specification: API Commons Plans
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/Plans
provider: IBM Language Translator
providerId: ibm-translate
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
reconciled: true
tags:
  - Translation
  - IBM Watson
  - Plans
  - Deprecated
description: >-
  IBM Watson Language Translator offered a Lite free tier and a Standard pay-as-you-go tier
  billed per character. Custom model training and hosting incurred additional monthly fees.
  The service was deprecated in June 2023 and withdrawn in December 2024; no new instances
  could be provisioned after June 2023.
notes: >-
  Pricing is historical; the service is no longer available. Custom model translations were
  billed at $100 per million characters plus a $15 per-model per-month maintenance fee.
sources:
  - https://cloud.ibm.com/catalog/services/language-translator
  - https://www.ibm.com/cloud/watson-language-translator/pricing
plans:
  - id: ibm-translate-lite
    name: Lite
    type: free
    description: >-
      Free tier providing 1 million characters per month at no cost. Custom models were not
      available on the Lite plan. Lite instances were deleted after 30 days of inactivity.
    entries:
      - label: Characters Per Month
        name: characters_per_month
        type: free
        metric: characters
        limit: 1000000
        timeFrame: monthly
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '0.00'
        userMultiplied: false
    elements:
      - name: Text Translation
      - name: Language Detection
      - name: List Models
  - id: ibm-translate-standard
    name: Standard
    type: usage
    description: >-
      Pay-as-you-go plan charged per character translated. First 250,000 characters per month
      included free; $0.02 per thousand characters thereafter. Custom model usage billed at
      $100 per million characters plus $15 per model per month maintenance fee.
    entries:
      - label: Characters (included)
        name: characters_included
        type: free
        metric: characters
        limit: 250000
        timeFrame: monthly
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '0.00'
        userMultiplied: false
      - label: Characters (overage)
        name: characters_overage
        type: usage
        metric: characters
        limit: -1
        timeFrame: usage
        geo: global
        unit: 1000
        price: '0.02 USD per thousand characters'
        userMultiplied: false
      - label: Custom Model Translation
        name: custom_model_characters
        type: usage
        metric: characters
        limit: -1
        timeFrame: usage
        geo: global
        unit: 1000000
        price: '100.00 USD per million characters'
        userMultiplied: false
      - label: Custom Model Maintenance
        name: custom_model_maintenance
        type: usage
        metric: models
        limit: -1
        timeFrame: monthly
        geo: global
        unit: 1
        price: '15.00 USD per model per month'
        userMultiplied: false
    elements:
      - name: Text Translation
      - name: Language Detection
      - name: Document Translation
      - name: Custom Model Training
      - name: Custom Model Hosting
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com