Transept vs Smartcat focus vs breadth

Where focus beats breadth

Smartcat is for running language operations — a platform with a marketplace, content generation, enterprise workflows, the works. Transept is for translating and delivering documents without the enterprise overhead. Same underlying technology in places; very different shape.

When Transept is the right fit

Questions, answered without the fluff

• Does Transept have a translator marketplace?+
  No. Transept is the translation workspace; you bring the translators (yourself, your team, your agency). Smartcat is the place to find translators if you need to outsource.
• Can I migrate from Smartcat?+
  Yes — export glossaries and TM as CSV, import to Transept as a glossary. Document content imports as DOCX or Markdown.
• When does Smartcat make more sense than Transept?+
  If you need a marketplace for human translators, broad AI content generation (not just translation), and enterprise procurement workflows. Transept doesn’t cover those.
• Does Transept work for agencies?+
  Yes — agencies use Transept for the document translation surface, with team accounts, per-client glossaries and styleguides, and client review links. The marketplace and content-generation pieces aren’t there, but most agencies have their own translator network anyway.
• Does Transept have a translator marketplace?+
  No. Transept is the translation workspace; you bring your own translators (yourself, your team, or your agency). If you need to find translators, Smartcat’s marketplace is one of the better ones; or pair with Translated, Gengo, or a vetted agency.
• Is Smartcat’s AI better than Transept’s?+
  Smartcat uses its own AI model alongside third-party options. Transept routes through Claude, Gemini, GPT, and Groq — the frontier models. For raw quality, Transept’s multi-model routing usually wins. For workflow simplicity within one platform, Smartcat is tighter.
• Can we migrate from Smartcat?+
  Yes — export glossaries, TM, and documents from Smartcat in their standard formats (TMX, CSV, DOCX) and import into Transept. The glossary and TM map onto Transept glossaries directly.
• What about Smartcat’s human translation service?+
  Not currently part of Transept. If you need human translation, vet a partner agency and use Transept for the AI/review side of the workflow.
• How does pricing compare?+
  Smartcat Basic starts around $1,200/year and scales up. Transept starts free (1,500 words/month) and Starter is $19/month with every feature unlocked. For self-serve teams, Transept is significantly cheaper.

Keep reading around this comparison

• FeaturePick the model that fits the work→Different models read different languages differently. Claude for nuance and long context. Gemini for European pairs. GPT for marketing…
• FeatureA glossary the AI actually follows→Character names, product terms, branded phrases, client-specific vocabulary. Build a glossary once — manually, by upload, or seeded from a…
• FeatureBatch translation without the spreadsheet→A 30-file launch kit into 12 languages used to mean a spreadsheet, a project manager, and a week. With batch translation, it’s a queue you…
• Use caseTranslate the next client document→Per-client glossaries that travel across projects. Per-client styleguides that hold tone. Sentence-level review for the lines that matter.…
• CompareTransept vs DeepL on the long documents→DeepL is the default for fast, high-quality AI translation. Transept doesn’t claim to beat DeepL on the raw translation of a single…