Kindle Translate is Amazon's AI translation for KDP ebooks, free while it's in beta and open by invitation. It suits some books well and leaves others out. Here is what Amazon's own pages say it does, beside a translation made in PenStranding, and when each makes sense.
Kindle Translate or a translation of your own
| Kindle Translate | PenStranding | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Free while it's in beta. What it will cost after the beta: not on Amazon's pages. | A production translation is $1.00 per 1,000 words of the original ($100 for a 100,000-word novel), a draft $0.30, paid in Studio credit and quoted before it runs. |
| Who can use it | By invitation, for live, reflowable ebooks made on kdp.amazon.com (not kdp.amazon.co.jp), with a cover and an author. Not preorders, public domain books or books that are translations already. | Any author with an account and the rights to translate the book. The studio is in a closed beta: authors join from the waitlist. |
| Languages | From English into French (France), German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish (Spain), and from those five into English (US). | Any language, with full typography rules in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Ukrainian. |
| What you get | A Kindle ebook in the new language, labelled with its language and with a sample for readers. Its cover is yours with a white border and the language at the top, unless you upload another. | A whole edition in the new language, built like the original: its ebook, paperback and hardcover, covers and store kits. |
| Editing it | You can preview a translation, but not edit its text. Its title, author name and other details are translated from the original's and can only be changed there, and when you update the manuscript KDP prompts you to re-translate. | You approve a style bible and the first chapters before the rest is translated, change any line in a side-by-side editor, and can invite a reviewer of your own by a private link. |
| Who owns it | Amazon keeps the translation files, and the edition can't be sold outside the program. | You do. The translation is yours to download, sell anywhere and keep if you leave. |
| Where it sells | Amazon's Kindle store only, with your KDP royalty options. It can be in KDP Select and Kindle+ (Kindle Unlimited, as some of Amazon's pages still call it). | Every store: kits for KDP, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play and the rest, and your own shop. |
| Print and audiobooks | No print books and no audiobooks. | Paperback and hardcover interiors, and an audiobook kit with the scripts to record. |
| Quality checks | Amazon checks accuracy, names, terminology, forms of address, grammar and spelling. A book that fails can't be published, and Amazon translates it again when its service improves. | An editor's pass, names and terms kept the same through the book, automated checks, and a report on what to check. |
When Kindle Translate is the better choice
- You've been invited, and your book is a Kindle ebook in one of its languages.
- You want the translation on Amazon only, and in Kindle+ if the book is in KDP Select.
- The book is the kind Amazon says translates well: fiction, business and self-help, plain instructions and straightforward prose.
- You're happy to publish the translation as it comes, without editing it.
- It costs nothing while the beta lasts.
When a translation of your own is worth paying for
- You want a paperback, a hardcover or an audiobook in the new language, or to sell beyond Amazon.
- The language isn't one of Kindle Translate's, such as Polish, Japanese or Ukrainian.
- The book is the kind Amazon says may not translate well: poetry, wordplay, technical terms and references a reader abroad wouldn't know. Those need a style bible, your approval and a reviewer.
- You want to change lines, or have a native speaker read it, before it's published.
- You want to own the translation and keep it whatever the program becomes.
Can you use both?
Amazon's terms let you make another translation into the same language and sell it elsewhere, unless the Kindle Translate edition is enrolled in KDP Select, whose exclusivity then applies to it. If your original ebook is in KDP Select, its translations are enrolled too, for 90 days that renew unless you opt out on the Kindle Translate management page. You can unpublish a Kindle Translate edition without touching your original ebook.
See what a translation of your book costs before it starts, in PenStranding.
Join the waitlistSources
Checked on 25 October 2026 against Beta: Kindle Translate, Getting started, Languages, Eligibility and troubleshooting, Quality, Pricing, royalties and reports, The beta's terms, updated November 2025. Stores, agencies and laws change their rules: their own pages have the final word.