Softwr

Translation · head to head

Gengo vs Sonix

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
Sonix logo

Sonix

Translation

Automated transcription and translation with per-hour pricing published up front

From
$10/month
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.; Sonix monthly hour allowances are small relative to the subscription price: the $25 Core plan includes five hours, which at the published $10 overage rate means the subscription is only worth buying for storage and features rather than for the hours.
  • They diverge on capability: Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers, Sonix covers Automated transcription.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Gengo and Sonix actually diverge.

Attributes where Gengo and Sonix differ
AttributeGengoSonix
Starting priceOn request$10/month
Pricing modelPer wordPer hour of transcription
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 Sonix

  • Automated transcription
  • Translation
  • Synchronised editor
  • Subtitle export
  • Custom dictionary
  • Search across media
  • Pay-as-you-go option
  • Enterprise compliance

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 Sonix
  • A company integrating the Gengo API into a content pipeline to automatically route text for human translationnot Sonix
  • A support team needing occasional human-translated responses without committing to Unbabel’s enterprise minimumnot Sonix
  • A publisher needing straightforward, transparently priced human translation for shorter, lower-stakes contentnot Sonix

Sonix

  • A journalist transcribing interviews in several languages who needs the transcript searchable and quotable within minutes rather than accurate to a contractnot Gengo
  • A qualitative research team coding focus group transcripts, where speaker separation and an editable transcript matter more than a certified accuracy figurenot Gengo
  • A podcast producer generating subtitle files and show notes from each episode without adding a human transcription suppliernot Gengo
  • A small documentary team subtitling foreign-language footage where transcription and translation in one tool avoids a second vendornot 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.

Sonix

  • Monthly hour allowances are small relative to the subscription price: the $25 Core plan includes five hours, which at the published $10 overage rate means the subscription is only worth buying for storage and features rather than for the hours.
  • Unused hours do not accumulate into a meaningful reserve, so an irregular workload of a heavy month followed by a quiet one pays overage in the first and wastes allowance in the second.
  • There is no human correction tier at self-service prices, so anyone with an accessibility or legal accuracy obligation has to add a separate supplier or a member of staff to the workflow.
  • The cited 99 percent accuracy is a best-case figure on clean single-speaker audio, and overlapping speakers, strong accents, technical vocabulary and room noise degrade it enough that editing time, not transcription cost, becomes the real expense.
  • Storage is capped per plan at 25GB to 100GB, and video files consume it fast, so long-running teams end up deleting source media or upgrading a tier for storage they do not otherwise need.

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

Sonix

$10/month
  • Pay As You Go$10/month
    • $10 per hour transcribed
    • No subscription
    • 30 minutes free to trial without a card
  • Core$25/month
    • 5 hours a month of transcription and translation
    • 25GB storage
    • $275 a year if billed annually
  • Advanced$50/month
    • 20 hours a month
    • 50GB storage
    • $550 a year if billed annually
  • Pro$80/month
    • 40 hours a month
    • 100GB storage
    • $880 a year if billed annually

Which should you pick?

Choose Gengo if

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

Choose Sonix if

  • You need automated transcription.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want translation.
Sonix review

Questions people ask

Is Gengo or Sonix better?
Neither clearly leads. Gengo starts at On request and Sonix at $10/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Gengo or Sonix?
Gengo starts at On request and Sonix at $10/month.
Does Gengo or Sonix run on more platforms?
Gengo runs on Web. Sonix 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 Sonix is typically brought in for.
What can Gengo do that Sonix cannot?
Gengo covers Standard and Pro quality tiers, Developer API, No minimum spend, Crowdsourced translator network. Sonix covers Automated transcription, Translation, Synchronised editor, Subtitle export.

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.

Sonix: What does Sonix cost per hour?

$10 an hour on pay-as-you-go, and $10 an hour for any usage beyond the monthly allowance on every subscription tier. That overage rate is published, which is unusual in this market.

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.

Sonix: Is there human transcription?

No. Sonix is automated transcription plus an editor for you to correct. If you need a contracted accuracy level, this is the wrong category of product.

Gengo: Who owns Gengo?

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

Sonix: How accurate is it really?

The 99 percent claim assumes clean, single-speaker, standard-accent audio. Multi-speaker recordings with background noise land noticeably lower, and the cost shows up as your editing time.

Sonix: How many languages?

Transcription in over fifty languages and translation into a similar number, which is wider than most self-service competitors.

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