ProZ.com Translation Forums

Worth upgrading? | Highlighted terms in filter

Nadia Silva Castro — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 22:12:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Nadia Silva Castro
Post title: Highlighted terms in filter

[quote]Ian Mansbridge wrote:

That's extortionate! I have an old version too (8.0 in my case) and was considering treating myself to an upgrade, but if the only option is a pricey annual fee I'll be sticking with my old software! [/quote]

I think there is one new feature (highlighted filter terms) which I would not want to live without. Not sure if they had it in memoQ 8 already

Worth upgrading? | DO NOT UPGRADE WITHOUT A TRIAL

Nadia Silva Castro — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 22:08:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Nadia Silva Castro
Post title: DO NOT UPGRADE WITHOUT A TRIAL

Dear fellow translators,

Please do not upgrade without doing a 30 day trial. You can message them and they will give you a temporary license (my SMA expired years ago).

Some new features ended up being bugs for me, I lost days worth of work!

I can give you a detailed list of issues and bugs but I'll keep it short here. Not upgrading!!

Worth upgrading? | What memoQ says

Emily Scott — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 09:08:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: What memoQ says

From the memoQ website (in answer to Michael):

"Annual memoQ translator pro subscription
How much does memoQ cost?
A yearly memoQ translator pro subscription costs 360 EUR / 400 USD (+ VAT, if applicable).

Is this a new product?
No, it is simply a new licensing plan. You will have the full functionality and feature set of a memoQ translator pro license and continuous access to support and new feature releases until your subscription ends.

I already have a perpetual translator pro license, what does the subscription offering mean to me?
Your current perpetual license will not be affected. You can still renew your SMA coverage for access to support and updates. Starting a subscription is completely optional. If you would like to start a memoQ translator pro subscription as a replacement for your perpetual license, please contact our sales team at [email removed] .

What is the difference between SMA and subscription?
Subscription offers more flexibility. Your subscription renews automatically while the SMA coverage payments must be continuous and paid manually to access Support and the latest features. SMA coverage periods start from the previous expiration date. Backlogs, if accumulated, must be settled to have valid SMA coverage again. Subscription periods start from the day of the purchase.

What does perpetual license mean?
If you purchase a perpetual license, it is yours forever. Included in your perpetual license, you receive 4 hours of assistance with our Support Team and a single year-long access to new memoQ version releases. After one year, you will need to renew your SMA to continue accessing new features and support. If you choose a yearly subscription, there are no additional costs for support and maintenance. Pay your yearly fee and access all the memoQ translator pro features as well as the latest updates and free support."

It seems like a perpetual licence is still a thing, but I can't find out how you buy one on the website anymore, it only offers the subscription to individual translators.

Worth upgrading? | Keep using memoQ 9.1

Gwyneth Chiu — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:40:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Gwyneth Chiu
Post title: Keep using memoQ 9.1

I’m in a very similar situation, so here’s my honest perspective after comparing the old perpetual licenses with the new subscription model.
If your workflow has been running smoothly on memoQ 9.1, there’s **absolutely no need to rush into upgrading. The core functions—TMs, TBs, LiveDocs, regex tagging, QA, and most file filters—are all very stable in the older versions. Many translators I know are still using 8.x or 9.x without any compatibility issues.
The newer memoQ versions *do* come with improvements, mainly in:
* faster and more stable performance with large TMs
* better compatibility with DOCX, XLSX, and Adobe files
* improved term extraction
* more cloud-based collaboration features
* better support for newer operating systems
* a smoother UI and many bug fixes
But none of these are truly “must-have” unless you heavily rely on cloud projects or have clients who require the newest server version to open their mqout/mqxlz packages.
The downside you mentioned is very true: the new pricing model is much higher. The current subscription is significantly more expensive** than the old SMA, and memoQ has essentially shifted from a “one-time investment tool” to a “continuous payment tool.”
So here’s my suggestion:
✅ Keep using memoQ 9.1 as long as it works well on your system. There is no need to upgrade yet.
✅ Only upgrade when you genuinely hit a wall, such as future Windows/macOS updates breaking compatibility, or when a client specifically requires features tied to the latest server version.
✅ Until then, you’re still benefiting from the stability of the perpetual license you already paid for.
To sum it up:
The new memoQ versions are indeed better, but not “360 EUR per year” better—unless your workflow depends heavily on up-to-date server compatibility.**
If 9.1 fully meets your current needs, then there’s absolutely no urgency to upgrade.

Worth upgrading? | Annual SMA vs annual subscription?

