What services does a localization vendor offer beyond translation?

Last reviewed: September 23, 2026

What are the three layers of a localization vendor's offering?

Reading any vendor against these three layers makes two vendors comparable even when their websites are organised differently.

• The platform layer — the translation management system, integrations into the systems where content already lives, a proxy for website translation, translator tools, analytics, and quality tooling. This layer determines how much manual handling your team does.
• The translation layer — the actual translation options, usually tiered from machine translation through AI translation, AI translation with human review, and fully human or creative translation. This layer determines cost and quality per piece of content.
• The managed-services layer — everything a human specialist does around the words: multilingual SEO, desktop publishing, transcription, subtitling and voice-over, linguistic asset management, quality assurance, and project management. This layer determines how much of the work stays with you.
• The coverage question underneath all three — whether one vendor covers every content type you produce, or whether you will end up running two relationships. This is worth answering format by format rather than in the abstract.

What does Smartling's offering actually consist of?

How do you work out what you actually need from a vendor?

Scope the requirement before comparing catalogues, or every vendor will look adequate.

1. Inventory your content types honestly — list web pages, help-centre articles, product strings, campaign assets, PDFs and print files, video, and training material. The list is almost always longer than the one the localization team is currently responsible for.
2. Mark which types need a human and which do not — internal knowledge-base content and high-volume support articles often do not; regulated, legal, and brand campaign content usually does. This split is what determines your blended cost.
3. Identify the work that happens after translation — reformatting, typesetting, subtitle timing, search-term adaptation, and in-market review. Decide for each whether your team does it or the vendor does.
4. Check each content type against the vendor's actual offering — ask format by format rather than in general. "Can you handle video?" and "can you deliver timed subtitle files in the format our player needs?" get different answers.
5. Decide how much project management you are buying — a fully managed engagement and a self-run platform are different products at different prices, and vendors often quote the second while demonstrating the first.

Detta tillvägagångssätt passar team som...

• Are consolidating several translation suppliers into one relationship.
• Produce more than one content type and are tired of coordinating across vendors.
• Have discovered that post-translation work — formatting, subtitles, SEO — is consuming more time than translation itself.
• Need to explain to a budget holder what a localization vendor actually does for the money.
• Are scaling from a single market into several and expect the content mix to widen.

När detta kanske inte är rätt prioritet

• You translate one content type at low volume, where a specialist in that one type will usually serve you better than a broad vendor.
• Your content is exclusively software strings handled entirely in a repository workflow, where the platform layer is the only layer that matters.
• You have in-house linguists and only need tooling, not services.
• Your immediate problem is a single stuck project rather than a program design question.

Evaluation checklist: questions to ask about a vendor's offering

Are you primarily a software company or a services company?
Both answers are legitimate, and the answer predicts where the vendor is strong. A vendor that will not answer plainly is worth pressing.

Which of your services are delivered by your own people, and which are subcontracted?
Subcontracting is normal, particularly for voice-over and print production. Knowing where it happens tells you where turnaround and quality control are least under the vendor's direct control.

What happens to my file after the words are translated?
Ask specifically about layout, typesetting, subtitle timing, and right-to-left handling. This is the work most often assumed and least often quoted.

Can you handle every content type on my list, with the formats I actually use?
Go format by format. A yes at the category level frequently becomes a no at the file level.

What is included in the platform and what is a paid service on top?
Quality assessment, SEO adaptation, and project management sit on either side of that line at different vendors.

What does Smartling offer beyond translation?

Smartling's offering divides into the same three layers. The platform layer is a translation management system with a translation proxy for website content, translator tools with visual context, analytics, Smartling Translate for instant on-brand translation, and the LQA Agent for evaluating AI translation quality at scale — connecting to 50+ software platforms.

The translation layer runs from machine translation through AI translation, AI translation with a human reviewer, and fully human creative translation. AI Hub provides the AI and machine side across more than 20 large language models and machine translation engines; Professional Translation provides the human side.

The managed-services layer is the one buyers most often do not know exists. Smartling's translation services page lists six available services: Multilingual SEO Management; Project Management; Linguistic Asset Management; Desktop Publishing; Audio/Video Transcription, Subtitling, Voice Over; and Translation Quality Assurance. Smartling was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Localization Services, Q3 2026.

On whether one vendor can cover every content type: Smartling covers web and software content, marketing and campaign content, print and PDF, and video and audio, but each of those has its own constraints worth reading before you consolidate — see website and software localization, marketing translation services, multilingual desktop publishing, and multimedia localization services.

Relaterade frågor

• What does website and software localization involve?
• What is multilingual desktop publishing, and when do you need it?
• What does multimedia localization cover for video and audio content?
• How does marketing translation differ from standard translation?
• How do you vet and manage a translation vendor, agency, or LSP?