TranslateWP Pro — Complete Guide

Everything you need to run a multilingual WordPress site with AI translation: server requirements, installation, configuration, and day-to-day usage.

• 1 · Server requirements
• 2 · Installation
• 3 · Configuration
• 4 · Usage
• 5 · Troubleshooting

OverviewWhat TranslateWP Pro does

TranslateWP Pro translates your entire frontend — page text, buttons, form fields and labels, image alt/title text, tooltips, ARIA labels, SEO/social meta tags, WooCommerce content and customer emails — using OpenAI, Claude (Anthropic) or DeepL. Translations are stored in your own database and served locally, so each string is paid for once and delivered instantly afterwards. Visitors switch languages through URL prefixes (/fr/, /nl/, /ro/…) and a floating switcher.

Key capabilities: async frontend auto-translation, a visual click-to-edit editor, background translation jobs, live translation of AJAX-inserted content (mini-cart, load-more, filters), optional full-page caching, multilingual sitemap and hreflang, CSV import/export, logs, and multi-layer cost protection.

Chapter 1Server requirements

Chapter 2Installation

Method A — WordPress uploader

1. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin.
2. Select translatewp-pro-1.0.0.zip and click Install Now.
3. Click Activate. Language rewrite rules and the sitemap endpoint are registered automatically.

Method B — File Manager / FTP (works behind any firewall)

1. Upload the ZIP to wp-content/plugins/ and extract it there. You should end up with wp-content/plugins/translatewp-pro/.
2. Activate TranslateWP Pro from the Plugins screen.

Method C — WP-CLI

wp plugin install translatewp-pro-1.0.0.zip --activate

Multisite

Network-activating installs the plugin on every site of the network; new sites created later are set up automatically. Each site keeps its own languages, providers, translations and limits.

Chapter 3Configuration

3.1 Choose a translation provider

Select the active provider under TranslateWP → Settings → Translation Provider. If the active provider fails or hits a limit, every other configured provider is tried automatically, in order — configure two for automatic failover.

3.2 API keys

Paste each key in its provider card and press Test Connection. Stored keys are shown masked (sk-…abcd) and are never echoed back in full; leave the field blank on later saves to keep the existing key, or paste a new one to replace it.

3.3 Models and cost per model

Prices are USD per 1 million tokens (input / output). As a rule of thumb, 1 token ≈ 4 characters; translating 100,000 characters costs roughly $0.02 on GPT-4o Mini and $0.16 on Claude Haiku 4.5.

OpenAI

Claude (Anthropic)

DeepL is billed per character by DeepL directly; the Free plan includes 500,000 characters/month and its remaining quota is shown on the TranslateWP dashboard.

3.4 Languages & URLs

Active languages

Tick every language your site should serve (18 available: EN, FR, NL, DE, ES, IT, PT, PL, RO, SV, DA, FI, AR, ZH, JA, KO, TR, RU).

Default language

The language your content is written in. It is never sent to a provider.

Language URL prefix

Serves each language on its own path — /fr/about/, /ro/despre/ — which search engines index separately. Recommended: on.

Floating switcher

A small language pill on the frontend; choose its corner under Settings.

3.5 Frontend auto-translate

Mode: Async (recommended)

The page loads instantly with existing translations; missing strings are collected in the browser and translated in small background batches, then applied live.

Mode: Sync

Missing strings are translated during page rendering. Simplest behaviour, but the first visit to an untranslated page waits for the API.

Allow for visitors (public)

Off by default: only logged-in administrators trigger API translation. If you enable it, visitors can trigger translation of missing strings — protected by per-IP rate limits and a global daily cap (chapter 3.8).

Batch size / max batches

How many strings each background request carries (default 50) and how many requests per page view (default 4).

3.6 AJAX & form messages

Two optional switches (off by default) cover strings delivered by AJAX rather than in the page HTML:

• Contact Form 7 messages — translates the response message and per-field validation errors returned on form submission.
• WooCommerce notices — translates cart/checkout/coupon notices, including AJAX add-to-cart messages.

Each message is translated once by the active provider (your cost limits apply) and cached.

