Pages & posts
Every page and post, with their categories and tags. Publish or edit and the new text is translated a few seconds later.
- en About us
- es Sobre nosotros
- de Über uns
Any WordPress site · WooCommerce · v0.11.0
Translate
once. Serve
from a file.
Content is translated in the background the moment you publish it. Visitors read a dictionary compiled to a file, no API on the request, no translation triggered by traffic.
/es/ Español
/de/ Deutsch
/fr/ Français
/it/ Italiano
/pt/ Português
/nl/ Nederlands
/pt-br/ Português do Brasil
/ja/ 日本語
/sv/ Svenska
/pl/ Polski
Any WordPress site
Not only
for stores.
WooCommerce is optional. A blog, a company site, a portfolio or a shop, if it runs on WordPress, it is translated the same way: in the background, and served from a file.
- Blogs
- Company sites
- Portfolios
- Magazines
- Landing pages
- Online stores
Works with
SEO & sitemaps
- Yoast SEO
- Rank Math
- Slim SEO
- WordPress sitemap
Works with
Page cache
- WP-Optimize
- LiteSpeed Cache
- WP Rocket
- W3 Total Cache
Works with
Store
- WooCommerce
- Official WordPress & WooCommerce translation packs
Built for stores too
The parts
others leave
in English.
The cart, the checkout, the notices, where an untranslated string hurts most, at the moment someone is spending money. Covered in three different ways, because they come from three different places.
Order emails · WooCommerce
The email arrives in the buyer’s language.
Someone buys in English. WooCommerce fires "Your order has been paid", and the plugin sends it in English: subject, heading, product names, shipping and payment method, the date, the text you wrote for the footer. The order itself is saved in the store’s language, so the admin, the invoices and the reports read one language.
What the store wroteen · the store
Subject: Your order #1042 has been paid
Your order has been paid
Hi Emma, thank you for your purchase. We are already preparing your order.
| Linen midi dress — Black, M | × 1 | €49.00 |
| Silk blouse — Ivory, S | × 2 | €78.00 |
| Total | €132.00 |
Mariana Studio · 12 Flower Lane, Dublin · Reply to this email to reach us.
What the buyer receivesde · the buyer
Subject: Ihre Bestellung #1042 wurde bezahlt
Ihre Bestellung wurde bezahlt
Hallo Emma, vielen Dank für Ihren Einkauf. Wir bereiten Ihre Bestellung bereits vor.
| Midikleid aus Leinen — Schwarz, M | × 1 | €49.00 |
| Seidenbluse — Elfenbein, S | × 2 | €78.00 |
| Gesamtsumme | €132.00 |
Mariana Studio · 12 Flower Lane, Dublin · Antworten Sie auf diese E-Mail, um uns zu erreichen.
Every order status
Processing
Paid
Completed
Refunded
Note from the shop
All in the buyer's language
Admin emails · store language
Every email after the purchase
Paid, completed, refunded, a note from the shop — in the language of the purchase, from the subject to the footer.
Your own words, translated once
Subject, heading, additional content and footer you wrote in WooCommerce → Emails go through the dictionary. Review them by hand in Strings.
Labels for free, dates done right
"Subtotal", "Shipping", "Payment method" come from WooCommerce's human-reviewed pack. The date uses each language's own format — no "September 9, 2026" on a German page.
The shop reads one language
Orders are saved in the source language with the language of the purchase in _pht_lang. Emails to the administrator stay in the store's language.
The language switcher
Any corner.
Four shapes.
Nothing for the theme to fight. Four kilobytes of CSS, only on the pages where it shows. Three shapes are plain links with zero JavaScript. Colours, size, corners and shadow are set with a live preview that warns under 4.5:1, and every value is a CSS variable, so a theme can restyle it without !important.
AppearanceSwitcher tab
Box#ffffff
Language#1a1a1a
Current#1a1a1a
Hover#dcdcde
Text size14px
Corners8px
Shadowsoft
Contrast 16.1:1 — passes WCAG AA. The panel warns the moment a text colour falls under 4.5:1.
Where it appears
Modes01Automatic — floats in the corner you pick, nothing to touch in the theme. It also shows in the cart and the checkout, where a visitor in the wrong language needs a way back.
02Manual — place it yourself: the Language Switcher block (also inside a Navigation block), a Language switcher item in Appearance → Menus, [pht_switcher] or pht_switcher(). The floating one steps aside on that page; there are never two.
03Off — hidden. Names or codes, with or without flags — drawn in the page, the same on Windows — is a switch either way.
Suggestion bar
Optional01A visitor whose browser speaks another language sees a small bar at the top offering their version.
02It suggests, it never redirects. Redirecting by browser language breaks the page cache, and Google advises against it.
03It shows once. Choosing or closing answers for good. On translated pages the browser's own "Translate this page" offer is silenced — theirs on top of ours reads worse.
How it works
One
separation.
Translation happens in the background. Serving is read-only. It is the model Shopify uses for Translate & Adapt, and the opposite of plugins that translate HTML on demand and pay again for every new page a visitor opens.
Translation time
Background01Text is read straight from the database — products, categories, pages, menus, shop settings — plus one page of each template.
02Only what is missing goes to the PixelHunter translation service, several batches at once. A whole shop takes under a minute.
