Translation is one of the harder line items to estimate when you take a store international. The Shopify App Store's Currency and translation category holds 173 apps ranging from $9.99 to $329 a month, and they price on four different units — words, languages, product count, and AI tokens. Putting the pricing pages side by side doesn't produce a comparison.

The place to start is Translate & Adapt, Shopify's own free translation app. It does more than most merchants expect, and it has one ceiling that catches nearly everyone: it auto-translates a maximum of two languages. That number appears in the Help Center but not prominently, and App Store reviews include merchants who discovered it only after hitting it.

This post maps what the native stack actually covers, where it stops, and what the paid alternatives are really charging for. Researched August 31, 2026.

The short version

• Shopify supports up to 20 languages per store on every plan except Lite. Language count does not scale with your plan.
• Translate & Adapt auto-translates a maximum of two languages. Manual translation and CSV import have no language limit — so you can fill all 20 languages for free if you supply the translations yourself. The free ceiling is on automatic translation, not on languages.
• Tags, product images, collection filters, and Shopify Forms cannot be translated. Tags in particular are a platform-level limitation that no paid app resolves.
• New products are not auto-translated. You have to re-run auto-translate per language. For stores adding products continuously, this is the first thing that breaks.
• hreflang, self-referencing canonicals, and international sitemaps are generated automatically by Markets. Don't buy an app for those.
• Uninstalling Translate & Adapt does not delete your translations. What does delete them permanently: removing a language, and changing your default language.

What the native stack covers

Translate & Adapt launched August 16, 2022, is built by Shopify, and is free. It currently sits at 4.5 stars across 1,397 reviews. Notably, despite being first-party, it does not carry a Built for Shopify badge — several third-party translation apps do.

The numbers

Item	Value
Languages per store	20 (all plans except Lite)
Minimum plan for multi-language selling	Basic
Minimum plan for international domains	Basic
Auto-translate language limit	2
Manual translation / CSV import limit	None (within the 20)
Pre-translated languages for checkout etc.	33
Languages Translate & Adapt does not support	14

There is no documented tiering of language count by plan. Claims that Plus stores get more languages are incorrect.

What it does translate

Shopify exposes 27 translatable resource types — products, collections, blog posts, pages, policies, navigation, theme locale strings, metafields, and metaobjects among them. Three capabilities are worth calling out because merchants often don't know they're there:

URL handles are translatable. Sitemaps update to the translated handles, and redirects from the default-language URL to the translated URL are generated automatically.

Market-level copy variation (the "Adapt" half). The same language can differ by market — Shopify's own example is "Sweaters" for the US market and "Jumpers" for the UK. Market-specific logos, images, and video are also supported, with one exception: a logo registered as a brand asset can't be varied by market and has to be uploaded through theme settings instead.

Email notifications are translatable, via Settings → Notifications → Localize.

CSV export and import are available in four scopes — all content, metafields, outdated, and untranslated. One caveat: CSV import doesn't generate translations. You supply the translated text.

International SEO is already handled

If you're evaluating apps partly for multilingual SEO, check this first. Shopify Markets generates these automatically:

• hreflang tags (language code plus optional region code, with x-default on the primary domain)
• Self-referencing canonicals
• International sitemaps with hreflang annotations
• Exclusion of search engine crawlers from automatic geographic redirects

URL structure options are subfolder, subdomain, and ccTLD, and Shopify explicitly recommends subfolder for most stores.

The practical implication runs the opposite direction from what merchants expect: rather than buying an app for hreflang, you may need to turn Shopify's automatic generation off to avoid emitting duplicate hreflang from both the platform and an app or theme.

Where the native stack stops

The limitations fall into three layers, and they're not equally solvable.

Platform-level — no app fixes these

Tags cannot be translated. Product tags, article tags, blog tags — all excluded, and the Help Center states it in several places. This is not something a paid translation app resolves. If tags drive your faceted navigation or your merchandising logic, that architecture needs to change before you go multilingual, not after.

Fixed words inside URL slugs (products, for example) also can't be translated, and URL handles can't be customized per market — only per language.

One SEO subtlety: if you've left meta title and description at their defaults, no translation field appears, because they're generated from your translated product title and description. Enter them manually and they become translatable.

Translate & Adapt app limitations

Beyond the two-language auto-translate cap:

Explicitly untranslatable content: collection filters, Shopify Forms forms, manual payment method descriptions, product images, tags, and any third-party app content that isn't exposed as a Shopify translatable resource or in a storefront locale file.

