AI Cost Guide
You are viewing help for Supervertaler for Trados — the Trados Studio plugin. Looking for help with the standalone app? Visit Supervertaler Workbench help.
This page helps you estimate the API cost of using AI features in Supervertaler for Trados. All prices are based on official provider pricing as of March 2026 and are shown in US dollars.
AI provider costs are separate from your Supervertaler licence. You pay the AI provider directly for the tokens your requests consume. Supervertaler does not add any markup.
How costs are calculated
AI providers charge per token — a unit of text roughly equal to ¾ of a word. Costs depend on:
Input tokens — the text you send (source segment, system prompt, terminology context)
Output tokens — the text the model returns (translated segment, proofread text, generated prompt)
Because Supervertaler translates segment by segment, the system prompt and terminology context are included with every segment. For a typical 5,000-word document (~250 segments), this means:
Batch Translate
~125,000
~8,000
AI Proofreader
~140,000
~8,000
AutoPrompt
~10,000
~2,000
These are estimates for a representative document. Actual usage varies with segment length, terminology context size, and prompt complexity.
Cost per 5,000-word document
OpenAI
GPT-5.4
$1.49
$1.64
$0.16
GPT-5.4 Mini (recommended)
$0.13
$0.15
$0.02
Claude (Anthropic)
Claude Sonnet 4.6 (recommended)
$0.50
$0.54
$0.06
Claude Haiku 4.5
$0.17
$0.18
$0.02
Claude Opus 4.6
$0.83
$0.90
$0.10
Google Gemini
Gemini 2.5 Flash (recommended)
$0.06
$0.06
$0.01
Gemini 2.5 Pro
$0.24
$0.26
$0.03
Gemini 3.1 Pro (preview)
$0.35
$0.38
$0.04
Grok (xAI)
Grok 4.20 (recommended)
$0.30
$0.33
$0.03
Grok 4.1 Fast
$0.03
$0.03
< $0.01
Grok 4.20 Reasoning
—
—
$0.09
Mistral AI
Mistral Large (recommended)
$0.30
$0.33
$0.03
Mistral Small
$0.01
$0.02
< $0.01
Mistral Nemo
$0.02
$0.02
< $0.01
Ollama (local)
TranslateGemma 12B
Free
Free
Free
TranslateGemma 4B
Free
Free
Free
Qwen 3 14B
Free
Free
Free
Aya Expanse 8B
Free
Free
Free
Ollama models run on your own computer — there are no API costs. The trade-off is that quality depends on your hardware and the models are generally less capable than cloud-hosted models. See AI Settings for setup instructions.
Our recommendation
If you could only pick one model for everything — translation, proofreading, and chat — we would recommend Claude Sonnet 4.6. It follows translation instructions precisely, handles terminology constraints well, is fast enough for batch operations, and delivers consistently high quality across legal, technical, and general content. It costs roughly $0.50 per 5,000-word document, which is a fraction of a cent per segment.
For budget-conscious batch work, GPT-5.4 Mini or Gemini 2.5 Flash offer excellent quality at a fraction of the price. For the absolute highest quality on specialised content, Claude Opus 4.6 or GPT-5.4 are worth the premium.
Token pricing reference
For reference, these are the per-token rates used in the calculations above:
GPT-5.4
$10.00
$30.00
GPT-5.4 Mini
$0.75
$4.50
Claude Sonnet 4.6
$3.00
$15.00
Claude Haiku 4.5
$1.00
$5.00
Claude Opus 4.6
$5.00
$25.00
Gemini 2.5 Flash
$0.30
$2.50
Gemini 2.5 Pro
$1.25
$10.00
Gemini 3.1 Pro (Preview)
$2.00
$12.00
Grok 4.20
$2.00
$6.00
Grok 4.1 Fast
$0.20
$0.50
Grok 4.20 (Reasoning)
$2.00
$6.00
Mistral Large
$2.00
$6.00
Mistral Small
$0.10
$0.30
Mistral Nemo
$0.15
$0.15
Prices change regularly. Check your provider's pricing page for the latest rates: OpenAI · Anthropic · Google Gemini · xAI · Mistral
Tips for managing costs
Start with a budget model — GPT-5.4 Mini, Gemini 2.5 Flash, or Grok 4.1 Fast are excellent for routine translation at a fraction of the cost.
Use premium models selectively — reserve GPT-5.4, Claude Opus, or Gemini 2.5 Pro for specialised content (legal, medical, patents) where the quality difference justifies the cost.
Try Ollama for zero cost — if you have a computer with 8+ GB of RAM, TranslateGemma 12B delivers surprisingly good results for free.
Check your usage — the Usage Statistics tab in Settings tracks your token consumption per provider.
Built-in cost protection
Supervertaler includes several safeguards to help you avoid unexpected costs:
QuickLauncher prompts are standalone
When you run a prompt from the QuickLauncher menu (Ctrl+Q), only the prompt itself is sent to the AI – not the chat history. This means a simple terminology query costs only what it needs to, even if you have a long conversation in the chat window.
Chat token budget
Regular chat messages include recent conversation history so the AI can follow your discussion. However, Supervertaler automatically trims older messages when the history grows too large (~50,000 tokens). This prevents costs from spiralling when previous messages contained large context blocks (e.g. full document content).
Cost warning
If a request is estimated to cost more than $0.50 in input tokens, a confirmation dialogue appears showing the estimated token count and cost. You can cancel before the expensive request is sent.
Keep an eye on the cost indicators. Every AI response in the chat shows the estimated token count and cost. You can also review all prompts and their costs in the Reports tab.
Choosing the right model
For everyday work — chat queries, terminology questions, QuickLauncher prompts — use GPT-5.4 Mini or another budget model. Reserve premium models like GPT-5.4 or Claude Opus for AutoPrompt and complex tasks where the quality difference justifies the cost.
See also
AI Settings — configure your API keys and choose a model
Batch Translate — translate segments in bulk
AI Proofreader — proofread translated segments
AutoPrompt — generate translation prompts
Licensing & Pricing — Supervertaler subscription plans
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