Softwr

Translation · head to head

Gengo vs Smartcat

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
Smartcat logo

Smartcat

Translation

Translation platform and freelancer marketplace billed in Smartwords, where every added target language multiplies consumption

From
$1200/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Smartcat smartwords are consumed as source words multiplied by target languages, so a product going from five to ten locales doubles consumption on identical source content and the plan you sized last year no longer fits.
  • They diverge on capability: Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers, Smartcat covers Smartword allowance.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Gengo and Smartcat actually diverge.

Attributes where Gengo and Smartcat differ
AttributeGengoSmartcat
Starting priceOn request$1200/year
Pricing modelPer wordPer year by Smartword volume
PlatformsWebWeb, API

Identical on both: free tier (No), 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 Gengo

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

Only in Smartcat

  • Smartword allowance
  • Freelancer marketplace
  • Payer of record
  • Unlimited users
  • Browser CAT editor
  • AI agents

What people use each for

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

Gengo

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

Smartcat

  • A company that wants to hire and pay many freelance linguists without opening a supplier account and payment channel for each onenot Gengo
  • Translation programmes with high volume in a small number of target languages, where the multiplier does the least damagenot Gengo
  • Teams that need unlimited internal users on the platform without paying per seat for occasional reviewersnot Gengo
  • Consolidating an existing freelancer roster onto one contract, one invoice and one payment railnot Gengo

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Smartcat

  • Smartwords are consumed as source words multiplied by target languages, so a product going from five to ten locales doubles consumption on identical source content and the plan you sized last year no longer fits.
  • The gap between the entry tier at 1,200 USD a year and the next at 24,000 is twentyfold with nothing between them, so a team that outgrows Adapt faces a step change rather than an increase.
  • Subscription Smartwords expire at renewal and monthly plan credits expire each cycle, so unused allowance is lost rather than banked and overbuying is a straight write-off.
  • Marketplace access, the reason many buyers choose Smartcat at all, does not exist on the entry plan, and API access with single sign-on only appears two tiers up at 60,000 USD a year.
  • The published commission table in the help centre still names retired plan tiers, so the rates a buyer would use to model marketplace cost cannot be reliably mapped onto the plans actually on sale.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Smartcat

$1200/year
  • Adapt$1200/year
    • Starting price, billed annually
    • 100,000 Smartwords
    • 1 workspace
  • Accelerate$24000/year
    • Starting price, billed annually
    • 1 million Smartwords
    • 1 workspace
  • Anticipate$60000/year
    • Starting price, billed annually
    • 2 million Smartwords
    • 2 workspaces
  • Autonomous$undefined/year
    • Price not published, tailored to requirements
    • 6 million Smartwords
    • 7 workspaces

Which should you pick?

Choose Gengo if

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

Choose Smartcat if

  • You need smartword allowance.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want freelancer marketplace.
Smartcat review

Questions people ask

Is Gengo or Smartcat better?
Neither clearly leads. Gengo starts at On request and Smartcat at $1200/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Gengo or Smartcat?
Gengo starts at On request and Smartcat at $1200/year.
Does Gengo or Smartcat run on more platforms?
Gengo runs on Web. Smartcat runs on Web, API.
What is Gengo best used for?
Gengo is most often used for an e-commerce seller translating product listings into multiple languages without a minimum spend requirement, a company integrating the gengo api into a content pipeline to automatically route text for human translation, a support team needing occasional human-translated responses without committing to unbabel’s enterprise minimum, a publisher needing straightforward, transparently priced human translation for shorter, lower-stakes content. Of those, an e-commerce seller translating product listings into multiple languages without a minimum spend requirement and a company integrating the gengo api into a content pipeline to automatically route text for human translation are not what Smartcat is typically brought in for.
What can Gengo do that Smartcat cannot?
Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers, Developer API, No minimum spend, Crowdsourced translator network. Smartcat covers Smartword allowance, Freelancer marketplace, Payer of record, Unlimited users.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Smartcat: What is a Smartword?

A credit. One Smartword is consumed per source word per target language, so 1,000 words into five languages costs 5,000 Smartwords. AI dubbing costs ten Smartwords per dubbed word.

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.

Smartcat: Does Smartcat take a cut from freelancers?

No. The vendor states it does not deduct a platform commission from supplier earnings; the marketplace commission is charged to the client. Freelancers pay withdrawal fees, a fixed one to ten dollars plus half a percent, and a two and a half percent currency conversion markup.

Gengo: Who owns Gengo?

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

Smartcat: Is there a free plan?

No. There is a fifteen day trial of the full platform. A legacy free tier still appears in help articles but is not on the current pricing page.

Smartcat: What happens if I do not review delivered work?

After fifteen days the system verifies the work automatically and triggers supplier payment, so silence is treated as acceptance.

Share

Related pages

More on Gengo

More on Smartcat

Keep looking

Other head to heads