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Translation · head to head

wxrks vs Gengo

wxrks logo

wxrks

Translation

Translation platform formerly called Bureau Works, priced by processed words per year with unlimited seats and a real free tier

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Gengo logo

Gengo

Translation

Human translation marketplace and API, priced per word from $0.06, owned by Lionbridge since 2019

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only wxrks has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: wxrks connectors are marked as billed separately on the pricing page with no rate published anywhere, so the integration that justifies buying the platform carries a cost you cannot discover until you ask.; Gengo it is not a fit for specialised legal, medical or literary translation, since the crowdsourced model is built for higher-volume, lower-complexity content.
  • They diverge on capability: wxrks covers Published price ladder, Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which wxrks and Gengo actually diverge.

Attributes where wxrks and Gengo differ
AttributewxrksGengo
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelPer year by processed word volumePer word
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb

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 wxrks

  • Published price ladder
  • Unlimited user seats
  • Four parallel meters
  • Published overage rates
  • Marketplace
  • Repository and design connectors

Only in Gengo

  • Standard and Pro quality tiers
  • Developer API
  • No minimum spend
  • Crowdsourced translator network
  • Bulk file upload
  • CMS and platform integrations

What people use each for

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

wxrks

  • A team that needs to model localisation cost from published numbers rather than sit through a sales cycle to get a figurenot Gengo
  • Content operations with many occasional reviewers, since seats are unlimited and only analytics users are chargednot Gengo
  • Developer-led localisation pulling strings from GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket rather than a content management systemnot Gengo
  • Small teams and side projects that can live inside 60,000 words a year on the permanent free tiernot Gengo

Gengo

  • An e-commerce seller translating product listings into multiple languages without a minimum spend requirementnot wxrks
  • A company integrating the Gengo API into a content pipeline to automatically route text for human translationnot wxrks
  • A support team needing occasional human-translated responses without committing to Unbabel’s enterprise minimumnot wxrks
  • A publisher needing straightforward, transparently priced human translation for shorter, lower-stakes contentnot wxrks

Where each one falls short

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

wxrks

  • Connectors are marked as billed separately on the pricing page with no rate published anywhere, so the integration that justifies buying the platform carries a cost you cannot discover until you ask.
  • Four separate meters run in parallel and any one of them can be exhausted while the others have headroom, so a workload heavy on API calls or AI tokens can force a plan upgrade long before the word allowance is touched.
  • Word allowances are annual rather than monthly, so a single large launch early in the term can consume most of the year and leave the remaining months on overage rates.
  • The marketplace is promoted as a way to reach agencies and translators, but whether the vendor takes a commission and how linguists are paid is not disclosed anywhere on the public site.
  • The company rebranded from Bureau Works in March 2026, so existing documentation, third-party guides, integration listings and internal references still carry the old name, and the vendor is small with no disclosed funding behind it.

Gengo

  • It is not a fit for specialised legal, medical or literary translation, since the crowdsourced model is built for higher-volume, lower-complexity content.
  • Quality consistency depends on which individual translator from the crowdsourced network is assigned, which can vary more than a dedicated agency relationship would.
  • Turnaround, while fast for its category, is still meaningfully slower than a machine translation API, since every job requires a human to complete it.
  • Since being acquired by Lionbridge in 2019, Gengo’s product direction is now set within a much larger localisation company’s priorities rather than as an independent business.
  • Per-word pricing, while transparent, is still substantially more expensive per unit of content than a machine translation API, so it is a poor fit for translating very large volumes of low-stakes content.

Pricing, plan by plan

wxrks

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 60,000 processed words per year
    • 2,300 API calls
    • 300,000 stateless AI tokens
  • Starter$38/month
    • Billed yearly
    • 1 million words per year
    • 38,000 API calls, 5 million AI tokens, 330,000 MT words
  • Boutique$180/month
    • Billed yearly
    • 3.2 million words per year
    • 122,000 API calls, 16 million AI tokens, 1 million MT words
  • Clockwork$470/month
    • Billed yearly
    • 9.6 million words per year
    • Overage at 0.0005 USD per word

Gengo

On request
  • Standard$0.06/month
    • Human translation, $0.06 per word starting rate
    • No minimum spend or setup fee
  • Pro$undefined/month
    • Higher-quality tier, rate varies by language pair and content type
    • Human translation with additional review

Which should you pick?

Choose wxrks if

  • You need published price ladder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want unlimited user seats.
wxrks review

Choose Gengo if

  • You need standard and pro quality tiers.
  • You also want developer api.
Gengo review

Questions people ask

Is wxrks or Gengo better?
Neither clearly leads. wxrks starts at Free and Gengo at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, wxrks or Gengo?
wxrks has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for wxrks and On request for Gengo.
Does wxrks or Gengo run on more platforms?
wxrks runs on Web, API. Gengo runs on Web.
Can I use wxrks for free?
Yes. wxrks has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Gengo starts at On request.
What is wxrks best used for?
wxrks is most often used for a team that needs to model localisation cost from published numbers rather than sit through a sales cycle to get a figure, content operations with many occasional reviewers, since seats are unlimited and only analytics users are charged, developer-led localisation pulling strings from github, gitlab or bitbucket rather than a content management system, small teams and side projects that can live inside 60,000 words a year on the permanent free tier. Of those, a team that needs to model localisation cost from published numbers rather than sit through a sales cycle to get a figure and content operations with many occasional reviewers, since seats are unlimited and only analytics users are charged are not what Gengo is typically brought in for.
What can wxrks do that Gengo cannot?
wxrks covers Published price ladder, Unlimited user seats, Four parallel meters, Published overage rates. Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers, Developer API, No minimum spend, Crowdsourced translator network.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

wxrks: Is this still Bureau Works?

Yes. The company rebranded to wxrks on 23 March 2026 and bureauworks.com redirects to wxrks.com. The legal entity is Bureau Translations Inc.

Gengo: Is Gengo machine translation or human translation?

Human translation. It should be compared with Unbabel, not with Google Translate, Microsoft Translator or Amazon Translate, which are machine translation APIs.

wxrks: Is the free plan permanent?

Yes. It allows 60,000 processed words a year along with API call, AI token and machine translation allowances, and unlimited user seats. A fourteen day trial of paid features is offered separately.

Gengo: Is there a minimum spend?

No, Gengo publishes per-word pricing with no minimum spend or setup fee, unlike Unbabel’s enterprise-gated rate structure.

wxrks: What happens when I exceed the word allowance?

You pay a published per-word overage rate, from 0.0009 USD on Starter falling to 0.0003 USD on the largest plans, rather than being cut off.

Gengo: Who owns Gengo?

Lionbridge, a larger localisation and AI data services company, acquired Gengo in January 2019.

wxrks: Do connectors cost extra?

The pricing page states connectors are billed separately but publishes no rate. Get the figure in writing before signing, because it is the one unbounded item in an otherwise transparent price list.

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