In some markets it does. Canada requires English and French on most consumer products. The United States sets no general translation requirement, but one foreign-language line on a label pulls all the mandatory information into that language with it, including ingredients, allergens, and Nutrition Facts. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is the exception: it requires hazard warnings in English and says nothing about other languages, so a foreign-language label does not trigger translated warnings.

Canada requires the mandatory information on a consumer product in both English and French, except for the dealer's identity and address. Quebec goes further: it governs how the French looks, not just whether it appears, and the French has to be at least as prominent as the English. That makes Quebec partly a layout problem, and layout problems only show up in the design file.

We quote packaging and label work per job, on the amount of text, the number of markets, and the service level you pick. Human translation costs the most and suits anything printed on the package: a linguist translates it and a second linguist reviews the work. AI translation with a linguist's review costs less and fits high-volume material like product listings. Costs also fall over time, because we store your approved wording in a translation memory and reuse it, so wording repeated from an earlier product costs less than new text.

Turnaround depends on the amount of text and the number of markets, and we agree the date before work starts. Rush work is normal on packaging, and we quote it as rush work rather than squeezing it in quietly. Give us the on-shelf date and we build the schedule backwards from it, so every language finishes before the print run.

Yes, in the same file your designer built. Send the InDesign or Illustrator file and the translated wording lands in place, so nobody on your side retypes anything. That matters most on a package you have already proofed, because retyping is what introduces new errors. You can test it on the first job. If the file comes back as a document your designer has to rebuild, the translation is not finished.

AI translation works for some material, but not for the package itself. Use it for internal product descriptions and spec sheets moving between your own offices. On anything you print or file with a regulator, one wrong word costs a reprint or a rejected shipment, so a linguist handles those.