--- title: "TranslatePress vs WPML: one post or a post per language" description: "TranslatePress keeps one post and stores translated strings; WPML adds a post per language. Editors, review, AI words and prices, checked 7 October 2026." url: "https://www.langrelay.com/translatepress-vs-wpml" --- 1. [Home](https://www.langrelay.com/) 2. [Compare](https://www.langrelay.com/best-website-translation-software-compared-2026) 3. TranslatePress vs WPML: one post or a post per language ComparisonCost and buying # TranslatePress vs WPML: one post or a post per language TranslatePress keeps one post and stores translated strings; WPML adds a post per language. Editors, review, AI words and prices, checked 7 October 2026. [Chris Jayden](https://www.langrelay.com/about) Founder Published 7 October 2026 Reading time 5 min read ![A passenger helps an older woman onto a yellow tram on a hillside city street, beside a stop shelter tiled in green and orange leaves.](https://www.langrelay.com/img/vs/translatepress-vs-wpml/cover-1536.867b31fbee.webp) On this page 1. Editing translations 2. Who approves what 3. AI words and what an edit costs 4. SEO output 5. Free versions, refunds and expiry 6. A worked example: three sites in two languages 7. Picking between them 8. Where LangRelay fits ## At a glance - TranslatePress WordPress plugin, translates the rendered page €99 a year A yearly licence by number of sites, renewed each year. Each licence and renewal includes a quota of AI words; more can be bought from your account. Free: Free plugin: one extra language, the visual editor, Google Translate with your own key and 2,000 AI words. Checked 7 October 2026. What it does well - Translates the whole page at once, output from shortcodes, forms and page builders included. - A front-end visual editor with live preview in the free plugin. - Translations live in your own database, and the plugin keeps working as configured if the licence expires. - Translated slugs, metadata and multilingual sitemaps with the SEO Pack, in every paid plan. - As many languages as you need on every paid plan, through the Multiple Languages add-on. - A glossary for TranslatePress AI, and search and replace across translations already stored. - WPML WordPress plugin, one post per language €39 a year A yearly licence by number of sites. AI translation counts source words once per target language; after the included words and 500 free words a month, pay as you go from €3.00 per 1,000 words, down to €0.40 with volume. Free: No free plan. 30-day money-back guarantee. Checked 7 October 2026. What it does well - Each translation is a WordPress post in your own database, linked to the original. - Translations keep showing on your site if you stop renewing. - Review controls: hold AI translations as drafts for a Translation Manager, or publish and queue them for review. - hreflang with x-default in the page head and in Yoast or Rank Math sitemaps, with settings for translated slugs. - Translates page builder designs, such as Elementor, and WooCommerce sites with popular extensions. - Multiple currencies and payment gateways for WooCommerce stores. - Sends content to more than 70 professional translation services from the WordPress admin. - Its own LLM-based engine, PTC, that learns from the edits you make. TranslatePress and WPML are both WordPress plugins that keep translations in your own database, and both support WooCommerce and page builders. They store a translation in different shapes. TranslatePress keeps one post per page and saves each translated string in its own tables, to be swapped in as the page renders. WPML creates a separate WordPress post for every language and links it to the original. Most of the practical differences, from editing to what an edit costs, follow from that. I build LangRelay, which the comparison tables further down include as well. The facts here about TranslatePress and WPML come from their own websites, documentation and WordPress.org listing, read on 7 October 2026. ## Editing translations TranslatePress's editor works on the front end: you click text on a live preview of the page and type the translation, and that editor is in the free plugin. Because it translates the rendered output, text from shortcodes, forms and page builders is on the page to translate. WPML's Advanced Translation Editor shows source and translation side by side, with a front-end preview you can click to edit. It is not on the €39 Multilingual Blog plan, which uses the standard WordPress editor instead; every other licence has it. A translated post in WPML is also an ordinary post, so you can open it in the block editor if you prefer. ## Who approves what WPML gives you three settings for AI translations. Its PTC engine can publish straight away, hold AI translations as drafts until a Translation Manager approves them, or publish and add them to a review queue. TranslatePress works per language. With automatic translation on, a string is translated the first time a visitor opens it in that language and shown from then on; TranslatePress's AI page says you won't need to review it unless you prefer to. The