Michael Beijer — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 21:18:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Michael Beijer
Post title: Annual SMA vs annual subscription?

What I don't understand is: what's the difference between renewing your SMA every year (€144), which is what I do, which entitles you to always get the latest version, and paying for that expensive annual subscription (€360)?

Worth upgrading? | Collaboration and AI

Maria Laura Curzi — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:57:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Maria Laura Curzi
Post title: Collaboration and AI

[quote]Emily Scott wrote:

[quote]Jorge Payan wrote:

This statement by one of the memoQ co-founders will indeed influence any buying decision:

[url removed]

RWS seems to be going the same way: [url removed] [/quote]

That's interesting, thanks for sharing Jorge. Web-based memoQ (when I've used it in the past) is always slow and doesn't seem to have as many features - I wonder why they're developing this instead of the desktop program? [/quote]

There are several online CAT Tools, so it seems it's the trend.
From the LSP's POV, the benefit of online apps is the collaboration that allows multiple people to access the platform. It offers not only the advantage of accessing it at the same time, but also that everyone is using the same version of the tool/text to work on. That way, they reduce time and any misleads, plus they control who can access what, so they preserve data privacy.

Besides, most of these online CAT platforms include AI features that would be more difficult to add to every single copy of software, and wouldn't be worth it as AI evolves faster than software versions.

From the translator's POV, the benefit is that you can work on several CAT Tools without the need to buy them, just create an account.
So far, I'm using three online CAT tools, but I know there are more I want to try/test.

Worth upgrading? | The sweet spot

Mario Chávez — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:35:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Mario Chávez
Post title: The sweet spot

I was running a legacy version (memoQ 10.6) without issues on my Windows 11 Pro (personal use). My employer is about to purchase memoQ for the two in-house translators (I'm one of them). That will be memoQ version 12.

In the meantime, I requested help from my memoQ contacts (who were negotiating with my employer) to purchase a personal-use license. Unfortunately, perpetual licenses are a thing of the past, not in memoQ but in Adobe, Microsoft and many other software makers. My memoQ contact threw in a nice discount for the annual subscription (which includes support for a year). Now I'm running memoQ 11.3.9 but I have no obligation to keep paying the annual subscription if I don't want to. I can just keep 11.3.9 because it is, after all, a desktop application.

Why? It all boils down to what I use memoQ for. Having worked in the software industry for decades, I know the development of new and useful features in every software application reaches a peak sooner or later, then it's slightly incremental and of not much use for the average user. Consider Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any other program. Even power users don't need all of the new features coming in every year. So we don't have to fret over the lack of new features for translators in memoQ because, as it stands, even memoQ 2015 is quite sufficient for the needs of the average user.

My two U.S. dollar cents.

Worth upgrading? | I agree

Emily Scott — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 08:35:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: I agree

[quote]Ian Mansbridge wrote:

[quote]Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT wrote:

[quote]Ian Mansbridge wrote:
That's extortionate![/quote]
I have to disagree. Nothing is cheap, expensive, or outrageous per se: it all depends on what you get back of your money. If we spent a while together, I am sure we would quickly find things the other pays that we feel are outrageously expensive, just because we see no value in them.

If you use memoQ a lot and can benefit from new features that save you time and/or make more money per hour and/or serve new interesting clients, then paying the upgrade makes total sense.

[Edited at 2025-11-04 11:22 GMT] [/quote]

I see what you're saying, and it clearly works for your business, which is great. I just dislike the pricing model of paying annually for something that hardly changes (indeed new features often introduce new bugs) - I much prefer to pay once for a license I then own indefinitely. [/quote]

I agree with you Ian. Of course you should pay for things that help your business (and memoQ does and has been worth the money I paid for it), but being forced to pay 360 EUR a year for something that seems to have hardly changed since 2019 when I bought my licence is ludicrous. I wonder why they got rid of the option of just buying the newest version outright? And why has the price gone up so much in such a short space of time?

Worth upgrading? | I agree to an extent

Ian Mansbridge — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 16:37:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Ian Mansbridge
Post title: I agree to an extent

[quote]Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT wrote:

[quote]Ian Mansbridge wrote:
That's extortionate![/quote]
I have to disagree. Nothing is cheap, expensive, or outrageous per se: it all depends on what you get back of your money. If we spent a while together, I am sure we would quickly find things the other pays that we feel are outrageously expensive, just because we see no value in them.

If you use memoQ a lot and can benefit from new features that save you time and/or make more money per hour and/or serve new interesting clients, then paying the upgrade makes total sense.

