If you’re a freelancer, you probably conduct price negotiations with clients or potential clients almost every day of your professional life. For translators, especially translators who work with agencies, these negotiations often come down to a difference of one or two cents. Your minimum rate is 15 cents per word and the client will only pay 14, or 13.5, and so on.
Price negotiation is a difficult part of freelancing. The fact that translation is normally priced in such small increments (words or lines) makes it even more difficult; kind of the opposite of negotiating the price of a house. For example when we moved from Boston to Colorado a number of years ago, my husband and I sold our house for about $300,000. When we were negotiating the sale price, we had to remind ourselves that these seemingly huge amounts of money ($6,000 to have the siding replaced! $500 to have a hauling company come take away old furniture!) represented only a tiny fraction of the house’s sale price. Translation works the other way around: we’re talking cents here, not thousands of dollars, so declining a project because the client won’t pay one more cent per word can leave a translator feeling like kind of a petty miser.
But here’s the thing: say that most full-time freelancers translate 400,000 or 500,000 words per year. Let’s say 500,000 because I’m not that great at math and it’s easy to multiply by five. That seemingly petty one cent per word? If you extrapolate that over 500,000 words per year, it’s actually $5,000. Two cents? How about $10,000?
Forcing yourself to think about prices by the project rather than by the word can help you avoid caving in to the “it’s just one cent” mentality. Instead of negotiating the per-word price, how about calculating how much money you’re giving up per project, or per year? Rather than seeing your negotiations as “just a cent,” you’ll have a more realistic idea of the effect on your total income.
I’m astonished. Only 400,000 to 500,000 words a year? We regularly do 60,000 to 70,000 per month here in Costa Rica, but the rates we can charge are soooo low. Going through a local agency, you’re lucky to get $.05 per word and the normal rate is more like $.035 or $.04. I need to move back to the US.
Aside from that, your point is well taken.
Steve, I would guess that Corinne just picked a number to use as an example – not an actual number that reflects reality.
Corinne, is that true? Or are those representative figures in the US?
Thanks for your comment Steve. Of course, rates are all over the map. The highest-paid freelancers I know make over 40 cents per word, so 15 cents definitely is not the limit!
Thanks Gina!
That’s a great perspective shift. I usually think on a per hour and per project basis, but per year takes it to a whole other level. You actually inspired me to check how much effect a 1 cent/word raise would have had on my last term for the clients that I do charge by word.
I agree with everything you say, and have recently successfully negotiated for €0.005 extra per word on two separate occasions with agencies, and got it. I guess you have to win some!
I think it is ashame how some clients are triing to negotiate prices for translations down ,for the translator it is like working for almost nothing where alot of work time and effort is put into, not to speak about the hardly obtained qualification and skills….The translator should be given more respect by the clients by paying fair prices for their work. I spent weekends translating and ended up in earning almost nothing for it…this should remain a serious business…
Corinne, great post, thank you! For the very same reason I hate “large volume discounts”. They do nothing but lose us money in the end. Long time ago, when I worked in a different industry, my ex-employer suggested that he would give me more hours if I agreed to a lower per hour rate. No way! Simple maths and I knew I’d be losing more money.
Dear Marta,
I don’t mind large volume discounts, they make sense on a per project or per client basis. Why?
A 1000 word project could require the same amount of pre-translation terminology work and/or research, quoting and billing time, and customer relationship management as a 100,000 word project. These time-consumers represent a floating percentage of the overall word rate. For example, let’s say, for a 1000 word project, you charge 10 cents per word and the non-translation part of the job represents 2 cents per word or $20. So your real per word rate is 8 cents. Now, lets look at the 100,000 word project. Even if we quintuple the project management costs to $100 and even double it again to $200, this is nowhere near the $2,000 a 2 cents per word rate would imply for non-translation tasks. After considering this, if you decide in the end that all of the questions, terminology work, etc. is going to cost say $1000, you can reduce your overall rate to 9 cents per word and you are still covering these costs and earning 8 cents per word.
