What it actually costs to translate a season of subtitles

Numbers below are measured against real episodes, not modelled. A 25-minute episode is roughly 19,000 characters of dialogue across about 600 cues.

Cold, that costs about $0.56

That covers the translation pass, the repair rounds for whatever failed validation, and the editor sweep over the whole file. A feature film is roughly three times an episode.

Warm, it costs about $0.19

Translations are cached by source text, so the second person to order a popular title mostly pays for cache lookups. The cost falls by about two thirds. Nothing changes for them — same price, same checks — but a title that has been ordered before is dramatically cheaper to serve.

Why the pricing is flat anyway

One credit, one episode, whether the title is popular or obscure. Charging less for popular shows would be a strange product: it would tell you that your taste is unusual and price you for it. The cache is our advantage, not a lever to pull on customers.

What that means if you are comparing

Credit-based competitors land near €2 to €3 for the same episode. This sits at $1.25, and it is the only one that validates its own output. That is not a promotional price — the margin is real at that number, because the cost above is real.