The one rule: 1 credit = 1 minute into 1 language
Everything is measured in credits. One credit is one minute of translation into one language. The number of listeners does not matter: whether one teenager or two hundred people listen in Spanish, a minute of Spanish costs one credit.
A language only uses credits while someone is listening to it. If you switch on Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese but nobody opens Vietnamese on a given Sunday, Vietnamese costs nothing that week. That makes it safe to offer a language just in case a visitor needs it.
Churches in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas pay in US dollars, with the same numbers as our euro prices. Your church portal can be set to English and your own time zone, so your service history lines up with your Sundays.
Plans at a glance
| Plan | Price per month | Credits per month | Roughly enough for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite | $65 | 480 | 4 two-hour services into 1 language |
| Duo | $100 | 960 | 4 two-hour services into 2 languages |
| Standard | $250 | 2,400 | 4 two-hour services into 5 languages |
| Complete | $400 | 4,320 | 4 two-hour services into 9 languages |
Monthly plan credits are valid until the next month begins; unused plan credits do not roll over. Extra credit packs never expire: 300 credits for $50, 600 credits for $90 and 1,800 credits for $255. Standard also includes the transcript by email after each service and a team with several technicians. Complete has the lowest price per credit, a little over 9 cents a minute.
Worked examples
A small church with one Spanish-speaking family
A congregation of ninety in rural Ohio welcomes a family from Honduras. The Sunday service runs about 75 minutes, and the family listens in Spanish every week. In a five-Sunday month that is 75 × 5 = 375 credits. Lite at $65 covers it, with room for a Christmas Eve service or a longer Sunday.
A Korean-American church translating for the next generation
A Korean congregation in suburban Atlanta holds its main service in Korean, about 90 minutes, and translates it into English for its college students and for spouses who did not grow up speaking Korean. A Wednesday evening service of 60 minutes is translated too. Per month: (90 + 60) × 4 = 600 credits. That is more than Lite's 480, so Duo at $100 with 960 credits is the comfortable fit, and leaves room to add a second language for visitors later.
A bilingual church with two Sunday services
A church in San Antonio has an English service at 9:00 and a Spanish service at 11:00, each about 80 minutes. The English service is translated into Spanish, and the Spanish service into English, so each service uses one language. Per week: 80 + 80 = 160 credits; per month about 640 to 800 credits depending on the number of Sundays. Duo at $100 covers it.
A refugee resettlement church with five languages
A church in Houston that partners with a resettlement agency offers Spanish, Arabic, Ukrainian, French and Persian (Farsi). The service is 120 minutes, and most Sundays three or four languages have listeners. A heavy month with all five in use every week: 120 × 5 × 4 = 2,400 credits. Standard at $250 fits exactly; in a lighter month with three languages in use, about 1,440 credits are used and the rest expires.
A three-day conference
A regional youth conference runs six hours of sessions a day for three days, translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Korean. That is 6 × 60 × 3 days × 3 languages = 3,240 credits. A church on Lite could buy two packs of 1,800 credits ($510) and keep the leftover 360 for later, since packs never expire. A church that runs several events a year may find Complete at $400 a better deal for that month. See conferences and events for planning tips.
How to estimate your own needs
- 01Time the real service
Measure from the moment you would start the broadcast to the end of the benediction or last announcement. Services often run longer than the order of worship suggests.
- 02Count the languages people will use
Not every language you could switch on, but the ones people will actually listen to in a typical month.
- 03Do the math
Minutes × languages × services per month = credits per month. Add a margin for five-Sunday months and the occasional special service.
- 04Pick a plan, add packs for peaks
Choose the smallest plan that covers a normal month. Buy a credit pack for Easter, Christmas, VBS week or a conference instead of upgrading for the whole year.
Compared with interpreters and receiver systems
Volunteer interpreters cost nothing in money, but a headset system means buying receivers, batteries and spares, and the real cost is in people: recruiting, training and scheduling interpreters every week, for every language.
Professional interpreters are usually booked by the half or full day. As a rough indication, a single booking costs considerably more than a month of a ChurchTranslate plan, which is why most churches reserve them for special occasions.
An app has a predictable monthly cost, needs no hardware for listeners and adds languages without adding people. Its limits are not financial; they are the limits of software, described honestly in interpreter or AI translation.
Bringing it to your board or finance team
Boards and finance committees usually ask three questions: what it costs each month, who it serves, and what happens to people's data. Bring a worked example based on your own services, the number of people who would benefit, and a sentence on privacy: no audio recordings are stored, and transcripts stay in the church's own archive. Some churches fund the first year from a missions or outreach budget, since welcoming immigrants and refugees is often part of that work already.
The current plans and checkout are on the pricing page. Every new church starts with a free 10-minute trial service, so you can test before anyone commits a dollar.