In a salaried position, this translates into earning more paid vacation days over time because you are gaining in productivity. Eventually, the boss might even let you work remotely where you can even cut down your hours further (as long as you are getting the job done and doing it well)!
Best,
John
Dear John,
I understand your point but high volume discounts do not take into account another point: the time you are not dedicating to another clients. And those clients, who could be better clients not-asking-for-discounts, may show up and you will be busy working on that other big project. Even worse: maybe they will not show up, so you should be looking for them!
I also think that long time projects do demand more management work. Specially if you have to split the billing process or discuss terminology issues.
Best,
Moisés
This “you’ll have more work if you charge less” makes no sense considering we’ll carry on having a 24-hour day.
Very good point! Actually thinking about cents can be really misleading. You should always consider at least the whole project to understand how much you are loosing and share your point of view with the client.
Sorry, for the mistake… “losing” not loosing!
Hello Corinne! I’m reading this as I’m right in the middle of your book! It is VERY inspiring. I’ve been working as a free-lance translator (EN/DE>FR) for translation agencies for more than a year now and it doesn’t take more time to make you want to work for direct clients only! I have a very friendly relationship with an American agency but, apart from them, I could easily say goodbye to the others… After each project, I count how much I earned per hour. Sometimes, it’s just the minimum wage and sometimes it’s three times that! I still need more experience to be able to know, from the start, if I should ask more than my usual rate. Most of the time, agencies agree to spend 1 more cent per source word, so, it makes me more confident. I’ll try to do it more often in the future!
Thanks for your great posts and books!
Just when I was starting to think that quoting per 1000 words (as we do in the UK) was a bit of a nonsense, maybe it is after all justified in part by your post. But I’m looking at it from the other perspective: it’s easier to justify regular rate increases if they’re just GBP 1 or 2 extra per 1000 words at a time. It would look a bit odd to add USD 0.001 per word.
Dear Corine,
Would you authorize me to publish this text of your on our Online Translation Studies page?
http://www.englishinbotafogo.com/onlinetranslationstudies.htm
Of course, we can link your text to a page of your website.
Thank you for your consideration.
kind regards,
Leonardo J. C.
Language Teacher and TS researcher
Thanks Leonardo, you’re welcome to publish the post as long as my name is on it and you link back to the original post on my site. Thanks for asking.
Thanks, Corinne, for your authorization. As soon as I post it on my site, I’ll send you the link. Regards,
I agree with the idea of looking at things “by the project” but I don’t tend to look at projects in terms of dollars, pounds or euros only, rather in terms of what each project will bring to my career or my relationship with a particular agency (I work mostly with agencies, very happily and successfully but I’m choosy!). Sometimes, giving up some money on a project pays off tenfold in the long run. I have, in the past, accepted very slightly lower rates simply because the project was going to be very beneficial in validating my area of specialisation or put my name at the end of a big report. Other times, because the agency was one I was particularly happy to work with (immediate payment, good project management etc), sometimes because it was recurring work (monthly newsletters for example) and I would rather earn a bit less but have the certainty that the job will land on my desk every month, sometimes simply because a job was interesting and exciting. As long as I keep my level of earnings to where I want it to be, I’m happy to lose “just a cent” but gain experience, kudos and contacts. They too have a value which needs to be taken into account. I also feel that working with one very good and loyal agency at one cent below your standard rate can be much more rewarding, even financially, than working with ten not so good and loyal agencies at one cent above your standard rate.
Thanks Anne! That is a great point about the subjective factors (enjoyment of the work, contribution to your desired quality of life, etc) that go into a pricing decision. I do think that if one is choosy about agencies, there are excellent agencies out there that free you up to focus on the translation while they handle the business and non-translation aspects of the work.