Multiple Languages add-on, included in every paid plan, lets you keep a whole language hidden until you publish it. ## AI words and what an edit costs TranslatePress includes a quota of TranslatePress AI words with each yearly licence: 2,000 in the free plugin, 50,000 on Personal, 200,000 on Business and 500,000 on Developer. Words are counted per word and per language. Unused words carry over while the licence is active and are lost once it expires. An edited string counts as new, so changing a sentence costs that sentence again in every language. When a quota runs out, TranslatePress sells more words from your account page, 100,000 for €24. WPML includes 22,500 AI words with Multilingual CMS and 45,000 with Multilingual Agency, adds 500 free each month, and charges pay as you go after that in monthly volume bands, from €3.00 per 1,000 words down to €0.40 only past 2,500,000 words in a month. Its prices exclude VAT. With Translate Everything Automatically and PTC, WPML records the highest word count you have paid for per page and language, and only words above it cost anything; WPML's pricing page says every other path pays per updated word. Both have a glossary. WPML's works with PTC and DeepL; TranslatePress's applies to new automatic translations when TranslatePress AI is the engine. ## SEO output TranslatePress adds hreflang to every page in the free plugin. Translated metadata, translated slugs and multilingual sitemaps come with its SEO Pack, which every paid plan includes. WPML outputs hreflang with an `x-default` in the page head, adds hreflang to the Yoast SEO and Rank Math sitemaps, and translates slugs by default. ## Free versions, refunds and expiry | | TranslatePress | WPML | | --- | --- | --- | | Free version | Yes: one extra language, the visual editor, Google Translate on your own key, 2,000 AI words | No; a 30-day money-back guarantee | | Cheapest paid plan | Personal, €99 a year, one site | Multilingual Blog, €39 a year, one production site, no AI translation | | Languages | 160+ | 65 pre-configured, plus custom languages | | If you stop paying | The plugin keeps working as configured, without TranslatePress AI, new features or downloads | Translations keep showing on your site | ## A worked example: three sites in two languages A worked example with round numbers: one owner with three WordPress sites of 20,000 words each, all translated into two languages. That is 120,000 words of first translation, priced from each vendor's page on 7 October 2026. TranslatePress Business covers three sites and includes 200,000 AI words for €199 a year, so the first translation fits inside the licence with 80,000 words to spare for later edits that year. WPML Multilingual CMS covers three production sites for €99 a year and includes 22,500 AI words. The remaining 97,500 words are pay as you go. At WPML's monthly volume bands, translated in one month and counted across the three sites together, they cost about €178, so year one comes to about €277, more than TranslatePress Business in this example. WPML's pricing page does not say whether the bands count per site or per account, or whether the included words count toward them; counted site by site, the cost is higher. From then on, with Translate Everything Automatically and PTC, WPML's rule on edits keeps the cost of updating an existing page low, while TranslatePress draws each edited string from the yearly quota. ## Picking between them TranslatePress suits a site whose owner wants to translate by clicking on the page, keep one post per page, and start for free with one extra language. Its yearly AI quota is easy to plan for when the site changes little, and TranslatePress's FAQ says the plugin keeps running as configured if you let the licence lapse. WPML suits a site that wants a person to sign off on machine translations before they appear, or that wants each language as a post an editor can open and change on its own. It also suits sites that are edited often: with Translate Everything Automatically and PTC, WPML only charges for words above what a page has already paid for. If you need a translation agency involved, WPML's connection to more than 70 translation services is built in. ## Where LangRelay fits LangRelay keeps one post per page and translates the rendered page, as TranslatePress does. 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, as WPML can, choose Ask me first. Its plugin reports an edit about a minute after you save it, so a translation is ready before anyone visits the page. Unlike both, it keeps translations in its own service and serves the approved ones from your server; during the pilot it supports nine languages. The [LangRelay vs TranslatePress](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-translatepress) and [LangRelay vs WPML](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-wpml) pages compare each one directly, and the [TranslatePress alternatives](https://www.langrelay.com/translatepress-alternatives) page lists other options. ## TranslatePress and WPML side by side From each vendor's own pages, on the dates in the sources below. | Tool | DeliveryHow