Microsoft Translator is a machine translation engine by Microsoft.
It handles text, speech, documents, and even conversations.
It’s part of Azure Cognitive Services, useful for devs and end users alike.
It powers translation in Office, Bing, Skype, and more.
It supports over 100 languages and dialects.
It reaches an estimated audience of 34910 billion people (through supported languages). On the web usage side, ~1,846 live websites are using Microsoft Translator according to BuiltWith trends.
That shows companies trust it for real localization and translation tasks.
You supply text, it detects the source language and translates.
It also offers transliteration and bilingual dictionary features.
You can upload files (Word, PDF) to translate while preserving structure.
It can translate speech in real time, enabling cross-language conversation.
Group conversation translation is also supported in the app.
You can download language packs to translate while offline (on device).
For high security, there is on-premises / container deployment for private translation.
Devs can build custom translation models (Custom Translator) tailored to domain jargon.
The REST API allows translation calls, integration with apps/websites.
It also has built in security data submitted is not persistently stored.
For light users, there’s a free tier: 2 million characters per month at no cost.
Beyond that, standard translation costs ~$10 per million characters.
Document translation is around $15 per million characters.
Custom translation (using your own trained models) is ~$40 per million characters.
Training a custom model costs ~$10 per million source + target characters (capped per run).
Hosting a custom translation model also has monthly cost per region.
Wide language support and dialects
Flexible: works with text, speech, documents
Offline & on-premises for privacy
API integration & custom model support
Secure design: doesn’t store user text long term
For idiomatic phrases or nuance, errors appear
Heavy usage costs can add up
Custom model training requires good data
Some rare languages may be less polished
Offline packs may lack latest updates
Microsoft Translator is a powerful, enterprise-ready translation system that bridges languages across many formats.
It’s built for both everyday users and developers who need scalable localization.
It’s not flawless nuance and style remain hard for machines but it offers a strong balance of features, security, and pricing.