DeepL Review (2026): German Translator, Free or from €7.49 a Month

What is DeepL?

Who is behind DeepL

DeepL is an AI translation service from DeepL SE, a European company registered in Cologne, Germany (Amtsgericht Köln, HRB 104617). It was founded in Cologne in 2017 by Jarek Kutylowski, who is still its CEO. DeepL also develops Linguee, the bilingual dictionary, which is published by the same company. The group has further entities in the UK, the Netherlands, Poland, the USA and Japan, but the German DeepL SE is the main company.

DeepL says more than 200,000 businesses and millions of individuals use it. It trains its own models with proprietary methods and professional language experts, and says it was the first company in Europe to deploy NVIDIA’s DGX SuperPOD with GB200 systems, powered by renewable energy. Besides the translator, DeepL sells DeepL Write (a writing assistant), DeepL Voice for meetings and conversations, and an API for developers.

Where DeepL hosts your data

DeepL’s privacy policy says documents are translated exclusively by DeepL on its own infrastructure in the European Economic Area. Its translation API answers from DeepL’s own network (DeepL SE, AS60550). The website deepl.com runs behind Cloudflare, a US content delivery network; DeepL says Cloudflare sees only metadata such as your IP address, not your texts. For the Microsoft Teams bot of DeepL Voice for Meetings, DeepL uses Microsoft and AWS only to host the bot and forward audio, not to translate or store it.

Checked 25 Oct 2026. Hosting can change – report a change.

DeepL pricing

DeepL has a free version and four paid plans; prices below are for Germany, in euros, VAT included and billed yearly (DeepL shows a 16% saving compared with monthly billing). The free version includes, per DeepL’s plan table, 50,000 characters and one file translation a month (up to 5 MB). Individual costs €7.49 a month and gives you 300,000 characters, 3 file translations a month up to 30 MB, one glossary and 30 minutes of DeepL Voice. Team costs €24.99 per user a month with 1 million characters per user, 20 files, 5 glossaries, team administration and single sign-on. Business costs €49.99 per user a month with unlimited characters (fair use), 100 files, translation memory and Write Pro included. Enterprise is priced on request. Individual and Team come with a 30-day free trial; Write Pro is an add-on at €6.99 per user a month.

For developers, the API has a free developer plan with a one-time credit of 1 million characters, and a paid plan at €23.80 a month billed yearly with 12 million characters a year and €22 per extra million. Google’s Cloud Translation API costs $20 per million characters after the first 500,000 free each month.

Privacy and features

The biggest difference between free and paid DeepL is what happens to your text. DeepL’s privacy policy says texts entered in the free translator and in free DeepL Write are processed for a limited time to train and improve its models, and its terms do not allow personal data in the free version. On DeepL Pro, texts and documents are kept only as long as needed to translate them, then deleted, and are not used to improve the service. Paid plans are SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and ISO 27001 certified, and Enterprise customers can bring their own encryption key.

DeepL translates text, Word, PowerPoint and PDF files and whole web pages in more than 100 languages, with glossaries, a formal/informal switch and saved translations. Apps are available for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android, with extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge and add-ins for Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Google Workspace. DeepL is also available in Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude through MCP.

What users say about DeepL

On Trustpilot DeepL has 2.4/5 from 785 reviews (checked 25 October 2026), 52% of them one-star. Reviewers praise fast, natural translations, the quality for professional documents and the integrations with everyday apps. The complaints are mostly about billing – renewals charged after cancelling a trial, refunds refused – slow support, limits on paid plans and frequent logouts in the Windows app. Trustpilot notes that DeepL has not replied to negative reviews.

Pros and cons

Verdict on DeepL

Verdict: DeepL is the European translator to beat: German, built on its own infrastructure in the EEA, with apps for every device and translations users praise for sounding natural. Use the free version for menus and messages, and pay for Pro from €7.49 a month for anything confidential, because only Pro deletes your texts. Set a reminder before your free trial ends – billing is the main thing users complain about. Best for: anyone who wants a European replacement for Google Translate. Not for: people who want full privacy without paying.

DeepL is ranked #1 in Best European alternatives to Google Translate and in Best European translation tools.

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DeepL: FAQ