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[Closed] Potential risk: automatic translation re-charges credits for already translated content

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This topic contains 3 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Christopher Amirian 2 months ago.

Assisted by: Christopher Amirian.

Author Posts
May 1, 2026 at 9:02 am #18007448

fritsB-3

Hello WPML Support Team,

I would like to flag a potential issue in the Translation Dashboard and credit management workflow related to automatic translation.

Current behavior
In the Translation Dashboard, users select pages/components to translate.
If this selection includes content that has already been translated before, and the user does not explicitly change the translation method per language (Automatic / Translate myself / Assign translator), WPML will automatically re-translate the content and deduct credits again.
This happens even though:

WPML already knows the content has been translated before
Credits have already been charged for that same content

As a result, the user pays twice for the same translation.

Why this is a problem
While technically this can be avoided by carefully adjusting the per-language translation method, this places all responsibility on the user. From a product and UX perspective, this is a risky setup, especially for larger websites or agencies managing many pages and languages.
One moment of oversight can immediately lead to unintended and irreversible credit usage. This could lead to legal claims to WPML and hence for a significant financiel risk especially when it accumulated over longer time.

Suggestion
It would be helpful if WPML could implement at least one of the following:

A check that prevents automatic re-translation of already translated content by default
A warning or confirmation message before credits are deducted again
A clearer visual indicator that credits will be re-charged

I’m not raising this as a complaint, but as a risk worth addressing proactively — it is easy to imagine less forgiving customers escalating this in the future.

Thank you for considering this feedback.

Kind regards,
Frits
May 3, 2026 at 12:21 pm #18009324

Christopher Amirian
WPML Supporter since 07/2020

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Asia/Yerevan (GMT+04:00)

Hi Frits,

Welcome to WPML support. I created a video to show what the expected workflow is. I wonder if you could provide a workflow that causes the problem recording your screen such as loom.com so I can understand the difference between mine and yours?

hidden link

Thanks.
May 6, 2026 at 4:51 am #18015473

fritsB-3

Hi Christopher,

I made a sequence of the steps I just took that Illustrate the same issue in a slightly different way.

The main page of the site was translated in all languages and showed up on the site as expected.

I wanted the multi language setup to have different hero images in various languages.

So I added all the images to the Media library.

All languages therefore still showed the image of the original language.

I therefore pressed the edit buton of Fr and De to check if I needed to add the images manually on each page. It however turned out that WPML does that much more elegantly.

But I did not have the media translation plugin installed yet as I did not yet know of its excistence. (Personally I would not create a separate plugin for every component of WPML or make sure that the client is offered a process that all components are installed before using WPML, but that is a separate issue.)

If you follow the image sequence then you can even see that the translated version of Fr and De exist in the published pages section.

However as there is a translation job pending the Hero image does not show up yet.

Now there is a translation job created for Fr and De, which as far as I could oversee could not be resolved otherwise than translating it automatically, which did cost 4204 credits per page.

9 -Translation job De shows page completely empty and requires credits to translate it again.png
8 -Translation job Fr shows page completely empty and requires credits to translate it.png
7 -Page Fr exists completely translated but image not shown (yet).png
6 -Page De exist completely translated but image not shown (yet).png
5 -Correct pages exist for all languages except Fr en De.jpg
4 -Correct pages exist for all languages except Fr en De - 2.jpg
3 -Translation tasks exists.png
2 -Media Library has images for all languages.png
1 -Main Page says Fr + De need translation again.png
May 6, 2026 at 12:45 pm #18017567

Christopher Amirian
WPML Supporter since 07/2020

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Asia/Yerevan (GMT+04:00)

Ok.

I lost you when you talked about installing the WPML Media.

If the page is already translated, then the job is set to be completed. So there is no active job, and if you do a change on the original page, a new Job ID will be created for the edit.

When you upload an image instead of the original one in WPML Media, it does not force a translation or a job.

So I lost on that part. Maybe if you could record your screen using loom.com or any method, then I can understand what happened.

There are thousands of reasons to make WPML modular and do not add everything on one place.

80% of customers do not need a separate image for the translate dones, and having a WPML Media will have an unnecessary impact on a feature that they do not use.

Thanks.

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