On Azure translate resource, I cannot see the translated characters

Hello,

I am using an Azure Translator resource and I would like to see the number of characters translated.

In the Azure portal, I am in Monitoring → Metrics, but I cannot find a metric that shows the amount of translated characters.

Details of what I see:

Metric Namespace: I can only select “Cognitive Service Standard”

In the Metrics dropdown there are 7 options under HTTP Request and 1 option under SLI

None of the available metrics are related to characters translated

Additionally:

In the Overview page, the chart shows “Error retrieving data”

The available charts shown there are Request Latency, Characters Translated, and Characters Trained, but they are not displaying data

For comparison, in my Speech Service resource I can see a Usage section with clear character usage metrics, but this does not appear in my Translator resource.

I should also mention that I am currently using the Free Tier, and the resource has been used extensively over the last few months, so there definitely should be usage data available.

At the moment, I simply want to view the total number of characters translated by this resource.

Could you please let me know how I can access this metric or whether there is another place in Azure where this usage is available?

Thank you.

  1. SRILAKSHMI C 19,110 Reputation points • Microsoft External Staff • Moderator

    Hi Yannick Schlagenhauf,

    Did you get any chance to review the above response. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

    Thank you!

  2. Yannick Schlagenhauf 0 Reputation points

    Hi SRILAKSMI C

    Thanks for the response.

    I tried looking for characters translated through Cost Management and Cost Management + Billing in different places, but I always only seem to find my usage for my text to speech resource. The usage for translated characters for my Translator resource is still nowhere to be found.
    Do I understand correctly that this is only available for Paid tiers?

    Thanks and all the best

    Yannick

  3. SRILAKSHMI C 19,110 Reputation points • Microsoft External Staff • Moderator

    Hi Yannick Schlagenhauf,

    Thank you for following up.

    Yes, your understanding is correct. For Azure AI Translator on the Free tier (F0), detailed consumption metrics such as the total number of translated characters are not currently exposed in the Azure portal, including:

    • Azure Monitor → Metrics
    • Overview charts
    • Cost Management / Usage details

    While the service internally tracks usage to enforce the monthly free allowance, that character-count data is not surfaced to customers through the portal or billing APIs for F0 resources.

    What this means for Free Tier resources

    • You can monitor request-level activity (such as request count, latency, and errors).
    • You cannot view an official cumulative "characters translated" metric in the portal.
    • Cost Management will not display character consumption for F0 resources because there is no billable usage associated with the free allocation.

    When character usage becomes available

    If you upgrade your Translator resource to a paid pricing tier (such as S1), character-based consumption data becomes available through:

    • Cost Management + Billing (usage and charges)
    • Azure billing meters
    • Resource usage reports
    • Azure Monitor metrics (where supported)

    This allows you to track actual translated character volume for billing and operational purposes.

    Thank you!

  4. SRILAKSHMI C 19,110 Reputation points • Microsoft External Staff • Moderator

    Hi Yannick Schlagenhauf,

    Did you get any chance to review the above response. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

    Thank you!

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4 answers

  1. SRILAKSHMI C 19,110 Reputation points • Microsoft External Staff • Moderator

    Hello Yannick Schlagenhauf,

    Thank you for reaching out Microsoft Q&A,

    Current behavior

    What you’re experiencing is expected for Azure Translator, especially on the Free Tier (F0):

    The “Characters Translated” metric is not exposed in Azure Monitor → Metrics

    You will typically only see:

    • HTTP request metrics
    • Basic SLI metrics

    The “Error retrieving data” in the Overview blade usually indicates:

    • The metric is not available for the selected tier, or
    • It is not being surfaced by the backend for that resource

    So this is not an issue with your usage it’s a limitation of how Translator metrics are currently exposed, particularly on Free tier.

    How to check translated character usage

    Since the metric is not directly available in the Metrics blade, you can use the following approaches:

    1: Cost Management

    You can view character usage via billing meters:

    Go to Cost Management + Billing → Usage + charges

    Filter by your Translator resource

    Look for a meter similar to Cognitive Services Text Translation – Characters

    This will give you:

    • Daily / monthly character usage
    • Even for Free tier (usage is tracked internally, even if not billed)

    2: Azure Consumption API

    You can also retrieve usage programmatically:

    GET https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/providers/Microsoft.CognitiveServices/usages?api-version=2017-04-18

    In the response, locate the entry corresponding to text translation characters

    Check the currentValue field for usage

    3: Diagnostic Logs

    You can enable logging for deeper visibility Go to Monitoring → Diagnostic settings, Send logs to Log Analytics

    This provides Request-level insights

    Though not always a direct “character count” metric without additional parsing

    4: Application-side tracking

    For precise control and real-time tracking:

    • Log the number of characters sent per request in your application
    • Aggregate totals internally

    This is the most reliable method for production scenarios

    If you need Metrics in Azure Monitor

    To see “Characters Translated” directly in the Metrics blade You would need to upgrade to a paid (Standard or higher) tier

    Then Use metric namespace: Microsoft.CognitiveServices/accounts

    You should see a metric like: TextCharactersTranslated

    Not seeing “Characters Translated” in Metrics → expected on Free tier

    “Error retrieving data” → due to metric not being available/exposed

    The portal does not currently provide direct character metrics for F0 resources

    Recommended approach

    For your requirement

    1. Use Cost Management (Usage + charges) for overall consumption
    2. Optionally use the Consumption API for programmatic access
    3. For accuracy, consider tracking at application level

    Please refer this

    Service limits – Translator https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/ai-services/translator/text-translation/overview?wt.mc_id=knowledgesearch_inproduct_azure-cxp-community-insider#service-limits-and-pricing

    Azure Translator pricing https://azu

    I Hope this helps. Do let me know if you have any further queries.

    Thank you!

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  2. Yannick Schlagenhauf 0 Reputation points

    Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

    I hope you are all having a great week. Today is Wednesday and I'm looking forward to watching Champions League football. Do you guys like football? What team do you support?

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    Actually this blog will now be football related from now on

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  3. Yannick Schlagenhauf 0 Reputation points

    Since there doesn't seem to be anyone responding to these, I have decided I will use this page as my new blog. Any objections?

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  4. Yannick Schlagenhauf 0 Reputation points

    Does anyone read these?

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