Short answer: for translated audio on listeners' own phones with no app, the field narrows to a handful: LiveInterpret.AI, Glossa, LiveSunday (top tier), Faith Translate, Streamlingo, OneAccord and LiveVoice. For caption-first budgets around $20/month, CaptionKit and Hope Translator are honest value. If you need human interpreters in the loop, LiveVoice carries them best. EU churches with GDPR obligations have exactly two serious options: Streamlingo and LiveInterpret.AI.
1. Audio or captions? Reading captions for 90 minutes with the screen on is a different experience from listening with earbuds and a locked phone. Several tools gate audio behind an app install (Kaleo, CaptionKit) or their top tier (LiveSunday, Church Translation Live).
2. Are your listeners counted? Some tools price by audience size (Faith Translate caps at 25/100 users; LiveVoice and Streamlingo meter listeners or listener-hours). Growing congregations feel this at Easter.
3. Where is the audio processed? A European congregation's spoken words going through an AI service is GDPR territory. Most US/CA/AU tools on this list publish no data-location statement at all.
| Tool | Entry price | Translated audio | App needed | Listeners | EU/GDPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LiveInterpret.AI | €19 pack / €49 mo | yes, browser, locked phones | no | unlimited | yes, EU-hosted + DPA |
| Glossa | $5/h/lang / $99 mo | yes, incl. voice clone | no | unlimited | not stated |
| LiveVoice | from €8/day + €0.42/min/lang AI | yes (human + AI) | no (app optional) | priced per listener | yes (AT, servers DE/IE) |
| Streamlingo | €0 (1 h/mo) / €44 mo | yes | no | listener-hours metered | yes (DE) |
| CaptionKit | ~$20 mo | via app only (TTS) | for audio | unlimited | not stated |
| Hope Translator | $20 mo (5 h) | listen option (TTS) | no | unverified | not stated |
| Kaleo AI | $24 mo (2 langs) | only in native app | for audio | unlimited | not stated (CA) |
| LiveSunday | $5/h / $59 mo | only on $99 tier | no | unlimited | not stated |
| Faith Translate | $69 mo (8 h) | yes | no | capped 25–100 | not stated |
| Open Word | £7 mo church + credits | TTS; live audio on Pro | no | unlimited | UK GDPR docs |
| OneAccord | from $150 mo (5 h) | yes | no | priced dimension | not stated |
Ours, and the reason this guide exists: it has translated a real Prague congregation's services every single week since June 2026, run by volunteers, not a demo team. Speech-to-speech audio plus captions in the phone browser, keeps playing on locked phones, unlimited listeners, 39 languages with no per-plan caps, EU hosting with a published DPA, and the church's own branding on every plan (custom domain at €99/month). Packs from €19 stay valid 12 months; practice mode gives a full free rehearsal before any real minutes are spent, so the Thursday soundcheck costs nothing. The honest limits: 39 languages is fewer than several rivals, per-minute cost is above Glossa's PAYG rate, and quality varies by language pair (we document which pairs are strong).
The strongest US option: $5/hour/language pay-as-you-go, browser QR access, unlimited listeners, and voice cloning that translates in the speaker's own voice. Whitelabel needs the $299/month tier and there is no published GDPR or data-location statement. Full comparison: LiveInterpret.AI vs Glossa.
Mature Austrian platform built for live audio and human simultaneous interpretation, with AI translation as a metered add-on (€0.42/min/language). If volunteers or professionals interpret your services today, this carries them well. Watch the pricing shape: plans are priced by concurrent listeners, so Easter attendance moves your bill.
Karlsruhe-based KIT spin-off with a genuine GDPR posture ("data never used for AI training") and a free 1 hour/month tier. Pricing meters both translation hours and listener-hours (the €44 plan includes 250 listener-hours a month), which makes growing-congregation costs harder to predict. No whitelabel offering.
The value picks. CaptionKit does captions exceptionally cheaply (~$20/month modular) with deep ProPresenter/OBS integration and a strong accessibility story; translated audio requires its native app. Hope Translator offers 5 hours for $20/month with a listen option. If your congregation reads rather than listens, start here honestly.
Canadian, church-trained, $24/month entry with a 2-language cap. Captions run in the browser, but translated audio requires the native app, which changes the "scan and listen" experience into an install step. Young product with a small public install base.
Accuracy-focused, with OBS/ProPresenter/vMix output and custom vocabulary. Translated audio is exclusive to the $99/month Advanced tier; below that it's captions plus $2/month per extra language.
Deliberately multi-faith, browser audio plus captions, 30 languages. Hard listener caps (25 users on the $69 plan, 100 on $119) make it a single-room tool; fine if your gathering is genuinely small.
UK charity-friendly pricing: £7/month for churches plus ~£0.61 per 30 minutes per language, 170+ languages, unlimited listeners. Audio is text-to-speech and the live audio stream sits in the Pro tier; the subscription-plus-credits math takes explaining to volunteers.
Built by church interpreters, with optional human moderation of the transcript before translation and whitelabel included. From $150/month for 5 hours, quote-based beyond that, with user count as a pricing dimension. The workflow is the differentiator; the floor price is 3× most tools here.
For a weekly 90-minute service in two languages: roughly €26–49/month on per-minute tools (LiveInterpret.AI), ~$60/month equivalent on Glossa PAYG, $20/month on caption-first tools, and €44–150/month on hour-bundle platforms. Interpreter-plus-headset rental, the thing all of these replace, runs €200–500 per event.
With browser-based tools, yes: listeners scan a QR code and audio or captions play in the phone browser. Verify one specific behavior before committing: what happens when the phone locks. Caption tools need the screen on; some audio tools stop on lock. LiveInterpret.AI documents locked-phone playback; most vendors don't state it.
Live translation processes your members' spoken words through an AI service, so an EU congregation needs a data processing agreement and should know where audio is processed. Among church-focused tools, only Streamlingo (DE) and LiveInterpret.AI (EU-hosted, published DPA) publish that posture; Open Word documents UK GDPR. The rest say nothing.
There is no single best. Caption budgets: CaptionKit. Human interpreters: LiveVoice. US churches optimizing hourly price: Glossa. German domestic preference: Streamlingo. EU hosting, unlimited listeners, audio on locked phones, or your own branding: that combination is why we built LiveInterpret.AI, and a full rehearsal costs nothing to check.
Method: prices and features pulled from each vendor's public pricing page on 2026-07-30 and re-verified monthly; corrections published in place. Author: Ondřej Plevka, builder of LiveInterpret.AI, which has run live weekly in a Prague congregation since June 2026.