KUDO or Koine for a multilingual meeting?
KUDO sells two things side by side: an AI speech translator its own pages put at 70 or more languages with an average delay of 4.1 seconds, and a bench of 12,000 human interpreters covering 200 spoken and sign languages, bookable two hours ahead. Nothing is priced publicly; events are quoted hourly with unlimited languages per hour, and a venue can buy an annual licence per room. Koine books no interpreters and offers no sign language, though an interpreter you bring can voice a language with the AI as backup. It publishes USD 10 per language-hour and plans from USD 96 a month, and puts translated voice on the listener's own phone, a few seconds behind the speaker. The deciding difference is whether you need people in the booth or a price you can read off a page.
What each one publishes.
Every figure about KUDO below is what KUDO states on its own site — the plans and features page, the live events page and the houses-of-worship page — checked on 17 September 2026. A dash means we could not find it advertised, not that it does not exist. The sources are linked under the table.
| What | KUDO | Koine |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | KUDO Inc., of New York, Geneva and San Francisco, sells "live-translated speech and captions in 200 languages" for events and permanent venue installations, powered either by the KUDO AI Speech Translator or by booked human interpreters. The AI side is "One-way communication only". | One audio feed from the room — a microphone, a soundboard line or a livestream link — becomes translated voice and live captions on every listener's own phone, in the browser. Machine translation only. |
| How attendees receive it | "Attendees scan or click to access the KUDO interface on their devices (no downloads needed)... plug in headphones to hear the translated audio or simply read the subtitles." Browser-based, "off WIFI or 4G, using a bandwidth of 10-20 Kb/second"; iOS and Android apps are listed too. In a room, KUDO asks for a laptop and a USB audio interface in each room. | A QR code or a link, in the phone's own browser, as voice or captions. No app, no account, no receivers. The room needs one audio feed into the web console or the Koine Booth app on macOS or Windows. |
| Languages | "KUDO AI... Real-time, AI-translated caption and audio in 70+ languages, including dialects." Their language table is headed "77 languages across Audio & Captions and Captions-Only modes in KUDO AI" and marks each language as one or the other. With human interpreters: "200 multi-way spoken and sign languages." | 132 languages, all with translated voice and captions; in some, the voice reads the finished captions aloud, about ten seconds behind. Up to 3 at once on Lite and Standard, 5 on the free event, 8 on Pro and one-off event hours, 20 per room on Campus; more than 20 is a quote. No signed interpretation. |
| Delay, as published | "A Patented speech-to-speech translation process, with an average latency (delay) of 4.1 seconds." | No measured average published. Translated voice runs a few seconds behind the speaker and varies by language. |
| Price | None published, and no currency stated. Three routes: a Marketplace with "no annual subscription" for "online meetings and events only"; Pay As You Go for a "single, one-off event"; and an Annual Plan "from 50 hours per year", the last two by Contact Sales. Events use an "hourly pricing model" with "unlimited languages per hour". Venues are offered an "annual license per room... unlimited usage... in every language", with "20% discount on multiple rooms". No free trial is advertised. | USD 10 per language-hour for a one-off event. Plans: Free, Lite USD 96, Standard USD 169 and Pro USD 399 a month, also in NOK, SEK and EUR, with annual billing saving two months; Campus is priced on request. Above roughly 150 language-hours, quoted. |
| Listeners | "Unlimited attendees (to platform capacity)" on all three plans, with a stated ceiling of "up to 3,000 users per language, per meeting or event". No per-seat price is published. | Each language is translated once and shared by everyone who selects it, so the bill follows languages and hours, never heads, and nobody is cut off. Plans are sized for a typical audience: 25 on the free event, 75, 150 or 500 on Lite, Standard and Pro, unlimited on Campus. One-off event hours at USD 10 per language-hour have no listener limit. |
| Human interpreters | Yes. "12,000 interpreters available on-demand" across "200+ spoken and sign languages", with subject matter expertise, confidentiality contracts, "2 hour lead time for interpreter bookings" and 24/7 coverage, plus the option to bring your own. | Only your own. Koine does not supply or book interpreters or offer signed interpretation, but an interpreter you bring can voice any language from their phone, with Koine's AI as backup. The AI does not replace a qualified interpreter for medical, legal or contractual conversations. |