3.7 Page cache

Optional (off by default). When enabled, fully rendered translated pages are stored per URL + language and served to anonymous visitors without re-processing — a large speed-up for blogs and brochure sites. Only anonymous GET requests on non-dynamic pages are cached; logged-in users, cart/checkout/account, and WooCommerce shop/product pages are always excluded. The cache clears automatically when a post or a translation is saved; an optional TTL adds time-based expiry.

3.8 Cost & safety limits

An email alert is sent to the site administrator at 80% of the monthly budget. Counters are tracked atomically, so simultaneous requests cannot slip past a limit.

Chapter 4Usage

4.1 Quick start

1. Configure a provider and press Test Connection (chapter 3.1–3.2).
2. Enable your languages and the URL prefix (3.4).
3. Enable Frontend Auto-Translate in Async mode (3.5).
4. While logged in as admin, open pages in a target language — e.g. /fr/ — and watch strings translate in the background.
5. For full coverage, create a Background Job per language (4.4) and let WP-Cron finish the catalogue.
6. Review key marketing phrases with the visual editor (4.3).

4.2 The language switcher

Visitors change language via the floating switcher or by visiting a prefixed URL. The choice is remembered in a cookie (twp_language), and internal links are rewritten to keep visitors inside their language.

4.3 Visual editor (Edit Mode)

From the WordPress admin bar on any frontend page choose TranslateWP → Edit Mode. Every translatable string is highlighted; click one, type the corrected translation, and it saves immediately (marked as manual, so automatic translation never overwrites it). Attribute texts — placeholders, tooltips, button values — are editable the same way.

4.4 Background jobs

TranslateWP → Background Jobs translates everything the site has captured. Create a job for a target language; WP-Cron processes it every minute in batches (default 40), or press Run next batch to advance it manually. Jobs are resumable and safe: items are claimed atomically, so cron and manual runs never translate — or bill — the same string twice.

4.5 Translations page & CSV import/export

TranslateWP → Translations lists every captured string with per-language fields; edits save on blur. Import/Export moves a whole language as CSV (columns original, translation_xx) — handy for professional review. Exports are protected against spreadsheet formula injection.

4.6 Logs & dashboard

The dashboard shows per-provider usage (characters, requests, tokens, estimated cost), the safety budget, DeepL's remaining quota, and page-cache statistics with purge buttons. Logs records missing strings, provider errors and job failures, so you always know why something is not yet translated.

4.7 WooCommerce

• Product names, descriptions, attributes, variation labels and cart item names translate automatically.
• The customer's language is stored on each order at checkout; customer emails (processing, completed, on-hold, refunded, invoice, note) are sent in that language — subject, heading, content and additional content. Admin notifications stay in your default language.
• Payment method titles/descriptions re-rendered during checkout are translated from cache.
• AJAX-inserted fragments (mini-cart, quick view, filters) are translated live from stored translations on every page.

4.8 SEO

hreflang alternates and canonicals are emitted for every active language; a multilingual sitemap is available at /translatewp-sitemap.xml (password-protected posts excluded). SEO titles/descriptions from Yoast, RankMath, SEOPress and All in One SEO are translated, along with whitelisted meta tags (description, Open Graph, Twitter).

Chapter 5Troubleshooting

“403 Forbidden” when uploading the plugin or during translation

Server firewall (ModSecurity/WAF). Install via FTP/WP-CLI and apply docs/modsecurity-whitelist.conf — see chapter 2.

Translated URLs return 404

Rewrite rules are registered on activation; if your host caches configs, visit Settings → Permalinks and press Save once.

Strings stay untranslated for visitors

By default only admins trigger API translation. Either pre-translate with a Background Job (recommended) or enable public auto-translate (3.5).

“Monthly/daily limit reached” in Logs

A safety cap from chapter 3.8 did its job. Raise the relevant limit in Settings if intentional.

Background job does not advance

WP-Cron is not firing — add the real cron entry from chapter 4.4, or press Run next batch.

Cart/checkout pages show some untranslated dynamic strings

By design, no API calls happen there (GDPR). Capture those strings elsewhere or add them via the Translations page; stored translations apply everywhere, including checkout.