Excellent post, Corinne. Another eye-opening aspect of project pricing to look at is translation cost as a percentage of the total cost of a project. Take, for example, a one-page advertorial or print ad, where the word count is tiny, but the project cost (and exposure) is high. Even a super-premium translation will represent just a tiny fraction of the total project cost (copywriting, design, ad space purchase). Does it really make sense for anyone to look at per-word costs for this type of project (and yet many do!)? The next time an agency contacts you with a per-word offer to translate 56 words for a print ad or 350 words for an advertorial at X cents per word, stop and think! Does it really make sense to negotiate an extra half a cent per word, bringing the percentage of translation as part of the total cost of the project from 2% down to 1.85%? It would make much more sense for clients to double or triple the translation budget (which would still only be a small fraction of the total cost of the project) if it could help them guarantee a better ROI on the entire investment. Of course the problem with agencies is that they often undersell these kinds of projects, and then need to find a translator that “fits in” to the budget they have negotiated. Time to start raising their awareness! It is not the translator’s problem if the agency doesn’t know how to sell our services at the right price. 😉
Excellent point, Sara. It strikes home this week in that two of my clients (listed companies) are publishing their full-year 2011 results, all in a 3-day period.
At their end, a half-dozen senior executives (and a dozen underlings) are involved — analyzing, rephrasing, tugging this way and that to finalize their source text.
Ultimately the CEO (one of whom collected a €14m performance bonus last year) has to give the green light on both source & target text. Oh, and this after a Board meeting at which a dozen very senior people (earning directors’ fees) will go through the press releases, line by line (yes) to tweak.
In both cases, the translator must be available for the foreign-language tweaking.
If you calculate the man-hours involved (starting with the salaries of the key people weighing in), it is very clear that the “standard” rates at which translation is charged make no sense at all. While I’m at it, these are also cases where a translator flying by the seat of his/her pants, skills-wise, is going to hit a wall.
Translation service providers who do not stop to think about the big picture will inevitably undercharge. Thereby devaluing their own services — and in doing so *price themselves out of the market* on the downside.
Thanks Sara! I love your comment, it could be a blog post on its own! Your example about 2% versus 1.85% is brilliant. It would be really interesting to do a case study of translation as a percentage of the total project cost, for example as compared to copywriting, graphic design, and oh my gosh, ad space… Definitely write a post for your blog about this 🙂
Good point! Every cent does count. While it’s okay to give discounts sometimes, it’s important to put your foot down on a minimum amount you’d charge for. Just today, I was negotiating with an agency who wanted to pay me less than half of what I charge as a per-word rate. I ended up declining their offer because it just wouldn’t be worth my time.
Thanks Shenyun, and good for you for not giving in to the pressure to lower your rates!
Great food for thought, Corinne!
I’ve truly grown to like negotiating, and I am always prepared to walk away if the rate doesn’t work for me.
I think setting a fair rate for your work and sticking to it is an essential part of running a successful business while having the quality of life that you want.. BTW — I am giving a webinar for the American Translators Association on this topic (pricing) on February 29 if anyone is interested.http://atanet.org/webinars/ataWebinar105_pricing.php
Thanks for posting about the webinar!
Thanks Judy! And fantastic that your webinar is *sold out*! I admire you because I still *hate* negotiating…you give fantastic advice and I would encourage everyone to at least listen to the recording of your webinar!
Excellent topic Corinne, and very stimulating comments to boot!
Returning to languages after 20 years in other business areas, I’ve been astonished and concerned at the level of acceptance around downward pressure on translation prices. Along with your point, I suspect that the tendency to give up those 2 cents is due to lack of marketing skills/confidence, lack of negotiation skills as also pointed out in this thread, and a general reticence to share and publish rate information, which I think contributes to a sort of tacit devaluation as translators start accepting lower rates for lack of concrete information and, again, confidence. A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you like.
Here’s the thing: the client is not the only market maker in a value chain, and as a profession we need to be much better at playing our part – to move from being reactive to proactive in this respect.
Thanks Catherine and welcome back to the translation industry! I love “the client is not the only market maker in the value chain.” Brilliant! And I would suspect that having lots of experience *outside the translation industry* makes you a bit more willing to resist downward rate pressure.
