WPML

Translate Everything Automatically – Optimize Your Shop Without Worrying About Cost

The simplest way to run a multilingual WooCommerce shop with WPML is to switch on Translate Everything Automatically with PTC as your translation engine. PTC then translates every product, category, page, cart label, checkout field, and order email automatically, in every language you’ve configured. Translation reads natively, doesn’t require manual review, and stays consistent as your shop grows.

The pricing model rewards optimisation. You pay once per page × language for the content that’s translated. Edits and retranslations are free until the content exceeds its previously paid-for length. Rewrite a product description, refine your headlines, A/B-test your copy. Each update re-translates without a new charge.

This means you can keep iterating on your shop’s wording without worrying about the cost of every revision. You only pay for the total amount of translated content, not for the number of edits along the way.

Every WooCommerce Product Type Runs Multilingual

Every WooCommerce product type works as a multilingual product through the same workflow. That covers products, their variations, and the extension product types your store depends on.

  • Simple, Grouped, External / Affiliate, and Variable

    The four built-in product types are fully multilingual: title, short description, full description, attributes, variations, gallery images, alt text, custom fields, and SEO meta.

  • WooCommerce Subscriptions, Bookings, Memberships, Product Bundles, Composite Products, Mix and Match

    Every major WooCommerce extension that defines a product type is covered. Each extension’s specific fields render multilingual alongside the standard WooCommerce ones.

  • Product variations and global attributes

    The parent product and every variation are linked across languages. Attribute names (Color, Size) and their term values (Blue, Red, Small, Large) appear in each language. The Blue variant in English is the same product as Bleu in French. Global Attributes and per-product Custom Attributes both work multilingual.

  • Product reviews

    Moderation status, review titles, and review content per language. Reviews shown on the French version of a product are the relevant ones for French customers.

  • Image alt text is multilingual per language for accessibility and SEO. The image asset itself is shared across translations by default. Swap per-language images on products where the source image carries source-language text.

  • Stock status, sale badges, and custom labels

    In stock, Out of stock, On backorder, Sale, and any custom badge appear in the customer’s language through the standard string-translation workflow.

If WooCommerce or one of its extensions defines it as a product, this compatibility plugin makes it multilingual.

Multilingual Categories, Tags, Brands, Shipping Classes, and Custom Taxonomies

Every WooCommerce taxonomy works multilingual, with full hierarchy preservation:

  • Product Categories and Product Tags, including parent-child hierarchies. The Clothing > Jackets > Leather Jackets hierarchy stays intact across languages.
  • Product Brands (WooCommerce 9.2+ built-in brands, or the WooCommerce Brands plugin). Brand names, descriptions, and brand archive pages render multilingual.
  • Shipping Classes. Labels and descriptions appear per language so shipping rules display correctly to each customer.
  • Custom taxonomies added by extensions or your theme.
  • URL slugs. /shop/jackets/leather/ becomes /boutique/vestes/cuir/ in French. Each segment per language so URLs read naturally in every market.

A Multilingual Customer Journey – Cart, Checkout, and My Account

Every page a customer sees from product page through order confirmation is multilingual:

  • Cart and checkout pages

    Both the classic shortcode-based checkout and the block-based Cart / Checkout blocks introduced in WooCommerce 8.3 and later. The block-based versions read from the same multilingual string source as the classic ones.

  • My Account pages

    Dashboard, Orders, Downloads, Addresses, Payment methods, Account details, and the Logout link. Custom My Account endpoints added by extensions run multilingual alongside the standard ones.

  • Shipping method names and descriptions

    Flat rate, Free shipping, Local pickup, plus every method added by extensions (DHL, FedEx, Australia Post, etc.). Names, descriptions, and per-method instructions render per language.

  • Payment method names and descriptions

    Stripe, PayPal, Square, Mollie, Klarna, every gateway you have configured. Names, descriptions, and the longer instructions shown on the Thank you page appear in the customer’s language.

  • Coupon codes and descriptions

    Codes themselves stay the same. The customer-facing descriptions and error messages render multilingual.

  • Notice messages

    Success, error, and information notices throughout the checkout flow.

  • Add-to-cart button text and labels

    The button copy and the View cart link.

  • Variation swatch labels and product filters

    Including filters added by Ajax product filter plugins (e.g., HUSKY, YITH).

