What are Processed Words?
Processed Words measure the first time a human translator interacts with content in a workflow. A word counts as a Processed Word when a human linguist creates, edits, or reviews a translation in a workflow step in Smartling and saves it, even if no changes are made.
Each string is only counted once per target locale, regardless of how many times it is subsequently edited.
Edits made to translations in the Published step do not count as Processed Words.
What counts as Processed Words
Scenario | Counted as Processed Words? |
A translator saves a translation in a workflow step (with or without changes) | Yes |
A translation is edited in the Published step, regardless of how it was originally translated (human, MT, LLM, SmartMatch, or imported) | No |
Copy source to target workflow with at least one human step | Yes (but not counted as AI Hub Usage) |
Copy source to target workflow with no human steps | No (also not counted as AI Hub Usage) |
SmartMatched translations (no subsequent edits) | No |
SmartMatched translations later edited by a translator in a workflow step | Yes |
Repetitions within a job not de-duplicated upon upload (each repetition is counted as a separate string) | Yes |
No | |
AIT workflow translations | No |
AI Review step in AIHT workflows (with an active AI Subscription) | No |
AI Review step in AIHT workflows (without an active AI Subscription) | Yes |
Import scenarios
Scenario | Counted as Processed Words? |
Imported translations that move to Published without edits | No |
Imported translations, including imports that overwrite existing string translations or that update translations in the translation memory | No |
Offline step in a workflow where translations are exported, worked on outside Smartling, and then imported (the import itself) | No |
A translator saves a translation in a translation, edit, or review step that comes before or after the offline step in the same workflow | Yes |
A translator saves an imported translation in a workflow step after the import (with or without changes) | Yes |
Importing translated files
Importing a translated file never counts as Processed Words. This applies whether or not the import changes translations in your project or your TM.
Offline QA example: Your workflow includes an offline step where you export translations, run your own QA on translations outside of Smartling, and import the reviewed translations.
If no QA issues are found, nothing is imported since the translations stayed the same. The import does not generate Processed Words.
If QA issues are found and you import corrected translations, this also does not generate Processed Words.
However, if your offline QA workflow has a translation, edit, or review step before or after the offline step, when translations are saved in those steps, they will generate Processed Words. For more on importing translations, see Importing Translated Files.
The Processed Words Report
The report records the daily number of words that a human linguist, such as a translator or third-party provider, translated, edited, or reviewed in a workflow step in Smartling for the first time in a specific project.
Strings are only counted once for each target locale. Retranslating a string which has already been counted for that locale will not cause it to be counted again.
Fuzzy Match scores do not affect the Processed Word count.
If content goes directly to the published step (e.g., through SmartMatch or translation import), it does not count as Processed Words. This includes imports that change existing translations or the TM. Edits made to these translations in the Published step also do not count as Processed Words.
You may notice a time difference/lag between what you see in the Processed Words Report versus the Word Count Report. For example, if a Translator translated strings on a Monday, but only submitted the strings on a Tuesday:
The Processed Words Report will indicate that they were worked on, on the Monday.
The Word Count Report will show Tuesday.
Use Cases
The Processed Words Report is commonly used for billing forecasting purposes. For example, an Account Owner may wish to see how many Processed Words they had for a quarter, or a year, to plan for future allocations.
Accessing The Processed Words Report
The Processed Words Report is available to Account Owners and Project Managers on Enterprise accounts.
Go to Reports > Processed Words
Under Locale Name, select the language(s) you wish to include in the report
Under Action Date, select the date range you wish to include in the report, from presets or custom ranges
Click the update icon to run the report
To obtain an offline version of the report, click the ellipsis and select Download or schedule a delivery of the report directly to your inbox