Portuguese help center translation: complete guide for 2026

Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language globally. Over 260 million people speak it across four continents. Brazil alone has 214 million people and a growing tech sector. If your analytics show Brazilian visitors bouncing from English content, here's how to fix that.

Why Portuguese translation matters for your help center

Three facts you should know:

1. Brazil is huge. It's the largest economy in Latin America and the ninth largest globally. B2B SaaS adoption is growing fast.

2. Portuguese speakers prefer Portuguese. Studies show 75% of online consumers prefer buying in their native language. For support content, that number goes higher because frustration tolerance is lower.

3. Competition is sparse. Most US and European SaaS companies offer Spanish, German, and French before Portuguese. This means translating your help center is a real differentiator.

Brazil vs Portugal: which Portuguese should you use?

Short answer: Brazilian Portuguese.

Here's the math:

• Brazil population: 214 million
• Portugal population: 10 million
• Other lusophone countries: ~50 million (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, etc.)

Brazilian Portuguese represents 82% of all Portuguese speakers. More importantly, Brazilian Portuguese is widely understood by European Portuguese speakers (the reverse is also true, but Brazilians consume less European content).

When to choose European Portuguese

Pick European Portuguese only if:

• Portugal is your primary or only Portuguese-speaking market
• Your product has heavy regulatory content specific to EU/Portugal
• You already have customers in Portugal requesting it

For most B2B SaaS companies, Brazilian Portuguese is the right default.

Key differences between variants

The differences are smaller than US vs UK English. Most involve:

Spelling: Brazil had a spelling reform in 2009 (Acordo Ortográfico). Words like "idéia" (Brazil pre-reform) became "ideia" (both countries post-reform). Most modern tools use the updated spelling.

Vocabulary: A few dozen words differ. "Celular" (Brazil) vs "telemóvel" (Portugal) for mobile phone. "Ônibus" (Brazil) vs "autocarro" (Portugal) for bus. Tech vocabulary is usually identical.

Formality markers: Both use "você" for informal "you" and formal constructions, but Portugal uses "tu" more in casual contexts. For help center content, this rarely matters.

Action for you: Pick Brazilian Portuguese. Use a consistent spell-checker. Avoid overly casual language that might read strangely to Portuguese users.

Text expansion: plan for longer content

Portuguese text is typically 15-25% longer than English.

Examples:

• "Settings" → "Configurações" (4 extra characters)
• "Send" → "Enviar" (1 extra character)
• "Click here to get started" → "Clique aqui para começar" (similar length, but common cases expand more)

Where this breaks things:

• Buttons and CTAs: Short labels like "Buy" become "Comprar" (4 extra characters)
• Navigation menus: Tight horizontal menus overflow
• Tables: Column widths designed for English don't fit
• Tooltips: Truncation happens

How to prepare:

1. Build UI with 25% buffer space for text
2. Test translated screens before launch
3. Use shorter English originals where possible ("Settings" not "Account Settings")
4. Allow text wrapping in buttons if needed

Formality in Portuguese: getting the register right

Portuguese has clearer formal and informal registers than English.

Use formal Portuguese for help centers:

• "Você" for addressing the user (not "tu")
• Imperative forms like "Clique" (Click), "Selecione" (Select)
• Professional tone without being stiff

Avoid:

• Slang or colloquialisms
• Overly casual phrasing
• Regional expressions (gírias) that might confuse users from other Portuguese-speaking countries

Example of good vs bad:

❌ Too casual: "Aí é só clicar no botão e pronto, mano." ✅ Professional: "Clique no botão para continuar."

Most machine translation handles this well. DeepL and modern neural translators default to a professional register.

Four approaches to Portuguese translation

1. Manual translation (freelancers or agencies)

How it works: Hire a translator, send them your articles, wait for delivery.

Cost: $0.08-0.15 per word. A 500-word article costs $40-75. A 50-article help center runs $2,000-3,750.

Timeline: 2-5 days per batch depending on volume and availability.

Pros:

• Human quality, nuanced phrasing
• Can match brand voice if briefed well
• Catches cultural context

Cons:

• Slow (blocks launches)
• Expensive at scale
• Updates are manual and costly

Best for: High-stakes content like legal pages, or companies with large translation budgets.

2. DIY machine translation

How it works: Copy/paste into Google Translate or DeepL, then paste back into your help center.

Cost: Free for Google Translate. DeepL Pro starts at $8.74/month for 500,000 characters.

Timeline: Immediate, but formatting is lost.

Pros:

• Fast
• Free or cheap
• You control the process

Cons:

• Formatting breaks (tables, images, code blocks disappear)
• No translation memory (retranslate everything on updates)
• Quality varies without review
• Tedious for large help centers

Best for: Quick tests or very small help centers (under 10 articles).

3. TMS platforms (Lokalise, Crowdin, Phrase)

How it works: Connect your help center, pull content into the TMS, translate with MT or humans, push back.

Cost: $80-200/month for starter plans. Often require developer setup.

Timeline: Fast once set up. Setup takes days to weeks.

Pros:

• Translation memory saves costs long-term
• Works across multiple products
• Collaboration features for teams

Cons:

• Expensive for small teams
• Complex setup (API keys, webhooks)
• Built for software localization, not help centers
• Overkill for most SaaS support teams

Best for: Companies with multiple products, dev resources, and established localization teams.