translated pages are servedHow the translated page reaches visitors: from your own server, through a proxy, or swapped in by the browser. | No duplicate postsWordPress: one post, no copies per languageWhether WordPress keeps one post per page, instead of a separate copy for every language. | hreflanghreflang and per-language URLsA URL per language with hreflang tags, so search engines find and index each language. | Translated slugsTranslated URL slugsURLs in the visitor’s language, like /fr/a-propos instead of /fr/about. | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [LangRelay](https://www.langrelay.com/pricing) | : WordPress plugin serves translated HTML from your server. A script tag works on any other site, without SEO. | : Translates the rendered page. Your posts stay as they are. | : Subdirectories (/fr/), hreflang with x-default, a canonical per language, and translated titles and meta. | Partly: Set by hand per page and language. Automatic slug translation is on the way. | | [TranslatePress](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-translatepress) | : WordPress plugin. Translations are stored in your database and served by your site, with a language slug in the URL such as /fr/. | : One post. Translations are saved per string in the plugin’s own database tables. | : hreflang for every page. Translated metadata and multilingual sitemaps need the SEO Pack, in every paid plan. | Partly: SEO Pack, in every paid plan: by hand or automatically. | | [WPML](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-wpml) | : WordPress plugin. Translations are WordPress content served by your site, in directories, (sub)domains or a ?lang= parameter. | No: Each translation is its own WordPress post, linked to the original. | : hreflang with x-default in the page head and in Yoast and Rank Math sitemaps. | : Translated by default, and editable. | | Tool | Follows editsPicks up edits to the originalWhen you edit the original page, whether the tool notices and translates what changed. | Approval stepApprove before it goes liveWhether a person can check a translation before visitors see it. | Visual editorVisual editorEditing translations on the page itself, rather than in a list of strings. | GlossaryGlossaryFixed translations for names and terms, applied every time they appear. | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [LangRelay](https://www.langrelay.com/pricing) | : The WordPress plugin reports an edit about a minute later, and only the new text is translated. Other sites can call a change hook from their CMS or deploy. | : When you choose Ask me first. By default pages go live as they are ready, and free checks hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price. Legal pages, pricing pages and sweeping changes always wait for you. | : Click text on the rendered page to edit, at desktop, tablet and mobile widths. | : Per-language terms, “keep as source”, and match case. Paid plans. | | [TranslatePress](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-translatepress) | : An edited string counts as new and needs translating again. With automatic translation on, it is translated when a visitor next opens the page in that language. | Partly: No approval step per translation found. The Multiple Languages add-on, in every paid plan, can keep a whole language hidden until you publish it. | : Front-end editor with a live preview, in the free plugin. | : Applies to new automatic translations when TranslatePress AI is the engine. | | [WPML](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-wpml) | : With Translate Everything Automatically on, new posts and edits are picked up and translated. Otherwise you send them to translation yourself. | : PTC can publish at once, hold drafts for a Translation Manager’s approval, or publish and queue for review. | Partly: The Advanced Translation Editor is side by side, with a front-end preview you can click to edit. Not on the Blog plan. | : Glossary for product names and terms to keep untranslated, with PTC and DeepL. | | Tool | Machine translationMachine translationThe machine or AI translation the tool uses. | AI reviewAI quality reviewAI that checks translations for mistakes, not only writes them. | AI assistantAI assistant in the productAn assistant inside the product that you can ask in plain language. | MCPMCP server for your own AILets your own AI assistant, such as Claude or ChatGPT, work with the tool directly. | APIAPIProgrammatic access for developers. | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [LangRelay](https://www.langrelay.com/pricing) | : AI translation that follows your glossary and each language’s formality. | : Relay reviews any page you ask it to, the way a language expert would, quoted in AI credits first. It reviews legal pages, pricing pages and sweeping changes on its own while you have AI credits. | : Relay, a chat agent that reads your Site’s pages and translations and drafts changes for your approval. | Planned: On the way: connect Claude or ChatGPT to your Sites. | Planned: On the way, for the Growth plan and