TranslatePress alternatives: five options for WordPress

TranslatePress translates the page WordPress renders, keeps one post per page and stores every translation in your own database. Its front-end editor is free. Three gaps can still matter: no step I could find to approve a single translation before visitors see it, an AI word quota tied to the licence, or a site that is moving beyond WordPress. The five alternatives below are sorted by which of those they answer.

I make LangRelay, the fifth option here. The other four vendors' facts and prices are from their own pages as published on 7 October 2026.

What TranslatePress does, in its own words#

TranslatePress's AI page says of new content: "You won't need to manually review or translate it unless you prefer to." Its documentation says a TranslatePress AI translation is made the first time a visitor opens the content in that language, then stored in the database. With automatic translation on, an edited string counts as new and is translated again on the next visit.

The free plugin on WordPress.org adds one translation language, the visual editor, Google Translate on your own API key and 2,000 AI words. Paid plans are yearly licences: Personal at €99 for one site with 50,000 AI words, Business at €199 for three sites with 200,000, and Developer at €349 for unlimited sites with 500,000. TranslatePress counts AI words per word and per language. Unused words carry over while the licence is active and cannot be used once it expires; the plugin itself keeps working as configured.

Control works per language instead: the Multiple Languages add-on, in every paid plan, keeps a language hidden until you publish it.

Five alternatives and the gap each one fills#

Who each one is for, summed up from its own site: WPML, businesses and web agencies building multilingual WordPress sites; Polylang, sites from simple blogs to WooCommerce stores; Weglot, marketing teams without in-house language expertise; ConveyThis, sites from a small blog to a large online store that want translation without code. LangRelay is built for WordPress sites that keep changing.

WPML: review controls, a post per language#

WPML is the alternative to pick if review is the problem and you are happy with a different storage model. Its own engine, PTC, can publish AI translations at once, hold them as drafts until a Translation Manager approves them, or publish them and queue them for review. Each translation becomes a WordPress post of its own, linked to the original, where TranslatePress stores strings against one post. That gives you posts you can edit in the block editor, and more posts to keep in step.

WPML has no free plan, and its prices exclude VAT. Multilingual CMS, at €99 a year for three production sites, is the cheapest plan with AI translation (22,500 words included) and the Advanced Translation Editor.

Polylang: free, and manual#

Polylang's free plugin has no limit on languages, which matters if TranslatePress's free tier, at one extra language, is what pushed you away. Like WPML it creates a post per language. Translation is yours to do: by hand, or in Polylang Pro (from €99 a year) with DeepL on your own API key, one post, page or product at a time. Polylang's DeepL guide says a later edit to the original does not update the translation.

Weglot and ConveyThis: beyond WordPress#

If you are adding a Shopify store or a Webflow site next to WordPress, a hosted service covers both. Weglot's limit is the total number of translated words across all your languages, and its help center says Starter and Business cover one website, so two sites need Pro at €79 a month (up to three websites, five languages, 200,000 words). ConveyThis has a free plan and starts at $12 a month for one language, 60,000 words and 15,000 page loads a month; its plans cover one website until Pro, at $64 a month for three. ConveyThis shows translations as soon as they are made, and you can review in private mode and then publish the site. Its features page mentions approving changes, but I found no step that holds a single translation until someone approves it.

LangRelay: TranslatePress's model with checks before pages go live#

LangRelay works the way TranslatePress does on the front end: one post, the rendered page translated, served from your own server under language paths such as /de/. The differences are in what happens around the translation. The plugin reports an edit to LangRelay a minute or so after you save, so translation does not wait for a visitor. By default a translation goes live as soon as it is ready, and free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price. To approve every page yourself, choose Ask me first. Relay, LangRelay's built-in agent, drafts the changes you ask for. Relay reviews any page you ask it to, the way a language expert would, and tells you the cost in AI credits before it starts. LangRelay keeps translations in its own service, where TranslatePress keeps them in your database, and during the pilot it covers nine languages against TranslatePress's 160-plus.

A worked example: the first translation of a 40,000-word site#

A worked example with round numbers: a 40,000-word WordPress site translated into two languages for the first time, so 80,000 words of translation, priced from each vendor's page on 7 October 2026.

The WPML figure assumes the included words are spent first and do not count toward the monthly bands; WPML's pricing page does not say either way.

LangRelay counts the same 80,000 words against a monthly allowance that renews each month, so on a plan whose allowance covers it, a first translation is a one-month cost; the pricing page lists each plan's allowance. After that, only new or changed text uses words.

Choosing#

If you like how TranslatePress works and want a check before pages go live, the LangRelay vs TranslatePress page sets the two side by side. If you want each language as its own post, read TranslatePress vs WPML. And if you are leaving a hosted service for a plugin, the Weglot alternatives page starts from the other side.