Choosing a model

The four ways to translate at scale, and when each one wins

Most vendor comparison pages exist to make one answer look obvious. This one names the four models buyers actually weigh, says what each is genuinely better at, and tells you when Flow Multilingual AI is the wrong purchase.

Models to weigh

Language service provider, management platform, raw machine translation, or build it in-house.

350+

Languages

Enough coverage that a launch into every market is one process, not three hundred and fifty projects.

Question that decides it

Does a wrong term cost you money? If it does not, you do not need us.

The four models

1. A language service provider

Lionbridge, TransPerfect, RWS, Welocalize. Human linguists and project managers, priced per word, delivered as a project.

Better atCertified legal, patent, and clinical translation, where one named translator's sign-off is the thing you are buying.

Costs youPrice rises with volume and with language count, and turnaround is measured in weeks. A launch across 350 languages is not a project you can buy.

2. A localization management platform

Lokalise, Phrase, Smartling, Crowdin, Transifex. Software that routes your content to translators and machine translation engines.

Better atTeams that already employ translators and want the machinery around them: string management, shared glossaries, developer integrations, release automation.

Costs youIt is an orchestration layer, not a translation capability. You still supply the linguists, so your language coverage is whatever you can staff.

3. Raw machine translation

DeepL, Google Translate, or a general-purpose model. Per-character translation with no human review.

Better atInternal content, gist reading, and high-volume text where a wrong term costs you nothing.

Costs youNo domain terminology control and no verification step, so there is no record of who confirmed a term or when. Regulated and customer-facing content cannot ship on it.

4. Building it in-house

Hire linguists and machine learning engineers, then assemble your own pipeline and terminology store.

Better atVery little in the first year, for most teams. Afterwards, full control of the pipeline, if the team holds together.

Costs youA headcount line and roughly twelve months before the first language ships. Most teams that start here finish with a smaller version of a vendor's product.

When Flow is not the answer

A comparison page that only concludes "choose us" is an advertisement. These are the cases where we are the wrong purchase, and what to do instead.

You translate one language pair at low volume and none of it is regulated. A freelance translator costs less than any platform, ours included.
You need a certified legal or patent filing carrying a named human translator's stamp. Use a language service provider.
You already run a mature in-house localization team and only need workflow tooling. Buy a management platform; you are not the buyer for Flow.
Your content is internal and a wrong term costs nothing. Raw machine translation is cheaper and faster than anything we sell.

When Flow is the answer

You have to cover many languages from one process, rather than one project per language. Flow covers 350+ languages that way.
Terminology has to be controlled and verified by domain, not agreed per document.
The content is regulated or customer-facing, so machine output needs a human to review it before it ships. That is the Human Expertise in the Loop pillar, and it is the reason Flow exists.
You want the volume economics of machine translation without shipping text no person has verified.

How the five compare

	Language service provider	Management platform	Raw machine translation	Building in-house	Flow
Languages coverable	As many as you pay for	As many as you can staff	Whatever the engine lists	As many as you build	350+ languages
Who does the translating	Human linguists, project by project	Your translators, plus machine engines	The model, with no review	Your own hires	Human experts reviewing machine output
Terminology control	A glossary agreed per project	A shared glossary across projects	None	You build and maintain it	Terminology reconciliation across languages
Verification before publishing	A named translator signs off	Optional, if you configure it	None	You build it	A quality gate with cross-language consistency checks
Visibility into throughput	Per project	Inside the tool, for the supply you bought	None	You build it	Per-language automation and throughput visibility

Pricing is deliberately absent from this table. The four alternatives are not priced the same way as each other, and lining a per-word rate up against a per-character rate produces a number that means nothing. Ask each of them what their model costs at your volume and your language count; the answers are not comparable until you do.

If two of the four "not the answer" cases describe you, buy the cheaper thing and keep your budget. If none of them do, the question is not which model, but how fast you can get to coverage.

A 20-minute walkthrough shows how Flow handles terminology and review for your languages before your next launch.

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