up. | | [TranslatePress](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-translatepress) | : TranslatePress AI picks between LLMs (such as Gemini and GPT) and DeepL or Google Translate per language pair and context. Google with your own key works on every plan, DeepL with your own key on Business and Developer. | Not found: No AI quality score or review queue found. | Not found: No AI assistant found. | Not found: Not found on translatepress.com. | Partly: PHP functions and hooks. No public REST API for managing translations found. | | [WPML](https://www.langrelay.com/langrelay-vs-wpml) | : PTC, WPML’s own LLM-based engine, by default. DeepL, Google and Microsoft remain as legacy engines. | Partly: PTC learns from your repeated edits and suggests fixes. No separate reviewer found. | Not found: No chat assistant found. | Not found: Not found on wpml.org. | Partly: PHP filter and action hooks for themes and plugins. No public REST API for site translation found. | - No · Not offered - Partly · With a limit - Planned · Announced, not shipped - Not found · Not on the vendor’s own pages when we checked - Yes · Included ### Where the table comes from TranslatePress - [translatepress.com/docs/translation-function/](https://translatepress.com/docs/translation-function/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/frequently-asked-questions/](https://translatepress.com/docs/frequently-asked-questions/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/settings/](https://translatepress.com/docs/settings/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/pricing/](https://translatepress.com/pricing/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/translation-glossary/](https://translatepress.com/docs/translation-glossary/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/addons/multiple-languages/](https://translatepress.com/docs/addons/multiple-languages/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/multilingual-seo/](https://translatepress.com/multilingual-seo/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/translation-editor/url-slug-translation/](https://translatepress.com/docs/translation-editor/url-slug-translation/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wordpress.org/plugins/translatepress-multilingual/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/translatepress-multilingual/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/](https://translatepress.com/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/addons/seo-pack/](https://translatepress.com/docs/addons/seo-pack/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/ai/](https://translatepress.com/ai/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [translatepress.com/docs/automatic-translation/translatepress-ai/](https://translatepress.com/docs/automatic-translation/translatepress-ai/) (checked 7 October 2026) WPML - [wpml.org/documentation/customizing-wpml/ai-translation-settings/](https://wpml.org/documentation/customizing-wpml/ai-translation-settings/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-coding-api/](https://wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-coding-api/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/posts-and-custom-post-types/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/posts-and-custom-post-types/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/language-setup/language-url-options/](https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/language-setup/language-url-options/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/glossary/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/glossary/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/multilingual-seo/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/multilingual-seo/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/home/how-to-build-a-multilingual-wordpress-website/](https://wpml.org/home/how-to-build-a-multilingual-wordpress-website/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-tables/](https://wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-tables/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/advanced-translation-editor/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/advanced-translation-editor/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [app.wpml.org/purchase](https://app.wpml.org/purchase) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/language-setup/](https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/language-setup/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/multi-currency-and-payment-gateways-for-woocommerce/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/multi-currency-and-payment-gateways-for-woocommerce/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/professional-translation-via-wpml/](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/professional-translation-via-wpml/) (checked 7 October 2026) - [wpml.org/documentation/automatic-translation/automatic-translation-pricing/](https://wpml.org/documentation/automatic-translation/automatic-translation-pricing/) (checked 7 October 2026) Product names and logos belong to their owners; shown to identify them for comparison, no affiliation or endorsement. ## Sources The pages this one cites, with the day each was read. 1. 