DeepL API vs Google Cloud Translation vs Azure AI Translator: Real Translation Cost in 2026
USD list prices as of 28 September 2026. Azure and DeepL overage figures are reported by third parties where marked.
The short answer
For plain text, Azure is cheapest at every volume modeled (free to 2 million characters a month, then $10 per million), Google is $20 per million after 500,000 free characters, and DeepL Growth is $26 a month including about one million characters a month, with an overage that is reported at $27.50 per million but not read from DeepL's own pricing page. Documents are a different meter on each: Google bills documents per page, Azure per million characters of extracted text, and DeepL counts a minimum of 50,000 characters for each Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF file.
Text translation
| DeepL API | Google Cloud Translation | Azure AI Translator | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free allowance | Developer: 1,000,000 characters in total, not monthly | 500,000 characters/month (text) | 2,000,000 characters/month (F0) |
| Base fee | Growth: $26/month annual ($32.50 monthly), includes 12M characters/year or 1M/month | None | None |
| Standard rate | Overage reported at $27.50/M; cap 50M characters/month | $20/M (Basic v2 and Advanced v3 NMT) | $10/M (S1, reported) |
| LLM mode | Not sold separately | $10/M input + $10/M output | Not sold separately |
| Custom | Enterprise, custom | Adaptive $25 + $25/M; custom models $80/M | Custom Translator inference $40/M |
Monthly text cost at list price:
| Characters | Azure | DeepL Growth (reported overage) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 million | $0 | (1 − 0.5) × $20 = $10 | $26 annual / $32.50 monthly billing |
| 10 million | (10 − 2) × $10 = $80 | (10 − 0.5) × $20 = $190 | $26 + 9 × $27.50 = $273.50 (annual) |
| 100 million | (100 − 2) × $10 = $980 | (100 − 0.5) × $20 = $1,990 | Above the 50M/month plan limit: Enterprise |
Document translation (formatted files)
Assumption: a document is 2,000 words, about 12,000 characters (6 characters per word, illustrative).
| Documents | Azure ($15/M characters, reported) | Google ($0.08 per page) | DeepL: characters billed (files) | DeepL cost, reported overage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $18 | $24–$32 | 5,000,000 (50,000 minimum per file) | $26 + 4 × $27.50 = $136 |
| 1,000 | $180 | $240–$320 | 50,000,000 (at the monthly limit) | $26 + 49 × $27.50 = $1,373.50 |
| 10,000 | $1,800 | $2,400–$3,200 | 500,000,000 | Exceeds the plan limit: Enterprise |
Google's page count for a 2,000-word document is 3 pages if a page is 4,000 characters and 4 pages if a page is 500 words; both readings are shown (page definition as reported by CostGoat, Sep 2026). Google's document translation has no free tier. For plain-text, HTML, SRT and XLIFF files DeepL counts exact characters with no minimum: 100 such documents are 1.2 million characters ($31.50 at the reported overage).
What the advertised price misses
- DeepL's official help center states a 50,000-character minimum per Word, PowerPoint, Excel or PDF file, so a 12,000-character file is billed as 50,000 (4.2 times).
- DeepL's overage above the included characters is charged extra; the rate is on DeepL's pricing page and is reported by third parties at $27.50/M (eesel, 5 Jun 2026; UsagePricing, 29 May 2026).
- Azure charges for the text extracted from documents; image-based documents are billed per image at a rate not shown in text form.
- Google's custom-model documents cost $0.25 per page (reported).
- Formatting preservation is included in document translation at all three; none lists a separate surcharge.
Break-even
Above 2 million characters, Google costs $10 more per million than Azure plus a flat $10 (20 × (x − 0.5) − 10 × (x − 2) = 10x + 10, x in millions). Against DeepL Growth, Google is cheaper at every volume: at 1 million characters DeepL costs $16 more ($26 versus $10), and above 1 million DeepL's reported overage ($27.50 per million) exceeds Google's $20, so the gap widens. Azure is cheaper than both at every volume modeled. Because DeepL's overage is reported rather than read from DeepL's page, any DeepL figure above 1 million characters is provisional.
Comparison limits
Official: DeepL's file-count rules, Growth inclusions and 50M character limit (help center); Google's $20/M NMT, LLM $10 + $10 and free allowance (pricing page); Azure's 2M free characters. Reported: DeepL's $27.50/M overage, Azure's $10/M text and $15/M document rates, Google's $0.08 per page and $0.25 custom-model page rate. Illustrative: 12,000 characters per document, 3–4 Google pages per document. Text, formatted-document and image-document translation are different meters, so text and document costs are not interchangeable, and a translation quality difference between providers is not priced here.
Sources
DeepL: usage and billing, API plans. Google: Cloud Translation pricing. Azure: Translator pricing, rates as reported by Oreate (Feb 2026).