How many documents can you translate for free?
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The Short Answer
- MateCat — MateCat states it is "completely free" with "unlimited access to all its features, with no restrictions on the number of users or projects", and publishes no paid plan at all.
- DeepL — DeepL's comparison table gives the free version "1" file translation per user per month at up to 5 MB — a real document, once.
- Reverso — Reverso gives new accounts "2,500 free credits, enough to translate 2,500 words" as a one-time signup allowance rather than a recurring quota.
- Smartcat — Smartcat publishes no free tier — "15-day free trial of the full platform" and then a cheapest plan starting at $1,200 a year.
| Product | Best for | From | Free plan | Free-plan documents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MateCat | Unlimited, with no tier above it | Free only | Yes | Unlimited documents |
| DeepL | Exactly one document a month | $8.74/mo (annual) | Yes | Capped documents |
| Reverso | 2,500 words once, not monthly | $6.49/mo (annual) | Yes | Capped documents |
| Smartcat | No free plan, a 15-day trial instead | — | No | Payment to translate |
What we checked, and what we did not test
Machine translation is free almost everywhere if what you want is a paragraph in a box. The moment it stops being free is when you have a file — a contract, a manual, a deck — and you want the same file back in another language with its layout intact. That is a different product with a different price, and it is where free plans draw their lines.
On 6 August 2026 we opened four pricing pages looking for one number: how many whole documents a free account translates and hands back. Each verdict quotes what we found. We did not upload files.
The spread here is the widest on the site. One product does it without limit and sells nothing. One allows exactly one document a month. One gives you six pages once, ever. One has no free tier at all and starts at $1,200 a year. Four vendors, four fundamentally different answers to the same question — which is unusual, and useful, because it means the choice actually matters.
Unlimited, with no tier above it
1. MateCat — Unlimited, with no tier above it
MateCat is the rarest thing on this site: a product where the free plan is the whole product.
Best for Whole documents, unlimited, at no price
From Free only. Free plan: The entire product is free — "Matecat is a free and open source online CAT tool. It's free for translation companies, translators and enterprise users", with no paid tier published.
The homepage states it without a tier attached: "Matecat offers a powerful solution that's completely free… It provides unlimited access to all its features, with no restrictions on the number of users or projects." Whole-document translation and download carry no published cap, and there is no plan above this one to upgrade to.
Pros
- Unlimited users and projects with no paid tier at all, stated on the vendor's own homepage.
- 82 file formats and adaptive machine translation are included rather than reserved.
Skip it if
- You must sign in to create a project — it is free, not anonymous.
- The page describes access as "unlimited" without documenting any fair-use throttling that heavy machine-translation use might hit.
Exactly one document a month
2. DeepL — Exactly one document a month
DeepL’s free tier is a sample with a published size, which is more honest than most and still a sample.
Best for One free document a month, published as a number
From $8.74/mo (annual). Free plan: Free — 50,000 characters a month, "1" file translation per user per month at "Up to 5 MB", 1 saved translation, and 1 glossary with 5 entries per language pair.
- Individual — $8.74/mo billed annually · 1 seat ($8.74 a month billed annually; the page has a monthly toggle whose figure we could not capture. 300,000 characters and 3 file translations a month, up to 30 MB)
- Team — $28.74/mo billed annually ($28.74 per user per month billed annually, for 2+ users; 1,000,000 characters and 20 files a month)
- Business — $57.49/mo billed annually ($57.49 per user per month billed annually; unlimited characters under a fair-usage policy, 100 files a month up to 100 MB)
- Enterprise — price not shown on the page we opened (Custom pricing behind a sales contact)
DeepL's plan-comparison table gives the free version "File translations (per user/month)" of "1" and a "Max. file size" of "Up to 5 MB". So a free account translates and downloads exactly one whole document a month — a real capability with a hard, published edge.
Pros
- The free document allowance is a published number rather than a vague "limited".
- One free file a month at up to 5 MB is enough to evaluate output quality on real work.
Skip it if
- One document a month is unusable for ongoing work; the next step up is $8.74 a month billed annually.
- The page never says whether the file counter resets on a calendar month or a rolling thirty days.
- Monthly-billed prices were not readable during our check — only the annual-equivalent figures.
2,500 words once, not monthly
3. Reverso — 2,500 words once, not monthly
Reverso’s free allowance is easy to mistake for a recurring one, and it is not.
Best for A one-time free allowance, not a monthly one
From $6.49/mo (annual). Free plan: No recurring free plan. New accounts get a one-time allotment: "Just sign up. You get 2,500 free credits, enough to translate 2,500 words" — about six pages, with scanned PDFs excluded.
