1. DeepL: Best AI translator for business documents

• Starting price: EUR 7.49/month Individual, billed annually
• Free plan: Yes, 50,000 characters and 1 file a month
• Best for: emails, contract drafts, presentations, multilingual teams

DeepL is known for natural, fluent translations, especially between European languages, and its language table now lists 114 entries including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi. The free plan allows 50,000 characters a month and one file up to 5 MB. Individual (EUR 7.49 a month, billed annually) raises that to 300,000 characters and 3 files, Team (EUR 24.99 per user) gives 1 million characters, and Business (EUR 49.99 per user) is unlimited under fair use with 100 files a month.

The privacy promise is the big draw for companies: the official DeepL Pro page says paid users’ data is never used to train its models, and DeepL holds ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II certifications. Paid plans also include 30 minutes of DeepL Voice a month for spoken translation.

Skip it if: you need camera translation or offline use while traveling. Prices were shown in euros when we checked, so your local price may differ.

2. Google Translate: Best free AI translator for travel

• Starting price: free
• Free plan: Yes, fully free
• Best for: travelers, menus and signs, quick conversations

Google Translate remains the most practical travel tool. You can point your camera at signs and menus, download languages for offline use and hold two-way conversations. Google added 110 languages in 2024, including Awadhi and Marwadi, and in December 2025 began using Gemini for more natural translations of idioms and slang, starting in the US and India.

Live translate through any connected headphones supports over 70 languages and, according to reports from March 2026, expanded to iOS and to countries including the UK, Japan, Thailand and much of Europe after starting in the US, Mexico and India on Android.

Skip it if: you are translating confidential business documents; use a paid tool with clear data terms.

3. Gemini: Best for natural conversations and Indian languages

• Starting price: free; Google AI Plus $4.99/month (Rs 399)
• Free plan: Yes, includes Gemini Live
• Best for: explaining nuance, informal chats, multilingual India

The Gemini app works in more than 70 languages, including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Unlike a classic translator, you can ask it to translate formally or casually, explain a phrase, or adapt a message for a specific audience. Gemini Live, included on the free plan, lets you talk through a translation by voice. Our Gemini pricing guide explains what AI Plus and AI Pro add.

Our guide to AI tools for Hindi, Gujarati and other Indian languages compares Gemini with Sarvam, Bhashini and ChatGPT in detail. Skip it if: you need a translation memory or glossary for consistent terminology.

4. ChatGPT: Best for tone, marketing copy and voice translation

• Starting price: free; Go $8/month, Plus $20/month
• Free plan: Yes
• Best for: localizing ads, social posts and product pages

ChatGPT is excellent at “transcreation”: rewriting a message so it sounds native rather than translated. Ask it to keep your brand voice, adapt cultural references or produce three versions for different regions. The interface supports 59 languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Urdu. Voice mode can act as a live interpreter in conversation.

Developers can use OpenAI’s GPT-Realtime-Translate model at $0.034 per minute for speech translation. See ChatGPT pricing for plan limits. Skip it if: you need certified accuracy; chatbots can drop or invent details in long texts.

5. Microsoft Translator: Best for breadth of Indian languages

• Starting price: free app; Azure AI Translator pay as you go
• Free plan: Yes; Azure free tier 2 million characters a month
• Best for: Office users, businesses needing less common Indian languages

Microsoft’s translation service covers an unusually long list of Indian languages: Assamese, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Bodo, Chhattisgarhi, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. It is built into Microsoft Office and Edge, and the Azure free tier gives developers 2 million characters a month. Paid Azure rates vary by region, so use Microsoft’s calculator.

Skip it if: you want the most natural phrasing in European languages, where DeepL usually reads better.

6. Claude: Best for long documents and reports

• Starting price: free; Pro $20/month ($17 annual)
• Free plan: Yes
• Best for: translating and summarizing long PDFs, research and policies

Claude handles very long files well. You can upload PDFs up to 1,000 pages and ask for a translation, a translated summary or a glossary of key terms. Anthropic’s own multilingual tests put Claude Haiku 4.5 at about 92% of its English score in Hindi and 90% in Bengali, and Anthropic recommends testing other languages yourself. It is a strong choice for internal documents where you want a readable translation plus explanation.

Our guide to AI tools that chat with PDFs covers file limits across assistants. Skip it if: you need camera or speech translation on the go.

7. Sarvam AI: Best for Indian language apps and documents

• Starting price: Rs 0.005 per character for document translation (pay as you go)
• Free plan: Free credits on sign-up
• Best for: Indian startups, government and enterprise projects

Sarvam AI is an Indian company whose translation API covers 23 languages, with speech-to-text in 12 Indic languages and natural text-to-speech in 11. Prices are in rupees: document translation costs Rs 0.005 per character and speech-to-text Rs 30 per hour of audio, according to the official Sarvam API pricing page. Its Indus chat app, in beta, lets individuals try the models.

