Perxel AI Translate

Free and open source. A WordPress plugin that bulk-translates your WPML content with an AI model of your choice, through OpenRouter. You pay OpenRouter directly for model usage - there is no plugin fee, no subscription, and no WPML AI translation credits are spent.

By Perxel. Licensed GPL-2.0-or-later. On the WordPress.org plugin directory as perxel-ai-translate.

Cheap enough to translate a whole site

On one production site - roughly 1,000 posts, ~2.8 million words - a full translation pass (titles, content, ACF fields, Rank Math SEO meta, taxonomies and featured images) cost under $5 in OpenRouter usage. Putting the same content through WPML's own AI translation would have cost on the order of 600x more.

The exact number is entirely down to the model you choose - the model is a setting, never hard-coded - but a current Gemini Flash class model is more than good enough for normal web content and runs at a few cents per thousand words. Every run shows a cost estimate before it starts and records what it actually spent.

Screenshots

Dashboard

How to start a translation, all-time run and word totals, and recent runs.

Translation screen

Destination language, model and rates, what to translate, and a per-post plan with a cost and word-count estimate before anything runs.

Settings

Your OpenRouter key and model, batching and glossary options, and which companion plugins (ACF, Rank Math, WPBakery) are detected.

History

Every run with its languages, model, post count, warnings or errors, word volume and cost.

What it does

• A Tools → AI Translate admin area: Dashboard, History, ID lookup and Settings, plus a Translation screen and a live Run screen reached mid-task.
• Pick posts with a Perxel AI Translate… bulk action on any WPML-translatable post type, or the Translate this page toolbar item while editing a single post. Both land on the same Translation screen for exactly those posts - there is no persistent, accumulating list.
• The Translation screen takes a destination language and a data selection and shows a cost / word-count estimate before anything runs. Costs display in USD, or in VND on sites whose WPML default language is Vietnamese.
• Press Translate and apply. Each post is translated and written straight into WordPress as a WPML translation - review it in the normal editor. Close the tab any time; reopen the run and press Resume to carry on where it left off.
• The AI model is a setting: enter any OpenRouter model id, press Test model to verify it and pull its live pricing. Each run snapshots the model id and rates so historical costs stay correct.
• Translates: title and slug, excerpt and content (HTML and page-builder shortcodes such as [vc_row] are preserved - only the readable text is sent), ACF text / textarea / WYSIWYG fields including nested Groups, Repeaters and Flexible Content, Rank Math SEO fields, taxonomy terms (remapped to their WPML translations), and the featured image.
• Faster batched requests (on by default) sends several short posts per model request; turn it off to translate one post per request.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.2+, PHP 7.4+
• WPML (Multilingual CMS or higher) with at least two active languages - the plugin stays inactive without it
• An OpenRouter account and API key

Tested with

• WordPress 7.1
• WPML 4.9.7
• Secure Custom Fields 6.9.5 (and Advanced Custom Fields)
• Rank Math SEO 1.0.277.2 / Rank Math SEO PRO 3.0.82
• WPBakery Page Builder 9.0.1

Install

From the WordPress.org directory (once listed): Plugins → Add New, search for "Perxel AI Translate", install and activate.

Or install the latest build directly:

https://github.com/perxel/wp-ai-translate/releases/latest/download/perxel-ai-translate.zip

Upload it under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, activate, then open Tools → AI Translate → Settings and add your OpenRouter API key.

Development

composer install
composer run lint      # PHP_CodeSniffer (WordPress standard)
composer run lint:fix  # phpcbf

Build an installable / WordPress.org submission zip (only committed files, minus everything in .distignore):

composer run build          # or: bin/build-zip.sh
bin/build-zip.sh --dirty    # include uncommitted changes
# → dist/perxel-ai-translate.zip

Regenerate the translation template:

wp i18n make-pot . languages/perxel-ai-translate.pot

Extending

// Cap how many parallel browser workers a batched run uses (default 2).
add_filter( 'pxat_batch_worker_count', fn () => 3 );

The AI model, its pricing and its limits are stored settings - set them on Tools → AI Translate → Settings, not in code.

Releasing

1. Bump the version in perxel-ai-translate.php (header and PXAT_VERSION), readme.txt (Stable tag), and add a changelog entry. Commit to main.
2. Create a GitHub Release with the tag = the new version (e.g. 0.0.2).

release.yml then runs automatically on the published Release and does two things:

Job	What it does
zip	Builds perxel-ai-translate.zip with bin/build-zip.sh and attaches it to the release. Works immediately.
deploy / assets	Pushes the version to the WordPress.org SVN repo and updates the .org readme and listing assets. Only works after the plugin's first submission has been approved, and needs the repo secrets SVN_USERNAME / SVN_PASSWORD.

The zip is a build artifact - it is not committed to the repo (dist/ is git-ignored). The stable download URL for the latest build is https://github.com/perxel/wp-ai-translate/releases/latest/download/perxel-ai-translate.zip.

Listing assets (icon, banner, screenshots) live in .wordpress-org/ and are pushed to SVN on the same release.yml run.

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE. Issues and pull requests welcome.