| Afterwards | "Download meeting or event recordings as individual files in all languages. Transcripts refer to automatically generated subtitles available within the meeting recording, using VLC Media Player or QuickTime only." Meeting reports and analytics are also listed. | A translated transcript per language, as text, and a recording only if it is switched on, which it is not by default. Highlights and notes, a permanent organization page, and questions answered from the transcript. |
| Screens and platforms | KUDO Platform, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, Hopin, ON24, Bizzabo, Eventmobi, Hubilo and GlobalMeet, plus a "live streaming feature for view/listen-only mode or via weblink". ProPresenter, OBS and vMix are not named on the pages we checked. | Captions on the room screen through ProPresenter, EasyWorship, OBS or vMix as a browser source, or the desktop overlay with PowerPoint and Keynote. Remote listeners join the same link at no extra cost. |
| Where the data goes | "Privacy & InfoSec: 100% GDPR compliant; ISO 27001; SOC 2 Type 1/Type 2." Data location, EU hosting and a retention period are not advertised. | Live audio is relayed through Amsterdam; accounts, session metadata and join pages are in Stockholm. Speech recognition and translation run at OpenAI and Google, which may process them outside the EU. Set retention to temporary and no transcript line is written to the database. |
| Where it wins | People. 12,000 interpreters on demand across 200 spoken and sign languages, bookable two hours ahead, around the clock. Plus unlimited languages per hour, an annual per-room licence for venues, 3,000 listeners per language and ten event platforms. | A price you can work out before you call, per language-hour and never per listener. A transcript per language as text rather than subtitles inside a video. EU relay and EU account storage, published. |
Sources: KUDO's pricing, plans and features page, its live events speech translation page and its houses of worship page, all checked 17 September 2026. The last question below draws on Microsoft's live captions help page and Zoom's translated captions article, checked the same day. Koine figures are from our pricing page, the product page and the privacy policy. If a figure is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
When KUDO is the better choice
The headline number on KUDO's site, 200 languages, is the human bench rather than the software: 12,000 interpreters on demand across 200 spoken and sign languages, with subject matter expertise, confidentiality contracts, a two-hour lead time and 24/7 coverage. If your meeting needs an accountable human — a general meeting, a hearing, a negotiation, anything a machine should not be trusted with — that is what you are buying, and Koine does not sell it. Sign language matters on its own here: a deaf attendee is not served by translated audio, and signed interpretation is something KUDO offers and Koine does not.
The second reason is the shape of the price above a few languages. KUDO's event model is hourly with "unlimited languages per hour", and its venue offer is an "annual license per room" with "unlimited usage of speech translation and caption in every language" and 20% off additional rooms. Koine charges per language per hour; its event hours stop at eight languages at once and its Campus plan at 20 per room: a six-hour day in eight languages is 48 language-hours, USD 480 on our published rate, and anything above 20 languages is a quote. A flat hourly or per-room licence stops counting languages altogether, which plainly suits a venue running many of them every week.
Third, connections. On audience size neither is likely to be the limit: KUDO states up to 3,000 listeners per language per event, and Koine cuts nobody off, with Campus and one-off event hours unlimited. KUDO names ten platforms, including Teams, Zoom, Webex, Hopin and ON24, and publishes a browser bandwidth figure of 10 to 20 Kb per second, the sort of number that decides whether a hall full of phones works. It holds GDPR compliance, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2, and publishes named church installations in the United States.
When Koine is
The first reason is that KUDO publishes no prices at all — not for the Marketplace, not for Pay As You Go, not for the annual plan, not for the per-room worship licence, not even a currency. Every route is Contact Sales. Koine's numbers are on the pricing page: USD 10 per language-hour for a one-off event, or plans at USD 96, 169 and 399 a month, in dollars, kroner and euros. For a church, a school or a public body that must put a figure in a budget before it may request a quote, that alone decides it.
