Church translation cost
What church translation costs in 2026.
Church translation costs anything from volunteers’ time to several thousand dollars a year. This guide prices interpreters, headset systems and AI services such as Voclyn over one year, side by side.
Then it works through one church: one service a week, in two extra languages.
Interpreters, volunteer or paid
Churches often rely on bilingual members who volunteer. Where a church pays, the US median wage for interpreters and translators was $28.93 an hour in May 2025. A freelance interpreter booked for a service sets their own rate, so ask for a quote.
There are two ways to use an interpreter:
- On stage, one sentence at a time. The pastor pauses and the interpreter repeats each sentence. It needs no equipment, but the sermon takes about twice as long, and one extra language is the practical limit.
- Into headsets, as the pastor speaks. The interpreter sits at the back with a microphone and listeners wear receivers. The service keeps its length, but each language needs its own interpreter and its own channel.
Either way, a volunteer’s cost is time: the service itself, preparation with the pastor’s notes, and someone to cover the Sundays they are away.
Headset systems
| System | What you get | Price, October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Enersound TSB-10 | 1 language, 10 listeners, FM | $1,085 |
| Listen Technologies MHS1-02-W1 | 2 channels over Wi-Fi to listeners’ phones (through its app) or to its 8 receivers | $5,527 |
| Williams AV Digi-Wave DWS INT 5 400 RCH | 4 languages plus the floor, 50 receivers, 4 headset microphones | $22,323 |
| Receiver rental, for an event | Per receiver, per day, FM to infrared | $10–25 |
Retailers’ prices in US dollars. None of them includes the interpreters: every system still needs a person interpreting each language every week.
What equipment does well: FM and infrared systems don’t depend on Wi-Fi, a person interprets with judgment, and receivers can double as assistive listening for people with hearing loss. What it adds: receivers to hand out, collect, charge and clean every week, and rental companies charge $150–400 for each unit that goes missing. Headsets or phones, compared.
AI subscriptions: what each one counts
AI services replace the interpreter with speech recognition and machine translation, and the receivers with the phones people carry. Their prices look alike but count differently. We read each vendor’s own pricing page on 29 October 2026:
| Billed | What counts | Published examples |
|---|---|---|
| Per language-hour | Each hour of speech in each language: an hour into three languages counts as three | Glossa: $5 an hour per language, pay as you go, or $99 a month for 25 hours; silence and songs aren’t counted. Church Translation: $0.01 per 150 characters per language, about $3.33 for an hour in one language by its own estimate. |
| Per hour | Hours on the clock or of speech, for a set number of languages | Kaleo: $24 a month for 5 hours of streaming in 2 languages, then $2 an hour. ChurchTranslator.AI: $39 a month for 6 service hours in 2 languages, then $4.50 an hour. SpeedSound: $29 a month for 10 hours of speech, every language included. |
| Flat monthly | The month, with no hour count | CAMB.AI’s Local Church plan: $100 a month, or $1,080 a year, for one location and one event at a time. Kaleo Unlimited: $149 a month. |
| Voclyn | The month: unlimited translation hours on paid plans (fair use), and the AI voice with no hours to count | Free, then $69, $99 or $249 a month (C$99, C$139, C$349). Free translates 6 hours a month. |
Metered plans cost less when you use little, and more as you add services or languages; a flat price stays the same. Whichever you look at, ask:
- What counts as an hour: the clock, speech only, or each language separately?
- What happens when the hours run out: an extra charge, a pause until next month, or does the service carry on?
- Is an AI voice included, and in how many languages?
- Are listeners counted?
- Are the big screen and the livestream included?
Worked example: one service, two extra languages
Take a church with one Sunday service of 90 minutes, about an hour of it spoken (sermon, readings, prayers and announcements) and the rest sung. It preaches in English and wants Spanish and Korean too, for 52 Sundays.
| Option | What it takes in a year | First year |
|---|---|---|
| Two volunteer interpreters, with a two-channel headset system | 156 volunteer hours (two people, 90 minutes, every Sunday), plus preparation | From $5,527 for equipment, then volunteers’ time |
| Two paid interpreters, with the same system | 156 paid hours at the $28.93 median wage | About $10,040 ($4,513 in wages), then $4,513 a year |
| AI billed per language-hour | 104 language-hours (an hour of speech, two languages, every Sunday) | About $346–$520 |
| AI billed per hour | 52 hours of speech, or 78 on the clock | About $288–$495 on the entry plans above |
| AI at a flat monthly price | 12 months | $1,080–$1,788 on the flat plans above |
| Voclyn Chapel: captions and the AI voice in both languages | 12 months; unlimited translation hours (fair use) | $828, or $690 paid yearly |
How we got the AI figures: per language-hour, 104 hours at about $3.33 (Church Translation’s own estimate) and at $5 (Glossa’s pay-as-you-go rate); per hour, the Starter plans of Kaleo ($288 if only the spoken hour is streamed, $324 for the whole service), SpeedSound ($348) and ChurchTranslator.AI ($468–495); flat, CAMB.AI’s Local Church plan paid yearly ($1,080) and Kaleo Unlimited ($1,788). US dollars before tax, as published on 29 October 2026. Plans differ in what they include, such as an AI voice or the livestream.
For one service a week, several metered plans cost less than Voclyn’s Chapel. Chapel’s price doesn’t change if you add a midweek service or a third caption language, under fair use. And Voclyn’s Free plan covers one of the two languages at no cost: it translates 6 hours a month, every Sunday, into one language plus your main language.
What Voclyn costs
Free, then $69, $99 or $249 a month (C$99, C$139, C$349), plus tax. Every plan starts with 30 days of the Church plan free, no card. There is no cap on listeners, and a service is never stopped halfway.
- Free translates 6 hours a month into one language plus your main language, with no time limit.
- Chapel has unlimited translation hours (fair use) in every language you offer, with the big screen and the AI voice, which has no hours to count.
- Church has 2 rooms live at once and the pastor’s own voice (3 voices), made only with the consent of the person whose voice it is.
- Campus has 5 rooms live at once and the pastor’s own voice (10 voices).
Paying yearly costs ten months instead of twelve. The calculator on our pricing page does the arithmetic for your own week, in US or Canadian dollars.
Questions
What churches ask.
Something else on your mind? Write to us at hello@voclyn.com.
In the US, the median wage for interpreters and translators was $28.93 an hour in May 2025. Churches often rely on bilingual volunteers instead, whose cost is their time: about 78 hours a year for each language, for a 90-minute service every Sunday.
In October 2026 we found $1,085 for a one-language, ten-person FM kit, $5,527 for a two-channel Wi-Fi system with eight receivers, and $22,323 for four languages and fifty receivers, all before the interpreters.
It depends on how it is billed. For one service a week in two extra languages, the published prices we checked in October 2026 come to about $288–$520 a year on metered plans and $1,080–$1,788 on flat ones. Voclyn's Chapel plan is $828 a year, or $690 paid yearly.
Voclyn's Free plan translates 6 hours a month into one language plus your main language, with no time limit. Several AI services also offer a few free hours to try them.
With per-language billing, yes: each language adds its hours. On Voclyn's paid plans, caption languages aren't counted, and the AI voice has no hours to count either.
Not with Voclyn: there is no cap on listeners on any plan.
Price your own Sunday.
The calculator on our pricing page shows the arithmetic for your services and languages. 30 days of the Church plan free, no card.
Your first month is on us: the Church plan, normally $99 a month, with unlimited listeners, translation hours and AI voiceover. No card; then choose a plan, or stay on Free.