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Interpreters for Webinars and Virtual Events

Zoom and Microsoft Teams both let attendees pick a language channel and hear an interpreter instead of the speaker. The feature works well once it is set up correctly, and fails in predictable ways when it is not. Here is who supplies the interpreters, how to set up each platform, what attendees on the phone cannot hear, how to run questions, and what it costs.

Who supplies the interpreters for a webinar

The organizer does. Zoom and Teams provide the interpretation channels, not the people: Microsoft says plainly that it does not provide interpreters and that organizations must hire their own, and Zoom's feature has the host designate participants as interpreters. Attendees who need the language should not be asked to bring someone.

So the organizer arranges two things: the platform license and setup, which is your IT or events team's job, and the interpreters, which is ours. We provide interpreters who join your event on your platform; we do not host webinars or supply event production. Tell us the platform and the plan you are on when you request, and we will confirm the setup with you before you book.

Setting up the interpretation channel

Zoom. Interpretation needs a Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise account with the feature enabled. It works only on a scheduled meeting or webinar with an automatically generated meeting ID — not an instant meeting and not a Personal Meeting ID. When scheduling, the host enters each interpreter's email address and language pair; each language entered creates a channel. Interpreters must be signed in to Zoom with that same email address, or the host has to assign them by hand once they join. In a webinar, interpreters are automatically made panelists. Interpretation is started and managed from the desktop app; it cannot be managed from the mobile or web app, and interpreters work from the desktop app too.

Microsoft Teams. Interpretation is turned on in the meeting options under Roles, with each interpreter's spoken and target language. Interpreters from inside your organization can be added when scheduling; Microsoft says external or guest interpreters — which is what ours are — have to be designated during the meeting, so the organizer must enable interpretation in advance and then assign our interpreter once they join. Teams supports up to 16 language pairs, works for scheduled meetings and webinars, and does not work in end-to-end encrypted meetings. Interpreters must join on the Teams desktop app; Microsoft says interpretation is not supported for interpreters or attendees on Teams for the web.

Whichever platform, run a rehearsal with the interpreters at least a day before, on the same event link or an identical one: check that they are recognized as interpreters, that their channel reaches listeners, and that the speakers' audio is clean.

What attendees will and will not hear

• Phone dial-in. On Zoom, attendees who join by dial-in or "call me" cannot listen to the interpretation. If part of your audience calls in by phone, they will hear only the original language; tell them in the invitation to join by computer or the app, or plan a separate phone line with its own interpreter.
• Original audio underneath. On Zoom, listeners in a language channel hear the speaker faintly under the interpreter unless they choose to mute the original; Teams has a balance slider. Mention it in the welcome so listeners know how to adjust it.
• Shared video and music. On Zoom, audio shared from the presenter's computer plays to everyone at 100%, over the interpreter; Zoom recommends not sharing audio while interpretation is active. Send videos to the interpreters in advance and decide whether they will be interpreted, captioned or skipped.
• Breakout rooms. Neither platform carries interpretation into breakout rooms: Zoom limits it to the main session, and in Teams it stops when the rooms open. Interpreted discussion groups need the interpreter placed in a room as an ordinary participant.
• Captions. In Teams, live captions caption the main speaker, not the interpreter.

Questions, panels and recordings

The hardest part of an interpreted webinar is the audience talking back. A question typed into the Q&A box in Spanish can be read out by the moderator after the interpreter renders it, or the moderator can read English questions aloud so the interpreter renders them into the channel. A question asked live by microphone in another language goes into the main audio; the interpreter then switches direction and renders it into English, which both Zoom and Teams allow. Agree in advance which of these you will use, and ask panelists to say their name before speaking and not to talk over each other — two voices at once cannot be interpreted.

Decide before the event whether you need the interpreted version afterward. Zoom cloud recordings record the original audio and the translations; a local recording does not keep the separate channels. Teams recordings capture only the original speaker, without the interpreter. If you need a Spanish recording of a Teams event, someone has to record the Spanish channel separately, or the session has to be repeated.

Booking interpreters for a webinar

Virtual is $80 per interpreter per hour with a one-hour minimum, billed from the scheduled start; there is no travel. A one-hour webinar into Spanish with one interpreter is $80, and the rehearsal booked separately is another $80: $160. A two-hour event into Spanish and Portuguese with two interpreters per language taking turns is 4 interpreters × 2 hours × $80 = $640, plus their rehearsal. A long session of continuous simultaneous interpreting is the kind that may need two interpreters per language; we confirm the number with the price. Ask interpreters to join 30 minutes before the start, and book that time in the schedule, since billing runs from the scheduled start.

Send with the request the platform and your plan, the date and time with its time zone, the languages listeners need and the languages speakers will use, the run of show, the slides and speaker notes, speaker names and titles, and any video that will be played. For an in-room event with remote listeners, see conferences and events for booths and AV.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Languages

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

Each language has its own page on what to watch for — dialects, names, dates, who the speakers usually are: see interpreters by language.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

What this page says about the rules was checked against these official sources on October 28, 2026. Rules change; the source is always the authority.

• Zoom Support — Using Language Interpretation in your meeting or webinar (KB0064768)
• Microsoft Support — Use language interpretation in Microsoft Teams meetings

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