Tool
Multilingual project planner
Choose the languages your site should offer, give a page count and average words per page, and pick your address structure, platform, translators and launch order. The planner writes a short plan with the word volume per target language, notes on each choice, and a list of decisions still open. It does arithmetic on your figures; it does not price translation, because translators set their own rates.
Plan the languages of your site
The planner adds up word volumes with JavaScript. With it off, the questions below still work as a list of decisions to make before any build starts.
Choose the options above, then Make the plan.
How the numbers work
The planner multiplies the number of pages by the average words per page, adds the words in menus, buttons, forms and automatic emails, and treats that as the volume for one language. It then multiplies by the number of target languages, which is every selected language except the one the content is written in first.
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Pages in the first language | 24 |
| Average words per page | 450 |
| Interface words | 900 |
| Words per target language | 24 x 450 + 900 = 11,700 |
| Target languages (German and French, source English) | 2 |
| Total words to translate | 23,400 |
The figure is only as good as your inputs. Count the body text of three or four representative pages to get a fair average, and remember that interface text hides in places like form error messages and confirmation emails.
Why there are no prices
Translators quote on their own terms: per word, per hour, per page or per job, with differences for subject matter, deadlines and review. Any price the tool showed would be a guess presented as a figure. The word volume is what translators need to quote, so that is what the planner gives you. Our guide to multilingual website costs explains the other budget lines.
What the notes mean
Address structure
The note for each option summarises the trade-offs Google lists for country domains, subdomains and subdirectories 1. Our URL structure guide covers them in more depth.
Platform
Whatever platform you choose, it needs a record of which pages are translations of each other, so it can link them in the switcher and in hreflang. If WordPress is on your list, note that its roadmap names multilingual support as a future phase of core development 2, so today it relies on plugins or multisite.
Who translates
Each option comes with the practical point that matters most for it, such as briefing freelancers with a glossary or budgeting for review when machine translation produces the first draft. On that last point, Google's spam policies name automated translating among the techniques involved in scaled content abuse when pages offer little value 3, which is why the note keeps a person responsible for every published page.
Arabic and Romansh
Selecting Arabic adds a right-to-left section to the plan, because direction affects layout and testing, not just text. Selecting Romansh adds a note that its ISO 639-1 code is rm 4 and that the written form should be agreed with your translator.
Using the plan
The saved text file is a starting point for three conversations: with your team about which languages and scope to commit to, with translators about volume and timing, and with whoever builds the site about structure and platform. It is not a quote and not a specification.
If you want help turning it into one, the contact page explains how to reach us, and our process page shows how a project runs from there.
Privacy
The planner runs in your browser. It sends nothing, sets no cookies and forgets your entries when you close the page.
Sources
Want to take the plan further?
Send the text file the planner produced. We reply by email, saying whether the project fits us.
Share your plan