium-sized sites to 2 or 3 languages..
You can get more credits in two ways:
- Buying prepaid credit packages on wpml.org and assigning them to your site(s).
- Signing up to pay-as-you-go from inside WordPress and paying for what you used at the end of each month.
Prepaid Credits
WPML offers several prepaid credit packages, ranging in size and price. To buy a package and start using prepaid credits on your website:
- Go to WPML’s pricing for automatic translation.
- Buy a prepaid credit package.
- Log into your WPML account.
- In the sidebar, go to Manage credits for Automatic Translation.
- Locate the website you want to add credits to and click Add/remove credits.
- In the pop-up that opens, click Add credits.
- Enter the amount you want and click Add credits.
You can now spend these credits on your website.
Pay-as-you-go
The pay-as-you-go option gives you the lowest cost-per-word and the easiest management. When using this option, you only pay when translating content. If you don’t translate – you don’t pay anything.
To start using pay-as-you-go on your website:
- Log into your website’s WordPress admin.
- Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard.
- At the top, click the Translation Tools tab
- Click the Activate pay-as-you-go button on the right.
- Enter your credit card information and click Activate.
Your website will now consume credits as you translate content.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many credits do I need to translate a website?
You can get the number of credits you need to translate your website using our automatic translation calculator. If you already have WPML on your site, you can see the credits cost in WPML’s Translation Dashboard:
1. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard.
2. In the filter under Step 1, click the Select All button on the right.
3. Scroll down to Step 2 and select Translate automatically.
4. WPML will now show you the cost in credits for translating your entire website under the table.
How can I remove credits from my website?
To remove credits from your website:
1. Log into your WordPress admin dashboard.
2. Go to WPML → Translation Dashboard and click the Translation Tools tab.
3. Under Overview, click the Transfer credits to wpml.org section.
4. Enter the number of credits you want to remove and click Transfer credits.
How can I remove credits from a website I don’t have access to?
To remove credits from a website you don’t have access to:
1. Log into your WPML account.
2. Go to the Register WPML on your sites tab.
3. Locate your site and click the Delete icon on the right.
All credits assigned to this site will now be returned to your WPML account.
How does WPML calculate credits when translating from a language with special characters?
When translating from a language with special characters, like Japanese, Korean, or Chinese, WPML converts characters into words to determine how many credits it’ll cost. The conversion WPML uses is total characters x 0.55.
For example, translating 1,000,000 Chinese characters becomes 550,000 words. Once you have your total word count, you can then calculate your translation cost using WPML’s automatic translation calculator