Is Google Translate free?

The app and website

The Google Translate app is listed as Free on the App Store as of November 2026. If you're asking about the app, that's your answer. The paid service covered below is the Cloud Translation API, not the app download.

The app listing says it translates between up to 249 languages. Google describes that as support for almost 250 languages in April 2026. Those are the language figures you'll see in the listing and Google's description.

What about translating a file on the website? You can upload documents there, but there are limits on file type, size and PDF length. And document translation isn't available on phones.

Document translation limits

The Google Translate website accepts .docx, .pdf, .pptx and .xlsx files up to 10 MB. For PDFs, there's another limit: the file must be 300 pages or less.

Both limits apply. A PDF needs to fit under the file-size limit and stay within the page limit, rather than meeting just one of them.

You can't use website document translation on your phone. That's worth knowing before you prepare the file, since a supported file type doesn't change the phone restriction.

Keep website uploads separate from API document translation when you're looking at costs. The API has a per-page price for documents, covered below. Its monthly free character allowance doesn't apply to document translation.

When the API starts charging

For standard text translation, the Cloud Translation API includes the first 500,000 characters each month for free. After that, the price is $20 per million characters.

Spaces count too.

The free allowance takes the form of a credit of up to $10 a month, shared by the Basic and Advanced editions. It isn't a separate allowance for each edition, and it doesn't cover document translation.

If you're putting together a budget, keep those terms in view: the allowance is monthly, the unit is characters rather than words, and spaces are part of that count. For documents, the API charges $0.08 per page instead.

New Google Cloud customers also get a $300 credit to use within 90 days. That's separate from the monthly character allowance. Don't treat the new-customer credit as a recurring part of your monthly budget (it has that 90-day window).

What a typical month costs

Your total depends on how many characters you translate. Here's the worked example for 2 million characters in a month:

(2,000,000 - 500,000) × $20 per million = $30.

You subtract the free 500,000 characters, then apply the standard translation rate to what's left. The result is $30 for that month's standard text translation.

At 10 million characters a month, the cost is $190.

These examples use the monthly free allowance and the $20-per-million rate. They don't use the new-customer $300 credit, and they aren't examples of document translation costs.

Working with documents instead? Use the API's $0.08-per-page price, not the character calculation above. The website's 10 MB and 300-page upload limits are separate from that API price.

Cheaper ways to translate a lot of text

For a lower per-character rate, Translinga is a translation API made by Bitgate for Shopify stores, WordPress sites and apps. It has two tiers: Fast costs $2.50 per million characters, and Quality costs $5.00 per million.

Check the counting rule before comparing your expected bill. Every character counts, including spaces, once per target language. If your project translates text into several target languages, each target language is part of the character count.

Credit is prepaid, starting at $5, and never expires. The first $1 is free, covering about 400,000 characters on Fast.

You don't need a card to get a key. It's in early access, and you request a key using the Get early access button on translinga.com.

For an existing integration, Google Translate v2 requests work too, with the same language codes as the DeepL and Google Translate APIs. Those are the request and language-code details to compare with what your site or app already uses.