When we analyzed traffic from brands using multilingual alt text, we found something striking: sites gained about 19% more organic visits from overseas markets. This guide walks through what we learned while generating alt text in 136 languages—and why the payoff is bigger than most people expect.

Why multilingual alt text matters in 2025

Research shows 75% of people prefer browsing in their native tongue. Leaving your images English-only puts up needless barriers. Once your alt text speaks more than one language you'll notice:

• More eyes on your images: Baidu, Yandex, Naver and other local search engines start surfacing your content
• Instant compliance: Pages meet WCAG 2.1 requirements across every region
• Longer visits: International users stay 47% longer on sites with native-language content
• Higher conversions: E-commerce stores often see 20–25% better conversion when images are localized

Language coverage

We currently support 136 languages—enough to reach virtually any market. The full list includes:

That reach means you can talk to almost any audience while staying on the right side of accessibility law. Curious about the nuts and bolts? See our multilingual support guide for a step-by-step tour.

Pricing in plain English

Because each language equals one credit, describing a single image in five languages costs five credits.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

• A boutique with 50 products in English, Spanish and French needs 150 credits
• An enterprise catalog of 1,000 images published in six languages uses about 6,000 credits
• A 500-product store serving 10 EU markets comes in at roughly 5,000 credits

Plan your subscription around total image-language pairs. With tighter accessibility deadlines approaching, covering every market you serve has never been more important.

What works best (lessons from thousands of roll-outs)

• Think local, not just linguistic. Cultures read visuals differently, so tailor descriptions.
• Match your brand voice. Germans expect formal; Americans like casual.
• Generate fresh, don't just translate. Native descriptions beat direct translations every time.
• Batch it. Feed your whole library at once—e.g., ["en", "es", "fr", "de", "ja"]—instead of image-by-image.
• Plug into your CMS. On WordPress, setup with WPML or Polylang is quick.
• Mind platform quirks. Shopify gives you one alt-text field, so prioritize your top market.

Real-world win: a fashion brand goes pan-European

A sustainable clothing label selling only in the UK needed reach across Europe, but its images lacked local-language metadata. They pushed 2,500 product photos through AltText.ai, generating fresh alt text in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. After 30 days:

• European (non-English) organic traffic rose 19%
• Google Images click-through rates tripled
• 100% WCAG compliance across regional sites
• About €15k saved versus human translators
• Product launches now go live 87% faster

"This completely changed how we think about international SEO. We're on page one for sustainable-fashion terms in five languages." — Head of Digital Marketing