Developers on a zero budget can also look at AI4Bharat’s open-source IndicTrans2, which supports all 22 scheduled Indian languages under an MIT license. Skip it if: you mainly translate between European languages.

8. ElevenLabs: Best for dubbing videos and audio

• Starting price: $6/month Starter
• Free plan: Yes, about 10 minutes of speech a month
• Best for: YouTubers, course creators, marketing videos

ElevenLabs translates speech and re-voices it in another language, keeping the original speaker’s tone. Its Dubbing Studio is included from the $6 Starter plan, which also adds a commercial license. The language list includes Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Urdu. Read our ElevenLabs review for voice quality and limits.

Skip it if: you only need subtitles; a transcription tool is cheaper.

9. Apple Live Translation: Best hands-free option for iPhone travelers

• Starting price: built in, but needs compatible hardware
• Free plan: Included in iOS on supported devices
• Best for: iPhone and AirPods owners traveling abroad

With Apple Intelligence on an iPhone 15 Pro or later and recent AirPods (AirPods 4 with noise cancellation, AirPods Pro 2 or 3 and newer models), you hear translated speech in your ear while the other person sees or hears your reply on your phone. A September 2026 report lists support for English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Skip it if: you need Hindi or other Indian languages, which are not supported for AirPods Live Translation yet. Google Translate’s headphone mode is the better choice there.

10. Google Cloud Translation: Best for websites and apps at scale

• Starting price: $20 per 1 million characters (NMT)
• Free plan: Yes, 500,000 characters a month
• Best for: ecommerce stores, SaaS products, support content

If you need to translate thousands of product pages or support articles, an API is far cheaper than a subscription. Google Cloud Translation gives the first 500,000 characters each month free, then charges $20 per million characters for standard machine translation, $0.08 per page for documents and $10 per million input plus $10 per million output characters for its LLM-based translation, per the official Cloud Translation pricing page.

Skip it if: you have no developer help; a plugin or DeepL’s file translation is simpler.

1. Google Gemini: Best all-round AI assistant in Indian languages

• Starting price: Free; AI Plus Rs 399/mo; AI Pro Rs 1,950/mo
• Free plan: Yes, Gemini 3.6 Flash with limited 3.1 Pro
• Best for: students, small businesses and anyone who wants one assistant for Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil and more

Google says the Gemini app is available in more than 70 languages, and its official list includes Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. That is the widest Indian-language list of any mainstream chatbot we checked.

India pricing is clear: AI Plus costs Rs 399 a month and AI Pro Rs 1,950. University students aged 18 and above can get AI Plus free for a year if they redeem by 31 December 2026, and Jio’s offer gives eligible customers on a Rs 349 or higher 5G plan Google AI Pro free for 18 months. Our Gemini pricing guide breaks down each plan, and our guide to free AI Pro plans in India explains how to claim the offers.

Skip it if: you need Maithili, Dogri, Bodo or other smaller scheduled languages, which are not on Gemini’s list.

2. ChatGPT: Best for writing and study help in Hindi and regional languages

• Starting price: Free; Go about Rs 399/mo and Plus about Rs 1,999/mo including GST (reported)
• Free plan: Yes, now on GPT-6 Luna
• Best for: emails, social posts, translations with explanations and exam prep

OpenAI’s language settings list 59 supported languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi and Urdu, so you can set the whole interface to your language. It is strong at rewriting tone (“make this Hindi message more formal”) and explaining translations, which helps learners.

In India, OpenAI accepts UPI for Go and Plus, and India is listed for rupee billing. Official INR prices did not load on OpenAI’s site, so treat Rs 399 for Go and Rs 1,999 for Plus as reported figures and see our ChatGPT Plus India price guide for the cheapest ways to pay. Compare it head to head in ChatGPT vs Gemini.

Skip it if: you mainly work in Odia, Assamese or smaller languages that are not in its supported list.

3. Sarvam AI: Best Indian-built AI for voice, translation and chat

• Starting price: pay as you go in INR, for example Rs 30 per hour of speech to text
• Free plan: free credits on sign-up (amount not stated)
• Best for: Indian startups, call centers and anyone who wants a homegrown option

Bengaluru-based Sarvam builds models specifically for Indian languages. Its site says it works “across 22 Indian languages”, with translation across 23 languages, speech to text in 12 Indic languages and natural text to speech voices in 11. Its Indus app, launched in beta on 20 February 2026 for iOS, Android and the web, lets you type or speak a question and get answers in text and audio, running on the Sarvam 105B model.

Builders get rupee pricing: Bulbul v3 text to speech costs Rs 3 per 1,000 characters, speech to text Rs 30 per hour of audio (Rs 45 with speaker labels), document translation Rs 0.005 per character, and the Sarvam 105B model Rs 29.28 per million input tokens and Rs 73.20 per million output tokens.

