Subtitling services

Yes. GoLocalise is a UK subtitling company with its own studios in Central London (Stockwell, SW9), working with broadcasters, streaming platforms, agencies and in-house teams since 2008. Project management, scheduling and quality control run from London, while the subtitling itself is done by native linguists in each of the 100+ languages we cover — so a UK point of contact does not mean a UK-only team. We invoice in GBP, EUR or USD.

Ask each company for numbers rather than adjectives: the characters-per-second reading speed they work to, whether they build files to your destination platform's published specification or convert a generic SRT at the end, who translates each language and whether they are a native speaker, which file formats they deliver, what the per-minute price includes, and what happens when the video is re-edited. Our buyer's guide sets out the ten questions in full, and we publish our own answers to all ten.

Subtitles transcribe or translate spoken dialogue for viewers watching in a different language. Captions go further — designed for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences, they also include sound effects, music cues, and speaker identification. SDH (Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing) combines both. Which you need depends on your audience, platform, and in some cases distribution requirements.

Any video intended for an audience that doesn’t share the original language, or that needs to meet accessibility standards. In practice: corporate training, eLearning, streaming content, advertising, product films, conference recordings, and documentary work. Even single-language content increasingly benefits from subtitles, given how much video is now watched without sound.

Minor revisions (timing adjustments, wording edits, format corrections) are included. Larger changes, such as re-timing a file after a significant re-edit or retranslating a language version from scratch, fall outside the original scope. Finalising the source content before subtitling begins is the simplest way to avoid this.

GoLocalise delivers SRT, VTT, STL, EBU-STL, TTML and IMSC, plus burned-in subtitles when a platform needs them. SRT works across most video platforms and editing tools, VTT is standard for web and live streaming, STL and EBU-STL are used for UK and European broadcast, and TTML and IMSC are what the streaming platforms ask for. Confirm the destination at the start and we build the file to that specification.

Yes. GoLocalise builds subtitle files to the published timed-text specification of wherever they are going — Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ or a broadcaster — covering character limits, line counts, reading speed, safe area, frame rate and file format, in every language of the set rather than in the first one only. A file that passes one platform will often fail another, so we confirm the destination before the first language is cut. We are not a certified vendor of any platform; we hold files to the same published numbers those platforms do.

GoLocalise subtitles from £15 per minute of video for English, and from £18 to £20 per minute for most other languages, quoted on the finished running time rather than on word count. Translated subtitles cost a little more than same-language captions, SDH and closed captions a little more again, and a tight turnaround affects the price. Every quote is itemised, carries our Price Match Promise, and comes back the same working day.

GoLocalise checks every file against a characters-per-second target before delivery, and condenses the translation to fit rather than letting a subtitle sit on screen too briefly to read. Reading speed is where most rejected files fail, because a translation that runs longer than the original will breach the limit unless somebody rewrites it. The same check is available free on our subtitle reading speed checker.

Just send us your script or files, your deadline and any references for the style you want. We will recommend the best approach, share a quote and, once approved, get straight into production with a dedicated project manager as your single point of contact.

Yes. GoLocalise subtitles in 91 languages, each with its own page and its own conventions — from right-to-left line breaking in Arabic to character counting in Simplified and Traditional Chinese — handled by native linguists rather than one template applied to every language. One project manager runs all the versions, so tone and timing stay consistent across the set.

GoLocalise has been a trusted voice over and localisation agency since 2008, with more than 1,000 professional voice actors across 100+ languages, native-speaking directors, our own Central-London studios and a Price Match Promise — so you get broadcast-quality results, on time and on budget.

Yes. Ask GoLocalise for samples in your language pair and format and we will share work of the same kind, walk you through the approach and show you the file you would receive — before you book anything.

Yes — subtitle translation is one of our core services. Native linguists translate your subtitles or captions into 100+ languages and fit them to on-screen reading speed, delivered as SRT, VTT and other ready-to-publish files.