The Weglot word limit ranges from 2,000 source words on the Free plan up to 5,000,000 words on the Extended plan, and it counts the words in your original language, not the total across every language you translate into. When you exceed your plan’s cap, Weglot automatically upgrades you to the next tier - so translations keep working, but your bill goes up. This guide answers the exact question you came for: what the limits are, how the counting works, what happens when you hit the ceiling, and how to stay under it.
What is the Weglot word limit per plan?
Weglot meters usage by source words and language count, and each plan has a hard word cap. Here is the full breakdown as of July 2026:
| Plan | Price | Languages | Word Limit (source) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 1 | 2,000 |
| Starter | $17/mo | 1 | 10,000 |
| Business | $32/mo | 3 | 50,000 |
| Pro | $87/mo | 5 | 200,000 |
| Advanced | €299 / $329/mo | 10 | 1,000,000 |
| Extended | €699 / $769/mo | 20 | 5,000,000 |
The word limit and the language limit rise together, so growing stores usually hit both walls at once. For the full plan-by-plan cost breakdown, see our Weglot pricing explained guide.
Count Before You Commit
A typical Shopify store with 500 products easily clears 50,000 source words once you add descriptions, collections, menus, and theme text. That pushes you past the Business plan before you’ve translated a single language. Estimate your word count first.
How does Weglot count words?
This is the part that trips people up. Weglot counts source words - the words in your original (default) language - not translated words across all your languages.
In plain terms: if your store has 10,000 words of English content and you translate it into French, German, and Spanish, Weglot counts that as 10,000 words, not 30,000. The output languages don’t multiply your count. What multiplies your count is adding more source content: new products, longer descriptions, more collection pages, more blog posts.
A few things that count toward your total:
- Product titles, descriptions, and options
- Collection names and descriptions
- Navigation menus and theme content (buttons, labels, footer)
- Blog posts and static pages
- Metafields and structured content that Weglot picks up
A few things worth knowing:
- Duplicate strings are typically counted once, not every time they appear.
- Every source language counts - if you translate from more than one base language, each source contributes.
- The limit is a rolling total, not a monthly reset, so once translated content sits in your project it keeps counting against the cap.
A quick worked example
Say you run a mid-sized Shopify store: 300 products with descriptions, 20 collections, a 10-item navigation menu, standard theme text, and a small blog. Add it up and you’re realistically in the 40,000-to-60,000 source-word range - even before a single translation happens. That means:
- On the Business plan (50,000 words) you’re right at the edge. One product batch or a new blog series tips you into Pro.
- Translating that same content into 1 language or 5 languages makes no difference to your word total - only your language count changes, which is a separate plan constraint.
So the two levers that move you up a tier are (1) how much source content you have and (2) how many languages you need - and Weglot’s plans raise both caps together, which is why the Business-to-Pro jump feels so common for scaling stores.
What happens when you hit the Weglot word limit?
You will not see translations suddenly break or go blank. Instead, Weglot automatically upgrades your plan to the next tier when you cross your word cap.
That is the double-edged part of the model. On one hand, your site never shows untranslated content because it hit a wall. On the other hand, the upgrade happens without you actively choosing it, so a merchant who quietly grows past 50,000 words on the Business plan gets moved to Pro - and the bill climbs from $32 to $87/mo. Cross 200,000 words and you’re on Advanced at roughly €299/mo. For many stores, catalog growth is exactly the moment cash is tight, and that’s when the auto-upgrade lands.
This is why word limits are the most common surprise-bill complaint we hear from merchants evaluating Weglot. It’s not that the app hides the limits - they’re published on the Weglot pricing page and the Shopify App Store listing (4.5/5, 798 reviews as of July 2026). It’s that word count is easy to lose track of as a store scales.
How to check your Weglot word usage
Weglot shows your current word usage against your plan’s limit inside your Weglot dashboard. Check it regularly - especially before a big catalog expansion, a seasonal product drop, or adding a new language - so an auto-upgrade doesn’t surprise you.
Two practical habits:
- Check before you bulk-import products. A single CSV import of a few hundred SKUs can push you over a tier boundary in one action.
- Watch the gap, not just the total. If you’re at 45,000 of 50,000 words on Business, you’re one product batch away from the next tier.
It’s also worth knowing what the word count does not tell you. A high count isn’t wasted spend if all that content is driving international sales - the issue is only when the auto-upgrade lands unexpectedly, or when the content pushing you over a limit (say, a review widget or archived products) isn’t earning its keep. That distinction is what the reduction tactics below are really about: cutting the count you don’t need, not the count you do.
How to reduce your Weglot word count
If you’re close to a limit and want to avoid the next tier, you can trim what Weglot translates:
- Exclude pages and URLs. Use Weglot’s exclusion rules to skip pages that don’t need translating (checkout confirmations, legal boilerplate you handle elsewhere, admin-only content).
- Exclude specific content blocks. Skip dynamic elements like third-party review widgets or user-generated content that inflate word count without much SEO value.
- Remove unused languages. Each active language adds cost and management overhead; drop the ones that aren’t converting.
- Prune stale content. Old blog posts, discontinued products, and archived collections still count if Weglot is translating them.
These tactics buy you room, but they share one downside: you’re managing a ceiling instead of just translating your store. For a growing catalog, that maintenance never really ends - which brings us to the alternative.
Does the word limit affect SEO?
Indirectly, yes. If you exclude pages or content to stay under a cap, those excluded pages aren’t translated - which means they won’t rank in your target-market search results. Deciding what to trim becomes an SEO decision, not just a billing one, so trim low-value pages (thin boilerplate, admin-only flows) rather than product or collection pages that actually drive international traffic.
The no-word-limit alternative: LocaleFlow
If the whole reason you’re reading about the Weglot word limit is that you’re tired of watching a counter, there’s a simpler path: a translation app with no word limit at all.
LocaleFlow is a Shopify-native translation app priced at a flat $150/month with:
- No word limit - translate your entire catalog, however large
- Unlimited languages - no per-language tier jumps
- Unlimited products - add SKUs freely without watching a counter
- AI translation included - context-aware, natural output
- Auto-sync - new and edited content translates automatically
- Full metafield and metaobject support - field-level control for complex product data
- Native Shopify integration - translations live in Shopify’s own multilingual system, not a proxy layer
The trade-off is straightforward. Weglot’s entry plans are cheaper if you have a tiny, static store. But the moment your catalog grows, word limits and auto-upgrades mean your bill climbs while LocaleFlow’s stays flat at $150 - no counting, no surprise tiers, no usage anxiety.
See It On Your Own Store
LocaleFlow’s free demo translates your actual store content, so you can see real results - and real coverage of your full catalog - before paying anything.
Conclusion
The Weglot word limit is real, it counts source words across all your languages, and it auto-upgrades you to a pricier plan when you cross it - from 2,000 words free up to 5,000,000 on Extended. For a small, static store, that model is manageable. For a growing Shopify catalog, it means watching a counter and absorbing surprise bills right when you’re scaling.
If you’d rather stop counting words entirely, install LocaleFlow from the Shopify App Store and start translating today - unlimited words, languages, and products for a flat $150/month.
For a deeper side-by-side, see our full Weglot alternative guide or compare translation apps head to head.
