Your customers manage their subscriptions in the customer portal — pausing, skipping, updating payment, and more. If you sell in more than one language, you can now show that portal in each customer's own language, so managing a subscription feels native no matter where they shop from.
What portal translation does
When you turn on portal translation, Subi automatically translates your portal's text into the languages your store publishes in Shopify. Your customers then see the portal in their language automatically:
In the standalone Subi portal, customers pick their language from the Language row of the account menu (opened from their name in the top-right corner of the portal), and their choice is remembered on their next visit. The row only appears when more than one language is enabled.
In the Shopify customer-account view, the language is detected from the customer's account settings — there's nothing for them to choose.
Turn on portal translation
How do I turn on portal translation? You turn it on from Settings → Languages in your Subi admin, the one page where all your translations live: the subscription widget, the customer portal and your selling plan names.
Open Settings in your Subi admin and choose Languages. You can also open Storefront & Portal and click Languages in the top corner of the Portal page.
If the Store languages card shows Turn on translation, click it. This turns on translation for your widget, your customer portal and your plan names at once, and takes about 10 minutes.
If translation is already on for your widget but not for your portal, click Translate next to a language, choose Customer portal, and click Activate translation.
Subi detects the languages your store sells in and starts translating your portal text into each one. This runs in the background and is usually ready within a few minutes.
Review and edit a language
How do I review or change a translation? Auto-translation gets you most of the way, but you may want to adjust the wording. In Settings → Languages, the Store languages card lists each of your languages with its status, such as All translated, Translating 302 of 842 or 148 lines failed.
Click Translate next to a language and choose Widget, Customer portal or Selling plans. The language's page opens on that tab. Each line shows the original English text in the Reference column next to its translation in a column named after the language, for example French.
Edit any translation by typing over it, then save from the save bar. Edited lines are marked Manual override so you know they're your own wording.
Use the search box to find a line by name or text.
Switch to another language from the menu next to the page title. If you have unsaved changes, Subi asks before discarding them.
Click Reset to auto on a single line to return it to the automatic translation if you change your mind.
Click Auto-translate at the top of a language's page, or in the … menu next to the language in Store languages, to refresh the automatic translations. One Auto-translate covers the widget, the customer portal and all your selling plans for that language, and retries any lines that failed. Lines you edited yourself stay as they are — Auto-translate never overwrites your changes.
If the English text of a line changes after you edited its translation, the line shows English source has changed so you can review it or reset it.
To change the English wording itself, click Edit next to English. The English Customer portal tab opens the portal editor through Edit portal wording.
Placeholders like the customer's subscription number are protected. If a translation is missing a placeholder that the original had, the editor warns you so nothing breaks for the customer.
Where do I translate my widget and selling plan names?
Your subscription widget and your selling plan names are translated on the same Settings → Languages page as your customer portal. Each language's page has three tabs: Widget, Customer portal and Selling plans.
On the Selling plans tab, each plan shows its Plan name, Description and Discount description. Discount descriptions follow the plan's discount and translate on their own. To change a plan's English wording, edit the plan itself.
The selling plan window no longer has a Languages tab. Instead it shows the line Translate this plan's name and description in Settings, Languages. with a link to the page.
In the widget editor, the globe tab lists your languages. Click a language to open its Widget tab, or click Open Languages.
In the portal editor, the last row of the sidebar, Languages, takes you to Settings → Languages.
What your customers see
In the standalone Subi portal, customers choose their language from the Language row of the account menu in the top-right corner, and the portal re-renders in it right away. The labels of the bar, the account menu and the footer themselves stay in English for now, whichever language is chosen.
In the Shopify customer-account view, the subscription details appear in the customer's account language automatically — no picker needed.
Good to know
Subi translates the languages your store publishes in Shopify, up to 10 languages including your default language. A language that isn't published in Shopify shows as Not published and can't be translated until you publish it in Shopify.
To stop translating one language, open the … menu next to it in Store languages and choose Stop translating. Start translating in the same menu turns it back on. Stopping doesn't delete the translations you already have.
Text you haven't customized uses Subi's shared default translations, so most of your portal is translated from day one.
If a specific line isn't translated yet for a language, the customer sees the original English text rather than a blank — the portal is never empty.
Portal translation as a whole has no off button: it turns off automatically only if you uninstall the app. To stop a single language, use Stop translating as described above.
The Panel language card on the same page, marked Subi panel, changes only the language of your own Subi admin. Your customers never see it. It replaces the former Account language setting.
Next steps
Turn on portal translation from Settings → Languages, then review each language before your customers see it. If you have any questions, reach out to our support team from the Help widget in your Subi admin.