Multilingual WooCommerce Emails – Customers Receive Notifications in Their Language

WooCommerce sends a precise set of automated emails. Every one of them runs multilingual. Each customer receives their copy in the language they ordered in:

  • New Order. To the store admin.
  • Processing Order. To the customer when payment is received.
  • Completed Order. To the customer when the order ships or completes.
  • Cancelled Order and Failed Order. To the store admin.
  • Refunded Order. To the customer.
  • Customer Invoice / Order details. Manually sent from the order admin.
  • Customer Note. When a public order note is added.
  • Customer New Account. When a new customer registers at checkout or My Account.
  • Reset Password. For password reset requests.
  • Plus emails added by extensions. Subscriptions renewal emails, Bookings confirmations, Memberships notifications, and custom emails from email-design plugins like YayMail.

Each email’s subject, body, footer, and merge-tag text appears in the customer’s language. WooCommerce records the order’s language at checkout. The compatibility plugin routes the email to the matching version when the order’s state changes.

Sell in Multiple Currencies – Manual Prices, Automatic Conversion, or a Mix

Multi-currency works whether your store has one language or twenty:

  • Manual prices per currency

    €19.99 in Europe, $24.99 in the US, ¥3,000 in Japan. Clean numbers customers expect, not the result of dividing by yesterday’s exchange rate. Set manual prices on each product’s edit screen alongside WooCommerce’s standard price fields.

  • Automatic exchange-rate conversion

    Set the source price once and the plugin applies an exchange rate to display each currency. Pull rates from a configured source on a schedule you choose, or set rates manually.

  • Mix the two per currency

    Manual for your top three markets, automatic for the long tail.

  • Locale-appropriate formatting

    Currency symbol position, decimal separator, thousand separator, and number of decimal places per currency. €1.234,56 reads correctly in Europe. ¥1,234 reads correctly in Japan.

  • Tax rules per currency

    WooCommerce’s tax-by-location settings layer cleanly on top of multi-currency. The customer sees the right tax for their country in their chosen currency.

The Right Payment Gateway for Every Country and Currency

A WooCommerce store typically ties each payment gateway to a single processor account and currency. This compatibility plugin lets you route gateways per currency. Customers see only the payment options that actually work in the currency they’re paying in.

  • Per-currency gateway selection in the multi-currency settings. Every currency lists the available gateways with checkboxes.
  • Compatible with the major gateway plugins. Stripe, PayPal, Square, Mollie, Klarna, Authorize.Net, plus regional gateways for India, Brazil, Australia, and many others.
  • Default-currency fallback. When no gateway is configured for a currency, customers fall back to the store’s default.

Result: a French customer paying in euros sees your European Stripe account. A Japanese customer paying in yen sees your local Japanese gateway. An Australian customer paying in dollars sees an Australia-specific option.

Show Customers Their Currency – Switcher, Block, Widget, or Geolocation

Place a currency switcher anywhere a customer might want one. Let visitors choose, or auto-detect from their country:

  • Currency Switcher block. Drop into any page or post via the block editor.
  • Currency Switcher widget. Drag into any widget area.
  • [currency_switcher] shortcode. Paste into any page, post, or theme template for custom placements.
  • Multiple switcher styles. Dropdown, side-by-side, vertical list, horizontal list.
  • Geolocation-based currency. Auto-detect the visitor’s country from their IP and show the matching currency by default. Combine with the switcher so customers can override.

Multilingual SEO Built In – Every Product Ranks in Every Language

Multilingual products, categories, and tags each get their own URL with full multilingual SEO automation:

  • Per-language URLs. /product/leather-jacket/ in English; /produit/veste-en-cuir/ in French. Multilingual slugs throughout the URL path.
  • hreflang tags generated automatically for every multilingual page.
  • Per-language XML sitemaps with multilingual URLs.
  • Multilingual structured data. Product schema, BreadcrumbList schema, Organization schema all rendered with each language’s values.
  • Yoast SEO, Rank Math meta-field translation through WPML SEO. Title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph titles and descriptions, Twitter Card text. Included with the same WPML purchase.

A French shopper searching for vestes en cuir finds your French jackets. They don’t see your English page, which doesn’t rank in their language.

Compatible With Every Major WooCommerce Extension – by Category

WPML works with more than 200 WooCommerce extensions. They’re tested regularly and listed on WPML’s WooCommerce extensions section. The categories below cover the extensions a multilingual store is likeliest to depend on. Each section explains what being multilingual means for that category.

