Comparison
A POEditor alternative for when nobody is going to fill in the table
POEditor is inexpensive and does its job well. Its job is managing strings and the people who translate them. If there are no such people, the table stays empty.
- POEditor, entry plan
- $20
- ShipGlobal
- €19
Start. Billed per key in the project. Adding a target language does not raise it; adding strings does.
Per seat and month, incl. VAT. On top of that €10 per million tokens, and only for strings that are new or changed. Bring your own model key and the token cost disappears.
The honest difference is category, not price
POEditor is cheaper than ShipGlobal at the entry level: $20 a month for 3,000 strings against €19 per seat plus tokens. Nobody should switch on price alone, and this page is not going to argue that a $20 plan is expensive. The difference is what the two things do. POEditor gives you a place where strings live and contributors work, with unlimited contributors on paid plans and machine translation available through your own provider keys. It does not, by itself, hand you a finished translated file. ShipGlobal does exactly that and nothing else: file in, 64 languages out, placeholders and plurals intact. If your bottleneck is coordination, POEditor is the tool. If your bottleneck is that the translations do not exist, it is not.
What POEditor lists
Every plan POEditor publishes, with the source and the date it was read. Prices change; this table says when it was last checked.
| Plan | Per month | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 1,000 |
| Start | $20 | 3,000 |
| Plus | $60 | 10,000 |
| Premium | $160 | 30,000 |
| Enterprise | $260 | 100,000 |
The fair part
When POEditor is the better choice
POEditor wins on price for the case it is built for, and it wins clearly when contributors are involved. Unlimited contributors on every paid plan, a free tier that is genuinely usable at 1,000 strings, unlimited projects, and a straightforward per-string ladder with no seat maths. If you have volunteers or an agency working in a shared table, paying $20 to $160 a month for that is a good deal and there is no argument here for spending more. Its string counting is also the friendliest of the tools on this list: adding a target language does not raise the count.
Getting your files out
POEditor exports PO, JSON, XLIFF, .strings, .xcstrings, ARB, RESX and more. Export the source language, run it through the key diff against a language that is already partly done, and convert the export into whatever your build reads.
One language file in. 64 languages out.
No seat you forgot to cancel, no allowance that expires, no per-language multiplier. You pay for the strings that changed and nothing else.
€19 per month incl. VAT, cancellable monthly.
Questions
- Does POEditor translate my strings?
- It manages them and can connect to machine translation through your own provider account, but the platform's job is the table and the contributors, not producing the translation. That distinction is the whole reason someone would look at an alternative.
- Is ShipGlobal worth more than $20 a month?
- Only if the translating is the part you need done. If you have translators and just need somewhere to put the strings, POEditor at $20 is the better buy and this page will not pretend otherwise.
- How does string counting compare?
- POEditor counts source strings, so a project with 3,000 strings costs the same at three languages and at thirty. That is the friendliest model on this page. ShipGlobal charges tokens for the translation work itself, so more languages cost more once, then nothing on subsequent releases for strings that did not change.
- Can I use both?
- Yes, and for some teams that is the right answer. Translate with ShipGlobal, keep the result in POEditor for the people who review it. The free tools on this site convert between the formats both sides read.