Policies are excluded from auto-translation — manual only, with Shopify recommending you consult a professional.

And the one that determines whether the free tier is viable long-term: auto-translate only processes content that is untranslated or out of sync. Adding a new product does not translate it. You re-run auto-translate, per language, each time. At a few products a month this is fine. At a steady publishing cadence it isn't.

Separately, in-app search doesn't work for 13 resource types (delivery method definitions, email templates, filters, metafields, theme app embeds, theme settings, packing slip templates, payment gateways, selling plans, shop, shop policies, and others). They're included in CSV export, so bulk work has to go through CSV.

Theme and app hardcoded strings

Shopify.dev instructs theme developers to reference locale files via the t filter rather than hardcoding strings in layouts, templates, snippets, and Liquid assets. The inverse is the constraint: any string not routed through t is invisible to the Translations API and can't be translated natively.

Third-party app strings work the same way. If the app hasn't implemented Shopify's localization, native translation can't reach it, and Shopify's guidance is simply to ask the app developer.

Also worth knowing: the language selector is a theme feature, not a Translate & Adapt feature. Shopify's free themes include one; anything else is on your theme developer or a third-party app. Custom themes that don't use the routes Liquid object will break multilingual routing entirely.

Two operations that destroy translations

• Changing your default language deletes all existing translations for the language you switch to
• Deleting a language permanently deletes its translations. (Unpublishing preserves them — but the URLs will 404, so set up redirects.)

By contrast, uninstalling Translate & Adapt deletes nothing, because translations live in Shopify, not in the app.

Where a paid app starts to make sense

Any one of these is a legitimate trigger:

You need auto-translation in three or more languages. The cleanest boundary. If this is the only reason, Hextom's $9.99 tier (10 auto-translated languages) is the most direct substitute.

Your catalog grows continuously. Manual re-runs stop scaling. You need automatic translation of new and updated content — the "Autopilot" category of feature.

Text is baked into product images. Native translation can't touch image content, and manual swapping doesn't scale past a handful.

Third-party app strings are central to the shopping experience — reviews, page builders, popups — and those apps aren't localized.

You need a glossary to enforce brand and product terminology. Native has none.

You need a specific engine (DeepL, ChatGPT) or want to bring your own API key to control cost.

And what a paid app won't fix: tag translation, the 20-language platform ceiling, and hreflang/sitemaps (already automatic).

The paid apps, compared

Shopify App Store listing values as of August 31, 2026. All prices USD per month.

	Translate & Adapt	Weglot	T Lab	LangShop	Transcy	Hextom
Developer	Shopify	Weglot (FR)	Sherpas Design (BG)	Aheadworks (US)	FireGroup (VN)	Hextom (CA)
Rating / reviews	4.5 / 1,397	4.5 / 788	4.9 / 945	4.5 / 442	4.5 / 2,488	4.7 / 1,173
Built for Shopify	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free plan	Everything, free	1 lang / 2,000 words	1 AI lang / 500 products	1 lang / 50 products	1 lang, unlimited words	3 auto-translated langs
Entry paid tier	—	$17	$11.99	$10	$14.90	$9.99
Mid tier	—	$32 (3 langs)	$29.99 (10 langs)	$40 (3 langs)	$29 (3 langs)	$19.99 (50 langs)
Top tier	—	$87–$329	$59.99 (20 langs)	$75 (5 langs)	$69 (15 langs)	$49.99 (133 langs)
Billing unit	None	Words × languages	Languages × resource count	Languages × products	Languages × monthly AI tokens	Languages only
Auto-translate languages	2	1/1/3/5/10	1/5/10/20	1/1/3/5	1/1/3/15	3/10/50/133
Glossary	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	$19.99+
Image translation	Swap only	Yes	Yes	Not documented	Yes (in-image text)	$19.99+
Auto-translate new content	No	Yes	$59.99	$40+	$29+	$19.99+
Translations stored in	Shopify	Weglot's own DB	Shopify DB	Not documented	Shopify (inferred)	Not documented
Billing	—	Billed separately by Weglot	Via Shopify	Via Shopify	Via Shopify	Via Shopify

What the table is telling you

Five apps, four incompatible billing units. Word-count pricing tracks catalog text volume; language-count pricing tracks market count; product-count pricing tracks SKU count; AI-token pricing tracks update frequency. A 50,000-SKU store in two languages and a 500-SKU store in ten languages will find opposite apps cheapest.