- Premium — $6.49/mo billed annually ($6.49 a month billed as one payment of $77.88 a year; up to 50,000 words a year, files up to 30 MB)
- Pro — $24.99/mo billed annually ($24.99 a month billed as one payment of $299.88 a year; up to 200,000 words a year, files up to 120 MB)
- Corporate & API — price not shown on the page we opened ("Personalized offer" with no published price)
The documents FAQ sets the free allowance once, not monthly: "Just sign up. You get 2,500 free credits, enough to translate 2,500 words. Beyond that, subscribe to a plan or buy one-time credits." One credit is one word, so free use is roughly six pages in total — after which nothing further translates without payment.
Pros
- No card is needed to start: "No credit card required to start. No setup. Just upload and translate."
- Translated files keep the original layout and export as PDF, DOCX or PPTX.
Skip it if
- The 2,500 words are a signup gift rather than a monthly quota — the page states no recurring free allowance at all.
- Scanned PDFs need OCR, which free accounts do not get.
No free plan, a 15-day trial instead
4. Smartcat — No free plan, a 15-day trial instead
Smartcat is priced for organisations and does not pretend otherwise.
Best for Nobody looking for a free tier
From —. No free plan.
- Adapt — price not shown on the page we opened ("Starting at $1,200 / year, billed annually" — the page publishes an annual total and no monthly figure, and "starting at" is a floor rather than a price, so we do not derive one. Unlimited users, 100K Smartwords, 1 workspace)
- Accelerate — price not shown on the page we opened ("Starting at $24,000 / year, billed annually"; 1M Smartwords, 1 workspace)
- Anticipate — price not shown on the page we opened ("Starting at $60,000 / year, billed annually"; 2M Smartwords, 2 workspaces)
- Autonomous — price not shown on the page we opened ("Custom — tailored to your needs"; 6M Smartwords, 7 workspaces)
There is no free plan to cap. The pricing FAQ offers time instead: "Do you offer a free trial? Yes. 15-day free trial of the full platform." After fifteen days the cheapest published entry is $1,200 a year, so translating and downloading a document past the trial requires payment.
Pros
- The 15-day trial covers the full platform rather than a reduced version of it.
- The cheapest tier includes unlimited users, which none of the per-seat vendors here offer.
Skip it if
- No free tier exists at all — entry is $1,200 a year.
- Every price is published as a yearly total with "starting at" attached, so no comparable monthly figure appears anywhere on the page.
What this means if you are choosing today
If you translate documents regularly and cost matters, MateCat is the only product on this page whose own site says you can keep doing it without paying. It is a CAT tool rather than a one-click translator, so the trade is interface complexity rather than money — and the word “unlimited” on its homepage carries no published fair-use policy, which is worth knowing before you build a workflow on it.
If you need one document translated well and never again, DeepL’s single free file a month is sized exactly for that. And read Reverso’s offer carefully before you plan around it: 2,500 words sounds like a monthly quota in every summary of it we have seen, and Reverso’s own FAQ describes it as what you get when you sign up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you translate a whole document for free?
On MateCat, without a stated limit: it says it is "completely free" with "unlimited access to all its features, with no restrictions on the number of users or projects". On DeepL, once a month, up to 5 MB. On Reverso, about six pages in total before the signup credits run out. On Smartcat, only during a 15-day trial.
What is DeepL's free document limit?
One file per user per month, at up to 5 MB, alongside a 50,000-character monthly allowance for pasted text. It is published as a number in DeepL's own plan-comparison table, which is more than most vendors in this category manage. The next tier up, Individual at $8.74 a month billed annually, raises it to three files at up to 30 MB.
Is Reverso's free translation monthly?
No, and that is the detail worth catching. Its FAQ says "Just sign up. You get 2,500 free credits, enough to translate 2,500 words. Beyond that, subscribe to a plan or buy one-time credits." One credit is one word, so the free allowance is roughly six pages once — not six pages a month. Scanned PDFs are also excluded from free use.
Why is Smartcat's price column empty?
Because it publishes yearly totals with "starting at" attached — $1,200, $24,000 and $60,000 a year — and no monthly figure anywhere. "Starting at" is a floor rather than a price, so dividing by twelve would produce a number the vendor never published. The real figures are in each plan's note instead.
Did you upload documents to any of these?
No. Every verdict here was read on the vendor's own pricing page on 6 August 2026 and is labelled as read, not run. MateCat's is the one most worth testing by hand: "unlimited" appears on the homepage with no fair-use policy attached, and only actually pushing volume through it would show where the ceiling really sits.
How We Keep This Updated
Prices move and vendors rewrite their plan tables, so every value on this page carries the date we read it. When a page changes, the change lands here rather than being edited away quietly. The procedure is on the methodology page. tell us and we will re-check it.
- 2026-08-06 — First published. Free-tier document limits read on each vendor's own pricing page; Smartcat prices recorded as unavailable because the page publishes only "starting at" annual totals.