Multilingual Payment Gateways That Customers Trust in Their Country

The payment method names and instructions a customer sees at checkout are part of the trust signal that decides whether they complete the purchase. A French shopper expects to see the gateway name and instructions in French. A German shopper expects them in German. Multilingual coverage extends to gateway names (the label shown at checkout), the longer description shown on the Thank you page, gateway-specific error messages, and any per-gateway instruction text. Combined with the multi-currency routing above, each customer sees only the gateways that apply for their currency.

Top WPML-compatible payment-gateway extensions:

WooCommerce PayPal Payments, Klarna Checkout for WooCommerce, Mollie Payments for WooCommerce, Deposits & Partial Payments for WooCommerce, and regional gateways like RedSys (Spain) and Komfortkasse (Germany).

Multilingual Shipping Methods, Live Carrier Rates, and Tracking Notifications

Shipping is where international customers feel the language gap most. The shipping method name at checkout, the live-rate quote, the tracking link, and the estimated-delivery-date notice all need to appear in the customer’s language. Customers need to know what they’re paying for and when their order arrives. Multilingual coverage extends to shipping method names and descriptions, live-rate label text, tracking-notification emails, and estimated-delivery-date strings.

Top WPML-compatible shipping extensions:

Table Rate Shipping for WooCommerce (the official WooCommerce.com plugin), Advanced Shipment Tracking by zorem, Flexible Shipping by Octolize, and live-rate plugins for DHL Express, FedEx, UPS, Royal Mail, and Canada Post. Plus post-purchase tracking with Parcel Panel and TrackShip.

Multilingual Subscriptions, Memberships, and Automated Customer Communications

Customers on subscription products and memberships interact with your store for months or years. Every renewal email, every membership-status notification, every dunning message has to reach them in the right language. Otherwise the long-term relationship breaks down before the next billing cycle. Multilingual coverage extends to subscription product titles and descriptions, recurring-payment email templates, renewal-failure notices, membership tier names and access-denied messages, and AutomateWoo workflow emails.

Top WPML-compatible subscription / membership / automation extensions:

WooCommerce Subscriptions (the canonical WooCommerce.com subscription plugin), AutomateWoo (WooCommerce.com – marketing automation, abandoned cart, customer follow-up), Subscriptions For WooCommerce by WP Swings, and Membership For WooCommerce.

Multilingual Bookings, Appointments, and Reservation Flows

Booking businesses are inherently cross-border. Language schools, tours, fitness studios, and professional services all sell to customers who speak different languages and book through their own. The booking calendar, time-slot labels, deposit amounts, and confirmation emails all need to render in the customer’s language. Multilingual coverage extends to bookable product titles and descriptions, time-slot labels, resource names, deposit-amount notices, booking-confirmation emails, and reminder notifications.

Top WPML-compatible bookings extensions:

WooCommerce Bookings (WooCommerce.com), Bookings and Appointments For WooCommerce Premium by PluginHive, and Event Tickets Manager for WooCommerce.

Multilingual Product Variations, Bundles, Composite Products, and Custom Add-On Fields

Customisation is where customers make real purchase decisions. They choose a size, add an engraving, or build a bundle from individual components. Every option label, every add-on field, every bundle component has to read naturally in the customer’s language. Multilingual coverage extends to variation attribute labels and option values, bundle component names, composite-product configuration labels, custom add-on field labels and instructions, and attribute swatch tooltips.

Top WPML-compatible product-customisation extensions:

WooCommerce Product Bundles (WooCommerce.com), WooCommerce Product Add-ons (WooCommerce.com), WooCommerce Composite Products (WooCommerce.com), WooCommerce Mix and Match Products, Iconic WooCommerce Attribute Swatches, WooThumbs by IconicWP, Variation Swatches and Photos, Advanced Product Fields for WooCommerce by Studio Wombat, and Extra Product Options & Add-Ons.

Multilingual Filters, Search, Quick-Views, and Product Tables That Drive Discovery

Product discovery is where catalogue size meets language. Filter facet labels, search auto-suggest results, quick-view modal content, and product-table column headings all sit between the customer and the product they want. They have to work natively in every language. Otherwise the customer gives up before buying. Multilingual coverage extends to filter category names and option values (size, color, brand), search auto-suggest labels and “no results” copy, quick-view modal labels, product-table column headings, and “load more” and pagination text.

