Comparison
MAIK Voice vs. hiring an interpreter
A professional interpreter is paid for the time they are booked. MAIK Voice is metered only while it is actually translating. That one difference is most of what follows.
This page is not an argument that you should never hire an interpreter.
There are conversations where you should, and we have listed them below rather than hoping you do not think of them.
One supplier call
A 30-minute call with a factory contact in another language.
Interpreter
$60–$150
MAIK Voice
$1.68
30 min meeting · 1 h booked · 12 min translated (est.)
A week of standups
Five 15-minute daily standups with a distributed team.
Interpreter
$120–$300
MAIK Voice
$4.20
75 min meeting · 2 h booked · 30 min translated (est.)
A full onboarding session
A two-hour walkthrough with a new international client.
Interpreter
$120–$300
MAIK Voice
$9.80
120 min meeting · 2 h booked · 70 min translated (est.)
| Scenario | Meeting | Translated (est.) | Interpreter | MAIK Voice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One supplier callA 30-minute call with a factory contact in another language. | 30 min1 h booked | 12 min | $60–$150 | $1.68 |
| A week of standupsFive 15-minute daily standups with a distributed team. | 75 min2 h booked | 30 min | $120–$300 | $4.20 |
| A full onboarding sessionA two-hour walkthrough with a new international client. | 120 min2 h booked | 70 min | $120–$300 | $9.80 |
Interpreter cost assumes $60–$150 per hour, the range we publish site-wide, and that an interpreter is engaged by the hour — so a booking is rounded up to the next full hour. Minimums, travel and cancellation terms vary by agency and are not modelled here.
MAIK Voice cost is 14¢/min on the Standard voice tier, charged only for minutes in which translation actually ran. The translated-minute figures are estimates for illustration: a meeting where everyone talks without pause will meter higher, and one with long silences lower. Your real bill is the real minutes.
The real difference
You are not buying a cheaper interpreter. You are buying a different shape of cost.
Booked time versus spoken time. An interpreter’s hour is an hour of their day whether the room is talking or reading a slide. MAIK Voice bills 14¢/min, published hourly $7.99/hr and only while translation is running — silence, note-taking and screen sharing cost nothing.
Scheduling versus availability. An interpreter has to be found, booked and briefed. That lead time is why most cross-language conversations simply happen badly instead: nobody books an interpreter for a ten-minute call. MAIK Voice runs in the browser and your guest joins from one link, so the ten-minute call is possible at all.
Judgment versus throughput. This is the direction the comparison runs the other way. A human interpreter notices that a phrase did not land, asks what was meant, softens a register, and carries professional responsibility for the result. MAIK Voice translates what it hears. It does not ask.
Hire the human
When an interpreter is the right call
- 01Court proceedings, depositions, and sworn testimony — these require a certified or sworn interpreter, and software is not one.
- 02Medical diagnosis, consent, and any conversation where a qualified interpreter is required by law or by your regulator.
- 03Negotiations where register, nuance, and cultural mediation are carrying the deal, and a flat translation would lose it.
- 04Anything where somebody must take professional responsibility for the accuracy of what was said.
- 05Languages we do not support yet. There are 74 live today and the languages page is read from the running system, not from a brochure.
FAQ
Questions
- Is MAIK Voice a replacement for a professional interpreter?
- No — not for everything. For sworn testimony, court proceedings, medical consent conversations, and any setting where a certified interpreter is required by law or regulation, you need a qualified human being and we are not one. What MAIK Voice replaces is the far larger number of conversations that never get an interpreter at all because booking one is too slow or too expensive for the occasion.
- Where does the $60–150 per hour figure come from?
- It is the range we publish across the site for professional human interpreters, and it is the same range used on our pricing page. Rates vary widely by language, specialism and region — a rare language pair or a technical specialism will sit at or above the top of that range.
- Why is your column so much smaller? What is the catch?
- Two structural differences, not a discount. An interpreter is paid for the time they are booked; MAIK Voice is metered only while it is actually translating, so silence, reading and screen sharing cost nothing. And there is no person to schedule, so there is no minimum engagement to buy. The catch is the honest one: it is software, and it does not exercise professional judgment.
- How accurate is it compared to a human?
- A skilled human interpreter is better, particularly with idiom, register, humour, and moments where the right move is to stop and ask what someone meant. MAIK Voice does not ask for clarification — it translates what it hears. For operational conversations that is usually enough; for conversations where a misunderstanding is expensive, it is not.
- Do I need to install anything, or does my guest?
- No. Calls run entirely in the browser and your guest joins from a single link — no account, no download, nothing to approve in advance. That is also why an unplanned call is possible at all: there is nothing to arrange.
- What if my language is not supported?
- Then an interpreter is your answer and we will not pretend otherwise. The languages page lists exactly what is live today, read from the running system rather than from a brochure.
Full pricing, including Premium and Ultra voice tiers, is on the pricing page.