OCR pages and MT pages for freelancers

As a freelancer in Smartcat, you may encounter two types of paid credits when working on your own projects: OCR pages and MT pages. This article explains what each one is, when it is used, and how to purchase more.

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• You are uploading a scanned PDF or image-based file and need to understand how OCR works

• You see the message "You've used all your OCR pages" and want to resolve it

• You want to use Machine Translation on a project and need to understand MT page costs

• You have run out of MT pages and want to purchase more

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1. Select Productivity Services (or the relevant billing section in your account) from the sidebar

2. Purchase the number of OCR or MT pages you need

Your OCR or MT page balance is updated immediately.

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Some documents, such as scanned PDFs or image-based files, contain text embedded in graphics. Because the text is part of an image rather than editable content, Smartcat cannot extract it automatically.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) analyses image content, detects the text within it, and converts it into editable text that can be translated in the CAT editor.

OCR usage is measured in pages. Each page of a document that requires recognition consumes one OCR page from your balance.

For example, a 20-page scanned PDF requires 20 OCR pages to process.

If you do not have enough OCR pages, Smartcat displays the message: "You've used all your OCR pages."

OCR is a paid service. Purchase additional OCR pages under Productivity Services.

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MT pages are credits used when you apply AI translation actions in a project.

MT pages are consumed when you:

• Run automatic translation actions

MT pages are not consumed when you:

• Translate manually in the CAT editor

• Edit existing translations

• Apply Translation Memory matches

1 MT page = 250 words

For example, if your document contains 1,000 words, pre-translating it with AI consumes 4 MT pages.

If you have no MT pages remaining, you cannot run new AI translation actions. You can still access the CAT editor fully and continue translating manually without any restrictions.

MT pages are a paid service. Purchase additional MT pages under Productivity Services.

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• OCR is required for scanned PDFs and image-based files. These cannot be processed without it

• MT pages are required for AI translation actions only. Manual translation is always available regardless of MT page balance

• Both OCR and MT pages are purchased separately and do not share a balance

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