03The dictionary is compiled to a PHP file inside uploads/. A product you publish is translated a few seconds later.
Serving time
Read-only01The language prefix and the translated address are swapped for the source ones before the WordPress router runs — /es/tienda/ resolves like /shop/. No rewrite rules.
02The dictionary sits in OPcache. Serving a translated page costs neither a query nor an HTTP request.
03HTML goes through the core WP_HTML_Processor. With an empty dictionary the output is byte for byte the input.
cost = 38 ms + 0.12 ms × replacement
linear · measured on the heaviest page of a real store · 262 KB · 719 replacements
Set-up
Four steps. One button.
There is no API account to set up and nothing to configure: the translation API holds its own key. A glossary and a brand tone are optional, under Settings.
Compare
Three ways to translate WordPress.
What changes between translating by hand, renting a translation service and serving your own translations from a file.
A general comparison by type of tool, not of any one product. Checked September 2026.
Pricing
Pay for text.
Not traffic.
Every visit is free, only new or edited text is sent to be translated. Each character counts once per target language, and unused characters roll over while the subscription is active. Yearly plans cost ten months.
What will my site use?
characters, then only what you add or edit.
Share of each plan’s characters for a month Share of each plan’s characters for the year, all at the start
The best fit translates it all in the first month. Later months only use new or edited text.
The best fit covers it at the start: the 12 months arrive at once. After that, only new or edited text.
No monthly plan does it in one month. A yearly plan does — its 12 months arrive at the start. Or the first translation spreads over a few months: unused characters roll over.
More than any plan gives at once: the first translation spreads over time, and unused characters roll over.
Estimates: a product ≈ 1,250 characters, a 1,000-word page ≈ 6,000, the theme and menus ≈ 10,000 once. Visits and unchanged pages never count.
Questions about taxes, how characters are counted or changing plan? Read the plans guide in the documentation.
By starting the free trial or subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Straight answers
What it does. What it doesn’t.
Setup, SEO, the store and billing, the questions people ask before they install.
01
Do I need an API account?
No. The plugin only talks to the PixelHunter translation API, which holds its own key — you only need the license key.
02
Do I need WooCommerce?
No. WooCommerce is optional: the plugin translates any WordPress site — pages, posts, menus, categories and the texts of your theme. When there is a store, the cart, the checkout and the order emails are covered too.
03
Are the translated pages in my sitemap?
Yes. There is no second sitemap to submit: the translated pages are added to the one you already have. With Yoast SEO, Rank Math or Slim SEO each page gets one entry per language, with all its versions as hreflang alternates; without an SEO plugin, WordPress’s own sitemap gets one sitemap per language.
04
Which plugins does it work with?
Yoast SEO, Rank Math and Slim SEO for canonicals and sitemaps; WP-Optimize, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache for page cache purging; and WooCommerce, with its official translation packs. Any other page cache can be connected through two hooks. Pages made with Elementor, Breakdance, Oxygen, Bricks or any other builder, ACF fields and custom product tabs are translated too: the plugin reads the page itself.
05
Are URL slugs translated?
Yes, with Settings → Translated addresses: /product/linen-blouse/ becomes /de/produkt/leinenbluse/. An address is made once, from the translated title (or from the slug, when it was written by hand), and never changes on its own; the source address with the prefix redirects to it with a 301, so no link breaks. On for new installs; a site that updates keeps its addresses until you turn it on.
06
Does it slow my site down?
In the source language, 0 ms. On translated pages the dictionary is read from OPcache; a host page cache serves each language once per URL per TTL.
07
“Subtotal”, “Proceed to checkout”?
They come from the official WooCommerce translation pack — reviewed by humans, at no API cost. The panel says which packs are missing and installs them.
08
Do emails to the shop change?
No. Emails to the administrator stay in the store’s language; only the customer’s emails go out in the language of the purchase.
09
Requirements?
WordPress 6.7 or later and PHP 8.1 or later. No build step, no jQuery, no runtime dependencies.
10
What happens when the characters run out?
Translation pauses and retries every hour. Nothing is lost: pending texts wait for the next period, and the site keeps serving everything already translated. You do not have to open the plugin to find out: a notice appears at the top of the WordPress admin and the site's admin email gets one email. With less than 10% of the plan left, you get a notice and an email first. Need more? Change plan in My account: a new key for the new plan arrives by email, and translation resumes once it is pasted on your sites.
11
And if I cancel?
The key works until the end of the paid period. After that the site still serves every translation it has — only new text stops being translated.
12
Does staging count as a site?
Yes. Translate on the live site, or free a slot in My account → Activations while you work on the copy. The free trial is once per site and does not accept disposable emails.
13
What is not translated?
Code inside <script> — the JSON-LD structured data is the exception, and is translated with the page — and customer emails not tied to an order, which go out in the store's language. Each sentence has one translation across the whole site.
For developers
Three functions. Three filters. Two actions.
Current language
<?php if ( 'en' === pht_current_language() ) : ?> <p>Free shipping to the UK.</p> <?php endif; ?>
Switcher, by hand
[pht_switcher show_label="no" class="mine"] <?php pht_switcher( [ 'style' => 'dropdown' ] ); ?>
Any page cache
add_action( 'pht_purge_urls', function ( $urls ) {
foreach ( $urls as $url ) my_cache_purge( $url );
} );