Top WPML-compatible discovery extensions:

HUSKY – Products Filter Professional by realmag777, WOOF – WooCommerce Products Filter (the popular free filter), YITH WooCommerce Ajax Product Filter, WooCommerce Product Table by Barn2 Media, WooCommerce Quick View Pro, and Fast Simon for WooCommerce (AI-powered search and personalization).

Multilingual Coupons, Dynamic Pricing, Wholesale Catalogs, and Loyalty Rewards

Promotions convert. A French shopper sees a “15% off, code SPRING” banner in English and clicks away. The same shopper sees the banner in French and completes the order. Coupon descriptions, dynamic-pricing rule labels, wholesale-tier names, and loyalty-points messages all need to render in the customer’s language. Multilingual coverage extends to coupon descriptions and error messages, dynamic-pricing rule labels and discount text, wholesale-tier names and B2B catalog labels, loyalty-points-balance messages, gift-card redemption text, and discount-applied notices.

Top WPML-compatible promotion / wholesale extensions:

WooCommerce Dynamic Pricing (WooCommerce.com), Advanced Coupons for WooCommerce by Rymera Web Co, Dynamic Pricing With Discount Rules by acowebs, WooRewards (loyalty and rewards), WebToffee WooCommerce Gift Cards, B2BKing (wholesale and B2B), WooCommerce Wholesale Pro by Barn2 Media, and the WooCommerce Wholesale Suite by Rymera Web Co.

Multilingual PDF Invoices, Email Notifications, Reviews, and Wishlists

The post-purchase experience extends the store’s relationship past checkout. Customers file invoices, read order confirmations, write reviews, and save wishlists for later. Every one of these lives in the customer’s language. The relationship continues in the language it started. Multilingual coverage extends to PDF invoice templates and packing-slip text, custom-designed email templates and subject lines, review-form prompts and rating labels, wishlist-page labels and shareable wishlist titles, and customer-account notification text.

Top WPML-compatible post-purchase extensions:

WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips Professional by WP Overnight (industry-standard PDF plugin), WooCommerce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes & Shipping Labels by WebToffee, YayMail Pro – WooCommerce Email Customizer, WooCommerce Email Template Customizer Premium by VillaTheme, Customer Reviews for WooCommerce by CusRev, Photo Reviews for WooCommerce, YITH WooCommerce Wishlist, and TI WooCommerce Wishlist.

Plus Marketplaces, Page Builders, Tax & VAT, and Funnels

Beyond the eight categories above, WPML compatibility extends to:

WPML supports modern WooCommerce page-builder workflows including Elementor, Bricks, Divi, Beaver Builder, and Full Site Editing block themes. The REST API is language-aware for headless WooCommerce builds.

For the complete list, see WPML’s WooCommerce extensions section.

Native-Quality Product Translation – PTC Reads Your Product Images

Product copy is short. It’s full of attributes and tightly tied to what the product is. Translating “black leather jacket, slim fit, two pockets, brass zipper” needs more than a dictionary. It needs to know what the product looks like. WPML’s PTC engine handles this by looking at your product images while translating. PTC knows the shape, materials, and category of each product before it picks the words that fit the local market. The result reads like a native shopper would describe the product, not a literal word-for-word translation that falls flat.

PTC is WPML’s recommended AI engine. The PTC vs DeepL quality study has the numbers: PTC scored 90.0 against DeepL’s 77.7 on the same source content, with about 18× fewer issues per page.


The Full Multilingual Package vs. the Free WooCommerce Multilingual Plugin

There are two ways to run WooCommerce Multilingual:

The full multilingual package – with paid WPML

Multilingual store, multi-currency, local payment gateways, multilingual SEO, image-aware AI translation, support for every WooCommerce extension WPML is compatible with, and 24/7 support. Included with Multilingual CMS and Agency.

The free WooCommerce Multilingual plugin from WordPress.org

Multi-currency only, on a single-language store. No multilingual content, no multilingual SEO. For stores that need just multi-currency on one language, the free plugin works on its own.

Most multilingual stores need the full package. Multilingual content and multi-currency are the same workflow. Separating them creates more setup work than it saves. Trusted by more than 100,000 WooCommerce stores and counting.

Buy WPML and Start Selling Globally

Buy WPML. The multilingual + multicurrency compatibility plugin for WooCommerce is included with Multilingual CMS and Agency.

For multi-currency stores, how to add multiple currencies and payment gateways to a WooCommerce store covers per-currency pricing, the currency-switcher block/widget/shortcode, and the per-country gateway logic.