Softwr

Translation · head to head

Amazon Translate vs Smartling

Amazon Translate logo

Amazon Translate

Translation

AWS machine translation API priced at $15 per million characters, with a 2 million character monthly free tier for the first 12 months

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Smartling logo

Smartling

Translation

Enterprise translation management sold alongside first-party language services priced per word

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Translate has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Amazon Translate the generous 2 million character monthly free tier applies only for a customer’s first 12 months on AWS, so translation costs step up materially in year two with no change in usage.; Smartling translation memory is retained for only 180 days on the Core tier, so the asset that would make a future migration cheap expires on the plan most likely to be used by a team testing the water.
  • They diverge on capability: Amazon Translate covers Text translation API, Smartling covers Translation memory.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Amazon Translate and Smartling actually diverge.

Attributes where Amazon Translate and Smartling differ
AttributeAmazon TranslateSmartling
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer million charactersquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, API

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Translation).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Amazon Translate

  • Text translation API
  • Document translation
  • Active Custom Translation
  • Real-time document translation
  • Formality control
  • AWS-native integration

Only in Smartling

  • Translation memory
  • Visual context CAT editor
  • Configurable workflows
  • First-party language services
  • Linguistic quality assurance
  • Connectors and API

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Amazon Translate

  • An AWS-native development team wanting translation billed through the same console as the rest of their infrastructurenot Smartling
  • A new AWS customer running a translation-heavy pilot project inside the generous first-year 2 million character monthly free tiernot Smartling
  • A team building a translation pipeline directly integrated with S3 and Lambda for document processingnot Smartling
  • A business wanting formality-adjusted output for specific language pairs in customer-facing contentnot Smartling

Smartling

  • A company that wants one supplier answerable for both the translation platform and the quality of the translated outputnot Amazon Translate
  • Marketing sites where a translator needs to see the rendered page, not a spreadsheet of strings, to get tone and length rightnot Amazon Translate
  • Replacing a platform vendor plus several separate agencies with a single contract and a single invoicenot Amazon Translate
  • Content operations at a volume where per-word rates are the dominant cost and the tooling fee is noisenot Amazon Translate

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Amazon Translate

  • The generous 2 million character monthly free tier applies only for a customer’s first 12 months on AWS, so translation costs step up materially in year two with no change in usage.
  • There is no consumer-facing app or website, so it is unusable for casual personal translation the way Google Translate or Microsoft Translator are.
  • Document translation of Office files costs double the standard per-character rate, which is easy to underestimate when budgeting a document-heavy project.
  • Active Custom Translation, the tool for improving output with domain-specific data, costs four times the standard rate at $60 per million characters.
  • As with all major MT APIs, output for low-resource languages and specialised terminology often still needs human review, so it does not substitute for a human translation service on customer-facing or legally sensitive content.

Smartling

  • Translation memory is retained for only 180 days on the Core tier, so the asset that would make a future migration cheap expires on the plan most likely to be used by a team testing the water.
  • The platform subscription is not published while the per-word service rates are, so you can model the variable cost precisely and cannot model the fixed cost at all until you have been through a sales sizing exercise.
  • The vendor earns on words routed through it, so the commercial relationship rewards volume flowing to Smartling rather than volume being avoided through better reuse of existing memory.
  • Per-word pricing multiplies by target language, so adding a market to a product that ships in twelve languages costs a thirteenth of the current translation bill rather than a marginal amount.
  • Minimum contract term, minimum annual spend and whether individual connectors carry their own charge are all absent from the public site, so three of the numbers that determine total cost only appear inside a proposal.

Pricing, plan by plan

Amazon Translate

Free
  • Standard text translation$15/month
    • $15 per million characters
    • 2 million characters per month free for the first 12 months on AWS
  • Document translation (Office files)$30/month
    • $30 per million characters, double the standard rate
  • Real-time document translation$15/month
    • Text and HTML documents, no free tier
  • Active Custom Translation$60/month
    • $60 per million characters
    • 500,000 characters per month free for the first 2 months

Smartling

On request
  • Core$undefined/year
    • Subscription price not published
    • Basic workflow, user and project management
    • Browser CAT editor with visual context
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Subscription price not published
    • Fully configurable dynamic workflows
    • Translation memory with unlimited storage
  • Language services, charged separately per word$undefined/year
    • Machine translation from 0.0075 USD per word
    • AI translation from 0.06 USD per word
    • AI translation with human review from 0.12 USD per word

Which should you pick?

Choose Amazon Translate if

  • You need text translation api.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want document translation.
Amazon Translate review

Choose Smartling if

  • You need translation memory.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want visual context cat editor.
Smartling review

Questions people ask

Is Amazon Translate or Smartling better?
Neither clearly leads. Amazon Translate starts at Free and Smartling at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Amazon Translate or Smartling?
Amazon Translate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Amazon Translate and On request for Smartling.
Does Amazon Translate or Smartling run on more platforms?
Amazon Translate runs on Web. Smartling runs on Web, API.
Can I use Amazon Translate for free?
Yes. Amazon Translate has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Smartling starts at On request.
What is Amazon Translate best used for?
Amazon Translate is most often used for an aws-native development team wanting translation billed through the same console as the rest of their infrastructure, a new aws customer running a translation-heavy pilot project inside the generous first-year 2 million character monthly free tier, a team building a translation pipeline directly integrated with s3 and lambda for document processing, a business wanting formality-adjusted output for specific language pairs in customer-facing content. Of those, an aws-native development team wanting translation billed through the same console as the rest of their infrastructure and a new aws customer running a translation-heavy pilot project inside the generous first-year 2 million character monthly free tier are not what Smartling is typically brought in for.
What can Amazon Translate do that Smartling cannot?
Amazon Translate covers Text translation API, Document translation, Active Custom Translation, Real-time document translation. Smartling covers Translation memory, Visual context CAT editor, Configurable workflows, First-party language services.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Amazon Translate: How generous is the free tier really?

2 million characters per month, the largest of the three major cloud APIs, but only for the first 12 months after which standard per-character pricing applies to everything.

Smartling: Is there a free plan?

The Core tier is advertised as free to start, but translation memory is kept for only 180 days on it and any production deployment is a quoted subscription. Treat it as an evaluation route, not a plan.

Amazon Translate: Is there a consumer app like Google Translate?

No, Amazon Translate is a developer API only, accessed through the AWS console and SDKs, with no separate public-facing app.

Smartling: What does the platform actually cost?

Smartling does not publish it. The published figures are per-word service rates. Expect an annual subscription sized against your content volume, workflows and language count, quoted after a scoping call.

Amazon Translate: How much does document translation cost compared to text?

Double the standard rate, at $30 per million characters for Office file formats.

Smartling: Can I use Smartling with my own translators?

Yes, the platform works with your own vendors and freelancers. You then pay for software and forgo the services revenue the pricing model is built around, which weakens your negotiating position on the subscription.

Smartling: What happens to my translation memory if I leave?

Translation memory is exportable, but on Core it only covers the previous 180 days, so leaving after two years on the entry tier means most of the asset is already gone.

Share

Related pages

More on Amazon Translate

More on Smartling

Keep looking

Other head to heads