[Edited at 2025-11-04 11:22 GMT] [/quote]

I see what you're saying, and it clearly works for your business, which is great. I just dislike the pricing model of paying annually for something that hardly changes (indeed new features often introduce new bugs) - I much prefer to pay once for a license I then own indefinitely.

Worth upgrading? | Interesting

Emily Scott — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 14:02:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Emily Scott
Post title: Interesting

[quote]Jorge Payan wrote:

This statement by one of the memoQ co-founders will indeed influence any buying decision:

[url removed]

RWS seems to be going the same way: [url removed] [/quote]

That's interesting, thanks for sharing Jorge. Web-based memoQ (when I've used it in the past) is always slow and doesn't seem to have as many features - I wonder why they're developing this instead of the desktop program?

Worth upgrading? | Future of the memoQ desktop version

Jorge Payan — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:48:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Jorge Payan
Post title: Future of the memoQ desktop version

This statement by one of the memoQ co-founders will indeed influence any buying decision:

[url removed]

RWS seems to be going the same way: [url removed]

Worth upgrading? | It's not personal: it's business

Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:21:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Post title: It's not personal: it's business

[quote]Ian Mansbridge wrote:
That's extortionate![/quote]
I have to disagree. Nothing is cheap, expensive, or outrageous per se: it all depends on what you get back of your money. If we spent a while together, I am sure we would quickly find things the other pays that we feel are outrageously expensive, just because we see no value in them.

If you use memoQ a lot and can benefit from new features that save you time and/or make more money per hour and/or serve new interesting clients, then paying the upgrade makes total sense.

[Edited at 2025-11-04 11:22 GMT]

Worth upgrading? | Price per word

Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:14:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Tomás Cano Binder, BA, CT
Post title: Price per word

Whenever a have to decide these things, I try to calculate a "cost per word" as the main decision factor.

Over here, we use memoQ really every minute and sometimes with very large projects (we are a 4-strong office with a memoQ Server) and the cost per word of our yearly memoQ renewal is under 0,06 Euro cents, which is reasonable if you ask me. I cannot say the same of our SDL Studio license, which we barely use, but had to get because some clients use it. The cost per word is astronomical, but we had no option.

In any case, you probably want to calculate the cost per word of a yearly renewal of memoQ and then decide. In general, one would think that spending up to 5-10% of your income in keeping you gear and tools sharpened is a sensible business decision.

Worth upgrading? | No new features for translators

Epameinondas Soufleros — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 10:55:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Epameinondas Soufleros
Post title: No new features for translators

Go to their site and see the "features you might have missed". You will hardly find anything useful to a translator after version 8 or 9. The last one I bought was version 10 and buyer's remorse kicked in very quickly. Looking back, I would have been happy even if I had stopped at version 2015.

[Edited at 2025-11-04 10:55 GMT]

Worth upgrading? | Outrageous

Ian Mansbridge — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 10:47:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Ian Mansbridge
Post title: Outrageous

That's extortionate! I have an old version too (8.0 in my case) and was considering treating myself to an upgrade, but if the only option is a pricey annual fee I'll be sticking with my old software!

Worth upgrading? | Depends...;-)

Sibylle de Schmidt — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 10:42:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Sibylle de Schmidt
Post title: Depends...;-)

It depends on your clients and if you use memoQ very regularly:
Sometimes clients update their versions and you have to do the same, because the older version does miss features.
If you use memoQ very regularly it might be worth because of new features.
If above doesn't apply to you, an update is not really needed.

My 5 cents,
Sibylle

Worth upgrading?

Emily Scott — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 10:32:00 +0000

Forum: MemoQ support
Topic: Worth upgrading?
Poster: Emily Scott

I bought memoQ all the way back in 2019 (version 9.1) for quite a high but fairly reasonable price. I learnt that I didn't have to buy the yearly SMA if I didn't want to continuously upgrade and so made some savings there, and I have been quite happy with my old version of memoQ and have never encountered any problems with it regarding its age.

However, when I recently bought a new computer, having the old version made it a bit harder to transfer everything over onto my new computer. I was just looking at how much it was to purchase the newest version and it seems that they don't offer a one-off purchase option any more. You have to pay per year at a whopping 360 EUR. Back when I bought memoQ in 2019, the yearly SMA was a third of this price.

So I'm wondering, fellow memoQ users, is the newest version worth it? Or should I continue on with version 9.1 until I'm really forced to buy this continuous upgrade?