Skip it if: you want a polished consumer app with published plan prices today; Indus pricing was not stated when we checked.

4. Google Translate: Best free translator for travel and quick checks

• Starting price: Free
• Free plan: Yes
• Best for: travel, signboards, menus and one-off translations

Google Translate remains the fastest way to translate a sentence, a photo of a signboard or a conversation. In June 2024 Google used AI to add 110 languages, including Awadhi and Marwadi, which it described as languages close to Hindi. In December 2025 it began using Gemini to handle idioms and slang more naturally, launching first in the US and India, and it added a live headphone translation beta on Android in India that supports over 70 languages.

Download languages for offline use on patchy networks, and run longer text through Gemini or ChatGPT to fix tone.

Skip it if: you need a consistent brand voice across long documents.

5. Bhashini: Best for government services and public sector projects

• Starting price: free public platform
• Free plan: Yes
• Best for: government departments, civic tech and public information

Bhashini is India’s national language AI platform, run by the Digital India BHASHINI Division under the Ministry of Electronics and IT. According to an August 2026 government summary, it supports 36 Indian text languages, 23 Indian voice languages and 35 international languages, powers over 800 government websites and handles more than 24 million AI inferences a day.

Citizens mostly meet Bhashini inside government sites and apps; departments and civic developers should start here. The official site loads only with JavaScript, so check bhashini.gov.in directly for current tools and API access.

Skip it if: you want a general-purpose assistant for personal or marketing work.

6. Microsoft Translator: Best for rare scheduled languages and business documents

• Starting price: Azure AI Translator pay as you go
• Free plan: Yes, 2 million characters a month on Azure
• Best for: Maithili, Dogri, Bodo, Konkani, Kashmiri and Manipuri content

Microsoft has the broadest Indian list of the big tech tools, including Assamese, Bangla, Bhojpuri, Bodo, Chhattisgarhi, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

Businesses can use Azure AI Translator, whose free tier includes “2 million characters” of translation a month, and which also translates whole documents. The paid per-character rate did not load on Microsoft’s page, so use the Azure calculator before you scale.

Skip it if: you need conversational help, not just translation.

7. ElevenLabs: Best for Hindi, Tamil and Gujarati voiceovers and dubbing

• Starting price: Starter $6/mo
• Free plan: Yes, 10k credits a month (about 10 minutes), no commercial license
• Best for: YouTubers, course creators and ad agencies

ElevenLabs lists Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Urdu, Assamese, Nepali and Sindhi among its 90+ languages, with its Eleven v3 model covering 70+ languages. Turn a Hindi script into a voiceover or dub an English video into Tamil. The Starter plan at $6 a month adds a commercial license and instant voice cloning.

Coverage varies by model, so preview first. Our ElevenLabs pricing breakdown explains credits, and our list of the best AI voice generators compares alternatives.

Skip it if: you only need text, not audio.

8. Meta AI Reels translation: Best free way to reach new language audiences on Instagram

• Starting price: Free
• Free plan: Yes
• Best for: creators and brands posting Reels

Meta AI can translate your voice in a Reel into another language, with optional lip sync, and Meta says it is free. The feature launched with English, Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese, and in January 2026 added Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Kannada on Instagram and Facebook. All public Instagram accounts are eligible; Facebook creators need 1,000 or more followers.

See our list of the best AI tools for Instagram Reels for editing and caption tools to pair with it.

Skip it if: your audience speaks Gujarati, Malayalam or Punjabi, which were not in Meta’s announced list.

9. Claude: Best for long Hindi documents and careful writing

• Starting price: Pro $20/mo, about Rs 2,000 including GST (press reports)
• Free plan: Yes, Sonnet and Haiku
• Best for: reports, contracts, research and long translations

Anthropic publishes multilingual test results for Hindi and Bengali, where even the small Haiku 4.5 model scores above 90% of its English performance on a translated knowledge test. Paid plans handle up to 1 million tokens on the newest models, so a long Hindi report is no problem.

Anthropic does not list Gujarati, Tamil or Telugu in that table and advises testing your own language, so try a sample first. Our Claude pricing guide covers rupee prices introduced in July 2026.

Skip it if: you need voice features in Indian languages; other tools here are stronger for speech.

10. AI4Bharat IndicTrans2: Best free, open-source model for developers

• Starting price: Free (you pay only for your own hosting)
• Free plan: Yes, MIT-licensed model checkpoints
• Best for: developers, researchers and startups building translation into products

IndicTrans2 comes from AI4Bharat, a research lab at IIT Madras, and its GitHub page says it “supports high-quality translations across all the 22 scheduled Indic languages”. The model checkpoints are MIT licensed, with Hugging Face versions for English to Indic, Indic to English and Indic to Indic translation, so you can run it on your own servers and keep data in-house.

It is a model, not an app, so you need technical skill; start with our guide to open source AI models you can use for free.

Skip it if: you are not comfortable with Python or cloud hosting.