Translation for software is cheap, but internationalisation can be tricky - different languages have vastly different rules. Europe's not too bad here though.

Translation for software is cheap, but internationalisation can be tricky - different languages have vastly different rules. Europe's not too bad here though. There are other costs though - such as support. In the US you can grow pretty well with a large market providing support in one or maybe two languages. In Europe, you need to provide support in English, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish... and there's more besides, and some tricky local dialects. edit: also the cost of maintaining translation as you grow or make changes means it's not a one-off cost, it's a constant extra burden - even if it's not a huge one. For a larger business it's plenty doable, for a small startup (especially a non-funded one) it's very difficult. edit 2: also I'm meaning mostly western/central/northern Europe. If you go further east things get trickier still.