"Even if you're native"

Even if you're native, tests are extremely dumb and unrelevant. Gengo is toxic and should be avoid by anyone and by any means.

"Gengo is unreliable and poor quality"

Gengo is unreliable and poor quality. I submitted a document for translation, and when they had completed this, I compared it to a free translation through google. It cost me over 300$ and when I rejected this, because I am not able to use it, my money was not returned. It has been an awful experience and I will not be returning or recommending this service to others. Save your money, Google translate will provide you with the same quality. Or connect with a freelancing company to help you. When I rejected the work and it went under review, they decided this met quality standards and that I should be more specific as to my requests. Poor customer service and an absolute rip off for your money.

"I used Gengo to once translate a letter…"

I used Gengo to once translate a letter from Eng->Japanese that I wanted to send to my girlfriend's company about their poor COVID work-from-office rules. I received the translation in less than 24 hours and upon showing it to a JP friend they said it was mostly perfect.

There are lots of negative reviews on this site, but this is my own experience

"Wish I had read the reviews before…"

Wish I had read the reviews before wasting time and money on Gengo. Save yourself some hassle and just use google translate because that is what they will do. Although I paid for a pricier bespoke service, I was given a translation that was a word for word Google translation. It lacked nuance and was riddled with 'Google translate' mistakes that a native speaker would never make. Even though I repeatedly pointed out the errors to the supposedly 'native speaking' translator, the issue was never resolved. The customer service team was equally unhelpful and they seem to operate a "no refunds no matter what" policy. An altogether unpleasant and highly tedious experience, I will not use this company again.

"The worst translation platform ever"

The worst translation platform ever. The navigation is terrible, it works really slow and the translation quality (PRO plan, btw) is pretty controversial.

"US$ 760 for Google Translation"

I asked for a translation of 30 page text for which I paid US$ 760 as soon as I requested the translation. I initially sent in a pdf file, but was asked to send the text in a format where the words could be counted. I later found out the reason for this this odd requirement.

The first translator held on to the job for 10 days without translating anything, then declined it. It went on for a few days like that, a translator accepting the job and then later declining it. Finally a translator promised to deliver the translation within few days, and although the time that the task had taken by then exceeded what I was promised in the beginning, I accepted it.

Once I received the translation, the text did not sound right. Being bilingual in those languages myself, I found some major errors in the translation, and the text looked odd to me. More of out of fun, I decided to "google translate" it. To my utter surprise, I found every word, every sentence, to be an exact copy paste from Google Translate, except here and there where some very minor changes had been made.

It took me hours to communicate with ever changing persons in charge at Gengo both to get the translation speeded up, and later to point out to them what had happened.

I got fully refunded in the end, but I ended up loosing four important weeks. I ended up with a translation I could not use.

Except for getting the refund, the company did not offer any compensation and just put the whole blame on some unscrupulous translator of theirs.

Apparently, there is no quality checks done and no monitoring of the translators.

Appalling experience.

"This company got progressively WORSE"

Gengo has never been amazing, but they truly get worse and worse every year.

The pay is awful, the managers and senior translators are arrogant and the test expectations (especially "pro" and higher) are absolutely ridiculous, especially considering the pay. They just don't want you to earn more since that would mean less profit for them. Over the course of my working life I have proven my excellent language skills numerous times and they still reject me. Not to mention that getting a job is like gambling – immediately clicking on the notification is frequently too late: another translator has already claimed the job within like 20 milliseconds.

I had a translator score (measuring the quality) of almost 10 (the maximum) for years, but then they overhauled the feedback system one or two years ago and I'm hovering between 6 and 7 now, which results in less work being available for me. The rules are getting stricter and stricter without any increase in pay. The weighting is nonsensical (e.g. why do three 50-word jobs count as much or more than a 2000 word job?). The feedback system is nonsense and really just a way to suppress your score and force you to work harder because you get less jobs with a lower score. However, the quality of work stands in no relation to the pay whatsoever. A "real" translator (with a degree, etc.) would never work for the abysmal amount that you earn, yet they expect a comparable quality of us. Plus, many jobs have completely broken grammar and spelling, literal gibberish, and Gengo still dares to give you a bad score for your translation (despite making it coherent) while the source is just absolute garbage.

I do not recommend working at Gengo.

"It sucks"

It sucks. It is not ethical and treats translators as machines. I doubt how good the quality the final translation would be, produced by translators under a harsh deadline and toxic environment.

"It's a super terrible company"

It's a super terrible company. Their translation is like a sheet and the freaking translator told me she is a native speaker. What the hell.

"What a Bullsh*t company"

What a Bullsh*t company! The English-Korean pair tests were the worst quality word-for-word translation. The reviews were completely bullsh*t too. It's obvious the so-called professional reviewers are probably the same people who translated/made up the terrible word-for-word tests. Also, it turns out the reviewers also work as translators at Gengo, so clearly they don't want competition, so they would dismiss any great test translations with made up, bullsh*t, phony excuses which is possible because their reviews are final and no rebuke is allowed. One of the worst translation companies ever!