What drives the cost of a multilingual website

Two kinds of cost

It helps to split a multilingual budget into work that happens once and work that repeats.

• Once per site: deciding the language structure, designing templates that hold every language, building the switcher, setting up hreflang and sitemaps, and preparing the translation workflow.
• Once per language, then again with every change: translating, reviewing, placing the text, checking it in the layout, and keeping it current after launch.

The first kind grows slowly as languages are added; the second grows roughly in proportion to them. Adding languages does not multiply the build cost, but every update to the content has to be made, translated and checked once per language.

What makes the one-off work larger

Platform constraints

Some content systems handle several languages well; others need plugins, workarounds or separate installations. The amount of set-up depends heavily on what the platform does out of the box. On WordPress, for instance, the official roadmap lists multilingual support as its fourth phase, a core implementation still to come ¹, so today a multilingual WordPress site relies on plugins or a multisite set-up.

Templates that must stretch

Templates designed only around English text need rework once German or French arrives. Designing with expansion in mind from the start moves that work into the design stage, where it can be planned. Our guide to text expansion explains why short labels are the risk.

Right-to-left versions

Adding Arabic or Hebrew adds mirrored layouts, checks on mixed-direction text and testing with fluent readers. On an existing site its size depends on how the stylesheets were written; see right-to-left basics.

Shops and forms

A multilingual shop has more moving parts than a brochure site: product data per language, checkout steps, payment and confirmation emails, invoices, and the price display rules for Swiss consumers ². Each part needs translating and testing.

What makes the repeating work larger

Volume of words

Translators quote on their own basis, per word, per hour or per job. Whatever the basis, the volume matters. Our project planner multiplies pages, average words per page and interface text by the number of target languages, which gives the figure translators will ask for.

Rate of change

A site that changes weekly needs weekly translation rounds. Prices, opening hours and legal text are the changes that cannot wait; blog posts may be able to. Decide which content is translated always, which sometimes and which never, and the ongoing budget follows from that decision.

Review

Every translation needs a fluent reader to approve it. If that person is on your staff, their time is part of the cost even if no invoice arrives for it. Where no colleague reads a language, a second translator can review the first, at extra cost.

Ways to keep the budget proportionate

1. Scope each language separately. Not every language has to mirror every page; see the scoping table in our guide to choosing Swiss languages.
2. Freeze the source before translating. Each late edit to the source becomes one small job per language.
3. Write shorter source text. Fewer words mean a smaller translation volume and less pressure on tight layouts.
4. Reuse approved terms. A glossary prevents paying to translate the same phrase in three different ways.
5. Stage the launch. Launch the first languages when they are ready, and add others later, keeping unfinished versions out of the switcher, hreflang and sitemap until then.

How we price our part

Our pricing page lists starting points in Swiss francs for the work we do: language structure reviews, hreflang set-up, adding a language to an existing site, new multilingual builds and right-to-left adaptation. Prices are given plus VAT where applicable, and the treatment is stated on each quote. Translation is not included in any of them, because we do not translate; your translators quote for that part directly.

Every project gets a written quote before any deposit, and the quote states what is covered. If the scope changes later, the change is agreed in writing before the extra work starts.

A simple budget outline

Fill the outline with real quotes rather than estimates from articles. Quotes are specific to your site; published averages are not.