4. TranslateDesk (purpose-built for help centers)

How it works: Connect to Intercom, select articles, pick languages, translate with DeepL, publish.

Cost: 5 free translations, then $79/100 credits (pay-as-you-go). A 50-article help center costs ~$35 after free credits.

Timeline: Minutes. Select articles, click translate, review, publish.

Pros:

• DeepL quality (beats Google Translate in blind tests)
• Native Intercom integration
• Preserves formatting (tables, images, code blocks)
• Stale translation detection (know when originals change)
• No developer required

Cons:

• Intercom only (Zendesk and Freshdesk coming)
• Machine translation (review still recommended)

Best for: Intercom users who want quality translation without complexity.

Ready to see how it works? Check if your help center supports translation.

Step-by-step: translating your help center to Portuguese

Here's a four-week plan that works.

Week 1: Preparation

Day 1-2: Audit your content

• List all articles by category
• Note word counts (total and per article)
• Identify high-traffic articles (check analytics)
• Flag content that might not translate well (heavy idioms, US-specific references)

Day 3-4: Set priorities

• Rank articles by traffic and support impact
• Identify your "must translate" list (usually 60-70% of total)
• Decide what to skip (deprecated features, rarely viewed articles)

Day 5: Choose your approach

• Under 20 articles: Any method works
• 20-100 articles: TranslateDesk or TMS
• 100+ articles: TranslateDesk, TMS, or hybrid with agency for high-stakes content

Week 2: Translation

Using TranslateDesk:

1. Connect your Intercom account (takes 2 minutes)
2. Select articles for translation
3. Choose Portuguese (Brazilian) as target language
4. Click translate
5. Review outputs in the TranslateDesk dashboard
6. Publish when ready

Using freelancers:

1. Export content to Word or Google Docs
2. Share with translator
3. Wait for delivery
4. Review and request revisions
5. Copy translated content back to help center

Week 3: Quality check

What to review:

• Brand terminology (product names should stay in English or match your preference)
• Screenshots (still in English? Consider updating or adding translated versions)
• Links (internal links should point to Portuguese articles if they exist)
• Formatting (tables, code blocks, numbered lists should be intact)
• CTAs (translated buttons should match actual product UI)

Common fixes:

• Proper nouns mistranslated
• Number formatting (Brazil uses period for thousands: 1.000, not 1,000)
• Date formatting (Brazil uses DD/MM/YYYY)

Week 4: Launch and monitor

Soft launch:

1. Enable Portuguese in your help center settings
2. Don't announce it yet
3. Monitor for errors (check 404s, broken links)
4. Watch support tickets for translation complaints

Full launch:

1. Announce to customers (email, in-app, social)
2. Update your website to mention Portuguese support
3. Add Portuguese to your marketing materials
4. Track engagement (page views, time on page, search queries)

Common mistakes to avoid

1. Mixing Brazilian and European Portuguese

Choose one variant and stick with it. Mixed content looks unprofessional and confuses users.

2. Ignoring text expansion

Don't discover layout problems after launch. Test translated screens during QA.

3. Translating everything at once

Start with high-impact articles. Get feedback. Then expand. This catches problems early.

4. Forgetting about updates

Your help center changes. Translations go stale. Use a tool with change detection (like TranslateDesk's stale translation feature) or schedule quarterly reviews.

5. Not localizing screenshots

English screenshots in Portuguese articles work, but updated screenshots convert better. At minimum, update screenshots for critical workflows.

6. Skipping the glossary

Technical terms, product names, and key concepts should translate consistently. Create a simple glossary and share it with translators or add it to your MT tool.

Measuring success

After launch, track these metrics:

Engagement:

• Portuguese article views (should grow month over month)
• Time on page (similar or better than English)
• Search queries in Portuguese (indicates user adoption)

Support impact:

• Ticket volume from Portuguese-speaking regions (should decrease)
• CSAT from Portuguese speakers
• First-contact resolution for translated issues

Business outcomes:

• Conversion rates from Brazilian traffic
• Customer retention in Portuguese-speaking accounts
• Expansion revenue from translated self-service

Check these monthly for the first quarter, then quarterly after.

Next steps

Portuguese translation is a high-ROI investment for B2B SaaS companies with Brazilian or Portuguese users. The market is large, competition is sparse, and users strongly prefer native-language support.

Here's what to do now:

1. Check your analytics. How much traffic comes from Brazil and Portugal? If it's over 5%, translation pays off.

2. Audit your help center. How many articles? What's the word count? This determines your approach and budget.

3. Pick your method. For most Intercom users, TranslateDesk gets you live in a day.

4. Start small. Translate your top 10 articles. Get feedback. Then scale.

Your Portuguese-speaking customers will thank you. And your support team will too.

More language guides

Expanding to other markets? Explore our complete guides for each language:

• Spanish Help Center Translation Guide: Spain vs LATAM, formal/informal, largest market reach
• German Help Center Translation Guide: DACH market, Sie/du formality, text expansion planning
• French Help Center Translation Guide: France vs Quebec, vous/tu, Bill 96 compliance
• Japanese Help Center Translation Guide: Keigo formality, character systems, premium market
• Chinese Help Center Translation Guide: Simplified vs Traditional, market access