01[TranslatePress, Pricing](https://translatepress.com/pricing/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 2. 02[TranslatePress on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/translatepress-multilingual/)wordpress.org, checked 7 October 2026 3. 03[TranslatePress, Frequently asked questions](https://translatepress.com/docs/frequently-asked-questions/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 4. 04[TranslatePress documentation, TranslatePress AI](https://translatepress.com/docs/automatic-translation/translatepress-ai/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 5. 05[TranslatePress documentation, Multiple Languages add-on](https://translatepress.com/docs/addons/multiple-languages/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 6. 06[TranslatePress documentation, SEO Pack](https://translatepress.com/docs/addons/seo-pack/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 7. 07[TranslatePress, Multilingual SEO](https://translatepress.com/multilingual-seo/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 8. 08[TranslatePress documentation, Translation glossary](https://translatepress.com/docs/translation-glossary/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 9. 09[WPML, Purchase](https://app.wpml.org/purchase)app.wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 10. 10[WPML documentation, Automatic translation pricing](https://wpml.org/documentation/automatic-translation/automatic-translation-pricing/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 11. 11[WPML documentation, Database tables](https://wpml.org/documentation/support/wpml-tables/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 12. 12[WPML documentation, AI translation settings](https://wpml.org/documentation/customizing-wpml/ai-translation-settings/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 13. 13[WPML documentation, Advanced Translation Editor](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/advanced-translation-editor/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 14. 14[WPML documentation, Multilingual SEO](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/multilingual-seo/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 15. 15[WPML documentation, Glossary](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/glossary/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 16. 16[WPML documentation, Language setup](https://wpml.org/documentation/getting-started-guide/language-setup/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 17. 17[TranslatePress, AI](https://translatepress.com/ai/)translatepress.com, checked 7 October 2026 18. 18[WPML documentation, Professional translation via WPML](https://wpml.org/documentation/translating-your-contents/professional-translation-via-wpml/)wpml.org, checked 7 October 2026 [Chris Jayden](https://www.langrelay.com/about) Founder, LangRelay Chris Jayden is the founder of LangRelay. Chris has worked on websites of every size, from large e-commerce stores to small sites with a handful of pages, and started LangRelay after years of translating them the hard way. On this page 1. Editing translations 2. Who approves what 3. AI words and what an edit costs 4. SEO output 5. Free versions, refunds and expiry 6. A worked example: three sites in two languages 7. Picking between them 8. Where LangRelay fits Share - [Share on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab)](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.langrelay.com%2Ftranslatepress-vs-wpml) - [Share on X (opens in a new tab)](https://x.com/intent/post?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.langrelay.com%2Ftranslatepress-vs-wpml&text=TranslatePress%20vs%20WPML%3A%20one%20post%20or%20a%20post%20per%20language) See it on your site A 30-minute walkthrough on one of your pages. [Book a demo](https://www.langrelay.com/book-a-demo) - TranslatePress - WPML - translation plugins ## Keep reading - Alternatives ### [TranslatePress alternatives: five options for WordPress](https://www.langrelay.com/translatepress-alternatives) Five TranslatePress alternatives, from WPML and Polylang to hosted services, with prices checked 7 October 2026 and a sample site's first translation. - Alternatives ### [WPML alternatives: five plugins and services compared](https://www.langrelay.com/wpml-alternatives) WPML alternatives for WordPress, from Polylang to hosted services, with dated prices and a worked example of what editing a translated page costs in each. - Comparison ### [Weglot vs WPML: a hosted proxy or a WordPress plugin?](https://www.langrelay.com/weglot-vs-wpml) Weglot translates through a hosted proxy and bills monthly by translated words; WPML is a yearly WordPress licence. How they differ, priced October 2026. Book a demo ## See LangRelay on your own site Book 30 minutes with the team. We translate one of your pages live and walk through review, publishing and multilingual SEO. [Book a demo](https://www.langrelay.com/book-a-demo)[See pricing](https://www.langrelay.com/pricing)