It depends on your monthly recurring revenue. Above $50k MRR, yes — pay a managed service to handle full translation with native review, because the conversion uplift covers cost in 60-90 days. Below $50k MRR, no — pay for AI translation plus a native editor sweep, which costs 70% less and converts within 5-10% of agency output. The break-even line for paid full translation sits at $600,000 annual revenue per target market.
When paying for full translation actually pays back
Above $50k MRR per target market, the maths favours paying a managed service. Localised conversion lifts 25-35% versus English-only baseline — on $50k MRR that returns $12,500-$17,500 monthly uplift against a one-time £997-£1,997 activation plus £149-£249/month.
The break-even calculation:
- Activation payback — A £997 activation plus 6 months of £149 service totals £1,891. At 25% uplift on $50k MRR, you cover that in 9 days.
- Annual ROI — At $600k annual market revenue with 30% uplift, you net $180,000 incremental revenue against £2,800 annualised cost. ROI runs 60x.
- Compounding effect — Localised SEO traffic compounds. Year 2 traffic is typically 2.3x year 1.
CSA Research's Can't Read, Won't Buy study shows 65% of consumers prefer content in their language even when their English is good, and 40% will never buy from a foreign-language site.
When AI plus a human editor wins on ROI
Below $50k MRR per target market, paying an agency is often dead money. The conversion uplift is real, but in absolute terms the dollar return doesn't justify the £2,000-£8,000 agency engagement. The right play is AI translation plus a £400-£800 per-language native editor sweep on conversion-critical copy.
The DIY-with-editor stack costs roughly:
| Component | Cost per language |
|---|---|
| DeepL or ChatGPT-4 API translation | £30-£80 |
| Native editor sweep (top 20% of copy) | £400-£800 |
| Hreflang + technical SEO setup | £200-£500 |
| Total Year 1 per language | £630-£1,380 |
That delivers roughly 88-92% of the quality of fully-paid agency translation at 25-30% of the cost. The trade-off is your time managing the workflow — typically 8-12 hours per language for setup, brief writing, and editor coordination. Our translate website free post covers the genuinely-free options, and DeepL vs Google Translate compares the engines you'd use as the AI base layer.
What you actually pay for at agency rates
Professional translation agencies charge £0.10-£0.18 per word for ecommerce copy with native review, per Slator's 2025 language industry data. For a 50-page Shopify store averaging 800 words per page, that's £4,000-£7,200 per language one-time. That's just the translation — not deployment, not hreflang, not ongoing updates.
Agency engagements typically include project management, translator-editor workflow, glossary build, QA, and delivery in your CMS-native format. What agencies usually don't include: site migration, hreflang implementation, GDPR cookie consent in target language, ongoing content updates, deployment that prevents Google duplicate content flags.
Plenty of brands pay £6,000 for German translation, paste it into Shopify Markets, and discover six months later that hreflang misconfiguration is causing the German URLs to be deindexed. See our machine translation SEO penalty post.
Why managed services bridge the gap
The agency-versus-DIY-AI gap is where managed website translation services price themselves. We sit at £997-£1,997 activation versus £4,000-£10,000 for comparable agency engagement, because we use AI as the bulk engine and route only conversion-critical copy through native editors.
The economics work because:
- AI handles the 80% — Product specs, FAQs, blog body copy, T&Cs. DeepL or ChatGPT-4 produces 88-92% quality output needing minimal editing.
- Editors handle the 20% — Hero copy, CTAs, category pages, checkout. Native editors rewrite from a brief.
- Migration is bundled — Site moves to static-export Cloudflare Pages, giving global page-load speed alongside translation.
- Ongoing updates included — New products and blog posts trigger translation automatically.
That's our Growth tier at £997 activation plus £149/month covering 12 pages, 100 posts, 25 products in four languages with full hreflang, GDPR, and native review. Three scenarios cover 90% of buyers: under $10k MRR/market, DIY with DeepL plus Fiverr editor; $10k-$50k MRR, managed Starter tier at £497; above $50k MRR, Growth or Scale tier.
How to pick the right service if you're paying
If you've decided to pay, the selection criteria matter more than the price. We've seen brands pay £8,000 to an agency that translated copy beautifully but produced a site that got deindexed two months later because hreflang wasn't included — a problem Shopify's international ecommerce guide flags as the most common multilingual ecommerce failure mode.
The five questions to ask any paid translation provider:
- Do you handle hreflang implementation? If they say "you handle that on your side", deduct £500-£1,000 from your willingness to pay.
- Do you provide native review or just translation? Translation alone from a non-native speaker carries higher risk than AI plus native review.
- What's your turnaround for new product copy after launch? If they can't quote 48-72 hours, your store will drift.
- Do you handle the legal pages? GDPR, terms, returns — these need country-specific localisation, not just translation.
- What's the exit path if I want to leave? No-lock-in services hand back static export plus redirect map.
For a deeper comparison framework see our professional website translation guide, our contact page for direct scoping, and for stand-alone EU compliance work epr.eldris.ai.
Frequently asked questions
How much should I budget per language?
For full agency translation: £4,000-£10,000 per language for a 50-page ecommerce site, one-time. For managed service like ours: £997-£1,997 activation covering 4 languages plus £149-£249/month including ongoing updates and native review. For DIY with AI plus an editor: £400-£1,000 per language one-time. Beware of quotes under £400 per language for full translation — that's freelancer pricing without native review, which produces output that often fails the foreign-flavoured-English test.
Is it cheaper to hire a freelancer translator?
Per-word, yes. Freelancers charge £0.06-£0.12 per word versus agency £0.10-£0.18. But you're project-managing the freelancer, building your own glossary, handling hreflang yourself, and chasing turnaround on every new product. For a single-language test on a small site, freelance is fine. For multilingual at scale or anything above 25 pages, the management overhead exceeds the price saving.
Can ChatGPT replace a paid translator?
For 70-80% of website copy, yes with proper brand-voice prompting. For 20-30% (hero copy, CTAs, conversion-critical pages), no. ChatGPT-4 produces translation that reads as good prose but lacks cultural-commercial judgement to localise a CTA. Our DeepL vs ChatGPT translation post compares them as engines, but no engine alone replaces the native editor sweep on conversion copy.
What's the difference between translation and localisation?
Translation converts source language to target language. Localisation adapts the entire experience — currency, units, date formats, imagery, regulatory disclosures, payment methods, holiday calendars. A translated site says "$49.99 free shipping" in German. A localised site says "€49,99 versandkostenfrei" with German bank transfer, EU returns labels, and a Christmas-not-Thanksgiving promotional calendar. Paid services should deliver localisation.
Will I get my money back if it doesn't convert?
Most agencies don't offer conversion guarantees. We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on activation if scope isn't delivered, plus 30-day notice cancellation with a static-export hand-back. Conversion outcomes depend on too many factors outside translation for any provider to guarantee. What you can demand is a defined scope and a refund if scope isn't met.
How fast can a paid service launch the site?
Our Growth tier ships in 10 business days from sign-off to live multilingual site. Agencies typically quote 4-8 weeks for a 50-page localisation. Freelancers vary wildly — 2 weeks to 3 months depending on responsiveness. The fastest option for genuine quality is a managed service with bundled migration.
Should I pay per word or per project?
Per-project, almost always. Per-word pricing incentivises the provider to maximise word count. Per-project aligns the provider with your outcome. For ongoing work, a flat monthly fee like our £149-£249/month tier beats per-word billing because new product copy gets translated immediately.
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