The second is what you have afterwards. KUDO's transcripts are "automatically generated subtitles available within the meeting recording, using VLC Media Player or QuickTime only". Koine produces a translated transcript per language as text, which is what you need in order to quote a passage, publish a summary or search last month's meetings. A recording exists only if somebody switched it on.
The third is two-way. KUDO says its AI is "One-way communication only", and answers its own question about two-way conversations with "No - not yet". Koine's room sessions are one-way in the same sense, but the same account also runs Koine Station, a tablet paired to one room that handles a conversation across a table, two people taking turns in two languages. The room set-up is a wash, though: KUDO asks for a laptop and a USB audio interface in each room, and Koine asks for one machine and a way into the room's audio.
What the table cannot show
Both AI sides are machine translation and we make no claim about whose is better. KUDO's 4.1-second average is the vendor's own figure, and we have not seen an independent test of it. Koine has not published a measured average: its translated voice runs a few seconds behind the speaker and varies by language, so delay is not a reason to choose either of us on paper. The test that settles it is ten minutes of your own speaker, in your own hall, on both.
Because KUDO publishes no prices, the price row is a shape rather than a number, and our arithmetic above only tells you what our side costs. A per-room annual licence with unlimited languages could come in below a per-language-hour bill for a busy venue, or well above it for a church running one service a week in two languages. KUDO also does not advertise where its data is stored, whether EU hosting is available, or how long anything is kept; we have written "not advertised" rather than guessing, and for a European public body those are the first three questions to ask.
Finally, the human line. An interpreter is not a faster machine; they carry professional accountability and confidentiality obligations, and they can ask a speaker to repeat a sentence. Koine exists for the events that could never have booked one. Where the law or the stakes require a qualified interpreter, hire one — the comparison with an interpreter sets out where that line falls, and Interprefy is the other vendor here with a bench of them.
Common questions.
Does KUDO's 200 languages mean the AI does 200 languages?
No. KUDO's own pages split the two: the AI speech translator is "70+ languages", and its language table is headed "77 languages across Audio & Captions and Captions-Only modes", with each language marked as one or the other. The 200 figure is the human interpreter bench. Koine publishes 132 languages, all with translated voice and captions; in some, the voice reads the finished captions aloud, about ten seconds behind.
What does KUDO cost?
KUDO publishes no prices and no currency. Its Marketplace has no annual subscription and is for online meetings and events only; Pay As You Go and the annual plan, from 50 hours a year, both route to Contact Sales. Events use an hourly model with unlimited languages per hour, and venues are offered an annual licence per room with 20% off additional rooms.
How much delay should I expect?
KUDO publishes "an average latency (delay) of 4.1 seconds" for its patented speech-to-speech process. Koine publishes no measured average; its translated voice runs a few seconds behind the speaker and varies by language. KUDO's number is the vendor's own and we have not seen an independent test, so try both on your own audio, in your own hall.
Can either one handle a two-way conversation?
KUDO says its AI is "One-way communication only" and answers its own question about two-way conversations with "No - not yet"; for two-way it books interpreters. Koine's room sessions are one-way too, but a Koine Station tablet runs a two-way conversation across a table, in two languages, on a split screen or on each person's own phone.
How many people can listen at once?
KUDO states "unlimited attendees (to platform capacity)" with a ceiling of "up to 3,000 users per language, per meeting or event". Koine never charges per listener and never cuts anyone off, because each language is translated once and shared by everyone who selects it. Each plan is sized for a typical audience — 25 on the free event, 75, 150 or 500 on Lite, Standard and Pro, unlimited on Campus — and one-off event hours at USD 10 per language-hour have no listener limit.
Isn't translated captioning already built into Teams and Zoom?
For a meeting that already runs in one of them, it is worth checking first. Microsoft documents live translated captions as a meeting and event feature needing Teams Premium and Microsoft Copilot on the organiser's account, with 50 or more spoken languages into 29 translation languages. Zoom documents them in a meeting or webinar on Business Plus and Enterprise tiers or as an add-on, in over 35 languages. Both are captions only, and neither documents a QR code for people sitting in a physical room.