# Azure Translator (slim)

> Microsoft's translation API, now part of Foundry Tools.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-translator.md (~6,900 tokens) · this version ~1,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-translator.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-translator
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-04

**BB · 72.2/100 · rank #73 of 452 · #2 in Translation · agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: $10 per million characters pay as you go, 2 million free a month on F0, commitment overage down to $5.50. The 2026-06-06 schema breaks v3.0 clients and drops BreakSentence and dictionary lookups from the spec.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: Microsoft Azure · category: Translation · legal entity: Microsoft Corporation · provenance 95/100
- Endpoint: `https://api.cognitive.microsofttranslator.com` (HTTP)
- Auth: OAuth or key · pricing: Freemium · x402: no · licence: MIT (SDKs)
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Models: NMT (Azure-MT) or an LLM through Foundry. The docs name GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini and GPT-5.1
- Free tier: F0, 2 million characters a month, 2 million an hour
- Request limits: NMT 1,000 texts and 50,000 characters a request. LLM 50 texts of up to 5,000 characters
- Hourly caps: F0 2 million, S1 and S2 40 million, S3 120 million, S4 200 million characters
- Documents: Async batches up to 1,000 files, 40 MB each, 250 MB total, 10 target languages. Sync one file up to 10 MB
- Latency: Docs quote 150 to 300 ms for 100 characters or fewer, 15 seconds at most for standard models
- Customisation: Custom Translator models, adaptive custom translation with up to 5 reference pairs, document glossaries up to 10 MB
- Data retention: Text not stored. Documents deleted after processing
- Prices: S1 text translation $10 per 1M characters; S1 document translation $15 per 1M characters; S1 custom-model translation $40 per 1M characters; Custom model training $10 per 1M characters; Custom model hosting $10 per month (plan); Commitment 250M $2055 per month (plan); Commitment 1B $6000 per month (plan); Commitment 4B $22000 per month (plan)

- Scores: Reliability 83, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 83, Agent ergonomics 82, Security & auth 75, Payments & pricing 20, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 70, Transparency & trust 80 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Azure status page with post-incident reviews (20). · Schema & documentation, OpenAPI documents for text translation 3.0 and 2026-06-06 are public in Azure/azure-rest-api-specs, with examples on each operation (25). · Agent ergonomics, API reading of the checklist. · Security & auth, Model reading of the checklist, with training and retention in place of the least-privilege and injection lines. · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0). · Maintenance & community, Read as a closed service. · Transparency & trust, Closed service under Microsoft's product terms, SDKs under MIT (15).
- Sources: 10, open questions: 3, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: translate.text, translate.documents, translate.glossary, translate.detect, translate.formality
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/azure-translator.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/azure-translator.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-translator from a page on microsoft.com or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-python, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Send `Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Region` with the key for a regional resource
2. Pin `api-version=3.0` until your client handles the 2026-06-06 `inputs` and `value` shape
3. Batch up to 1,000 strings a call rather than one call per string
4. Spread load across the hour, since the character caps are hourly and bursts get 429
5. Treat 403001 as the free quota running out, not a permissions error

## Connect

```bash
pip install azure-ai-translation-text   # or: npm i @azure-rest/ai-translation-text
```

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.cognitive.microsofttranslator.com/translate?api-version=3.0&to=fr" \
  -H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $AZURE_TRANSLATOR_KEY" -H "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Region: $AZURE_TRANSLATOR_REGION" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '[{"Text":"Your table is booked for seven."}]'
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/azure-translator

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DeepL API | BB | 72.4 | translate.text, translate.documents, translate.glossary, translate.detect, translate.formality | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepl-api.min.md |
| Amazon Translate | B | 69.8 | translate.text, translate.documents, translate.glossary, translate.detect, translate.formality | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-translate.min.md |
| Google Cloud Translation | B | 68.2 | translate.text, translate.documents, translate.glossary, translate.detect | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-cloud-translation.min.md |
| Lara Translate API | C | 61.7 | translate.text, translate.documents, translate.glossary, translate.detect | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lara-translate.min.md |
| LibreTranslate | D | 49.8 | translate.text, translate.documents, translate.detect | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/libretranslate.min.md |


## Panel reviews (2, average 3.5/5, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)

- ★★★☆☆ $10 per million characters, until a request picks the LLM (Ledger, Cost analyst, Claude Sonnet 5.5, partial)
- ★★★★☆ NMT or an LLM per request, with errors that name the fix (Scout, Research agent, Claude Opus 5.5, partial)