Weglot's word allowance does not reset monthly. Weglot's own definition: unique words counted across all languages, and it's a fixed cap that isn't renewed. Every product you add consumes some of it permanently. This is the single most commonly misunderstood term in this category.

Weglot's charges don't appear on your Shopify invoice. The App Store listing says so explicitly.

There's an architectural fork worth understanding. T Lab, LangShop, Transcy, and Hextom write into Shopify's Translations API, meaning translations remain in Shopify if you remove the app. T Lab's developer states this directly — translations are stored in the Shopify database, and the app provides the admin UI for managing them.

Weglot is a reverse proxy and stores translations in its own database (AWS Frankfurt), deleted 180 days after a project goes inactive. Translations do not accumulate as an asset inside Shopify. Its Shopify Markets setup is correspondingly heavy: the documented procedure requires a custom domain with DNS records pointed at Weglot, unpublishing and then deleting your native Shopify languages, and contacting Weglot support to apply configuration on their side. It's the most involved to adopt and the most involved to leave.

Two things we couldn't confirm

Shopify's own two sources disagree on what engine powers Translate & Adapt's auto-translation — the Help Center says "AI translations from Shopify" while the App Store listing cites Google Translate. There isn't a basis to state one definitively.

For LangShop, Transcy, and Hextom, uninstall behavior for translation data isn't documented in sources we could reach. Their data-access permissions imply they write to Shopify's Translations API, but no explicit statement about deletion was found. Ask the developer directly before you commit.

Choosing

Two languages or fewer, low publishing cadence. → Stay native. Translate & Adapt covers it at zero cost.

Three to ten auto-translated languages, no other exotic requirements. → Hextom at $9.99 (10 languages) or $19.99 (50 languages). Billing on language count alone makes it the most directly comparable substitute for the native app.

Large catalog, continuous additions. → T Lab Premium ($59.99, with Autopilot) or Hextom Pro ($19.99). T Lab Premium also allows bringing your own DeepL / Google / ChatGPT API key for unlimited AI translation, which can lower total cost at high volume.

Text baked into product images. → Transcy or T Lab. Transcy markets AI translation of in-image text; note that its token-based billing makes cost harder to predict at high update frequency.

Translation workflow with reviewers or an external agency. → Weglot or LangShop. If you choose Weglot, decide your exit plan first — the translations won't be sitting in Shopify when you leave.

Before you install

• How many languages do you actually need auto-translated? Two or fewer means stay native
• Does your faceted navigation depend on tags? No app translates them
• Is there text baked into your product images?
• How often do you add products, and will re-running auto-translate per language hold up?
• Does your theme use the t filter and the routes object properly? (Custom themes need checking)
• Are the third-party apps central to your storefront localized?
• Run your own catalog size, language count, and update frequency through each billing model and compare annual totals
• If considering Weglot: do you understand that the word cap is cumulative and never resets?
• Ask each developer, explicitly, what happens to translations on uninstall
• Confirm whether charges land on your Shopify invoice
• Check you're not emitting hreflang twice — from Markets and from an app or theme

The bottom line

Start by testing the two-language ceiling. If your expansion fits inside it, the native app is genuinely sufficient and free. The moment you need a third auto-translated language is the first clear boundary.

Then inventory what native can't reach. Tags, product images, collection filters, app strings, theme hardcoded strings. Tags won't be solved by any purchase, so fix that architecture first. Hardcoded theme strings should be fixed in the theme — an app overriding them is treating the symptom.

Then compare on billing unit and on exit cost. Plug your own catalog size, language count, and update frequency into each model. And decide up front whether translations need to remain in Shopify: apps writing to the Translations API leave you with an asset, proxy-based ones don't. That difference is invisible on day one and decisive on the day you switch.

Pricing and review figures are as of August 31, 2026 and change frequently. Verify current terms on the App Store listing before you commit.

Primary sources

• Shopify Help Center: Localization and translation
• Shopify Help Center: Translate & Adapt app
• Shopify Help Center: International SEO with Shopify Markets
• Shopify.dev: Storefront locale files
• Shopify App Store: Shopify Translate & Adapt
• Shopify App Store: Weglot: AI Translation & SEO
• Shopify App Store: T Lab - AI Language Translate
• Shopify App Store: LangShop AI Language Translate
• Shopify App Store: Transcy: AI Language Translate
• Shopify App Store: Hextom AI Translate & Currency