Machine Translation API Cost Comparison
Enter one workload — characters or pages × chars per page, and target languages. The table prices it on Google Cloud Translation NMT, Translation LLM and custom AutoML, and Amazon Translate standard and Active Custom Translation, with free-tier toggles and a cheapest-option callout. Estimates only; provider pricing pages prevail.
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| Option | Monthly | $ / 1M billed chars | Note |
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Same workload priced on Google NMT ($20/1M after the 500k free credit), Google Translation LLM ($10 in + $10 out per 1M, output ≈ input × ratio; default 1.06 from Google's 3.1k → 3.3k email example), Amazon Translate standard ($15/1M, optional 2M free for 12 months), Amazon Active Custom Translation ($60/1M, optional 500k free for 2 months) and Google custom AutoML (graduated $80 → $30 per 1M). DeepL and Azure Translator are not listed because their official pages did not show a clean per-character list rate on 2026-11-02. For DIY translation with a general LLM, ~1 token ≈ 4 English characters — use the LLM API cost calculator.
Estimates only. Official list prices as of 2026-11-02 (Asia/Shanghai); the provider's pricing page prevails. Sources: Google Cloud Translation pricing · Amazon Translate pricing
Google Cloud Translation Cost Calculator · Amazon Translate Cost Calculator · LLM API Cost Calculator · Document Parsing API Cost Comparison · TTS API Cost Comparison · OpenAI TTS Cost Calculator
More in this group
- Google Cloud Translation Cost Calculator Google Translate API chars × languages → monthly cost.
- Amazon Translate Cost Calculator Amazon Translate chars × languages → monthly cost.
- LLM API Cost Calculator Generic token cost from any $/1M rates.
- Document Parsing API Cost Comparison LlamaParse vs Reducto vs Unstructured, $ / 1k pages.
- TTS API Cost Comparison OpenAI vs ElevenLabs vs Gemini vs Cartesia TTS.
- OpenAI TTS Cost Calculator TTS characters or audio tokens by model.
How it works
- Is Google or Amazon cheaper for machine translation?
- At list price Amazon Translate standard ($15 per 1M chars) is cheaper than Google NMT ($20 per 1M) above Google's 500k free credit. Example: 10M chars → $150 on AWS vs $190 on Google NMT. Amazon's 2M free tier only lasts 12 months.
- Why are DeepL and Azure Translator missing?
- On 2026-11-02 their official pricing pages did not show a clean per-character list rate (Azure showed placeholders), so we do not invent numbers. They will be added once official rates are readable.
- How is Google Translation LLM estimated?
- $10 per 1M input chars plus $10 per 1M output chars, with output ≈ input × ratio (default 1.06 from Google's email example). Edit the ratio for your language pair.
- Can I translate with a general LLM instead?
- Yes. Roughly 1 token ≈ 4 English characters; input + output tokens are billed at the model's rate. Use the LLM API cost calculator to price DIY translation.
- Do target languages multiply the cost?
- Yes, for every provider: billed characters = source characters × target languages. Translating 1M chars into 5 languages bills 5M chars.