Every time you give a discount you’re telling your client s/he not only can ask a new discont the next time but also telling him/her if they suggest your service to another person, the new client will also be granted it. “You gave us a discount last time, how come it’s not possible now?” or “You gave my friend a discount, why do you treat me differently?” There are no answers for those questions. On top of that, when you’re giving a discount, you’re telling everyone that your price is above its real value, so that’s WHY it is possible to grant it. Now, let’s consider that client of yours who has given you loads of work over the last years and never asked for a discont. Is it fair to charge him/her MORE just because him/her VALUES YOUR WORK and pay what you want? There’s NO new or old client! Neitheir small or loads of work! For me, prices are NOT NEGOCIABLE. There’s always someone else on the market who charges less. However, there’s always somenone who knows why you charge more and still wants YOUR services. If I want to take my dog to a specific pet shop, I’ll have to pay their prices or take my pet to another place. Well, do you ask for discounts in pet shops?
Leonardo, I figure it’s more complicated than that.
Example: I’m aware that our work is often misunderstood by users of it (how translation is performed, how much time and effort goes into it, what it can achieve for the user if it’s well done, etc.).
So for a cient I’m interested in — say, one I’ve stalked, directly or indirectly — I can see how doing a given (small) job at a lower than usual price can be a good marketing tool. “Taste my truffles” as a friend puts it. Creates a wow factor, *shows* them what has been a theoretical concept so far, makes them want to come back for more. At which point *my* job is knowing where my bottom line is.
For that matter, I’ve also done jobs for *free* when a good client has been stuck for budget. Shows good will, creates rapport.
I’m referring here to clients who pay well in the first place, of course.
That said, bulk discounts for large jobs is not a place I go for the reasons explained by another contributor: as a self-employed translator you’ve got to be doing enough marketing so that you have a steady stream of enquiries. If you lock in a large block of time on a relatively low-paying job, you are likely to miss out if other, more attractive offers your way.
Risk management.
Thanks Chris for that fantastic reply. “Taste my truffles” is brilliant; just the kind of concept we’re going for. And thanks for that input on volume discounts; I agree that the real reason to keep up a steady flow of marketing is so that if you’re not working for one client, you’re working for another. The best defense against downward rate pressure is simply to be too busy to work with those clients. Thanks for all of your inspiration, Prosperous Translator!
Thanks Leonardo! Those are fantastic points about discounts; they seem like a good idea but in the end, only devalue your work to that specific client and maybe to others as well. As Chris points out above, I’m not opposed to discounts or even occasional non-paying jobs *for clients who pay well and send me a steady flow of work.*
So, do you think it’s fair to charge more a ‘good’ client, just becuse s/he is unable to ask for discount? That was my question in the first place.
*NOT NEGOTIABLE! LOL
I definitely like the set price per project approach, although you’re usually calculating that on a price per word basis, if you know what I mean – it can get down to the same thing, in other words. I think the point about being flexible is the main thing. Doing “free” work for a good client on occasion might really be necessary, for instance. Very interesting post.
Thanks for your comment! I agree with you about flexibility; after all what matters is really the bottom line at the end of the year (do I feel that I was paid fairly for what I did??), so that’s more important than niggling over each individual word, or even project!
I have a per hour rate I aim for, although I quote per project based on a minimum per word price – that sounds complicated now! Keeping the per hour rate in my head helps me calculate appropriate prices for more/less complicated pieces. I’m just starting out though so sometimes I am considering the possibility for long-term cooperation or just experience as part of my benefits from a job. If the customer wants a euros rate I try to estimate so that I’ll get my expected pounds charge even after conversion and charges.
Thanks for your comment! I do agree that keeping the effective hourly rate in mind is crucial. Lots of people seem to get sucked in by a high per-word rate, then realize that on a very technical project or in a specialization that you’re not skilled in, the per-word rate is irrelevant. I think you have a good strategy going!
My company has a different way of paying translators which is by the hour rather than by the word. Not all translators are equal and our theory is that if you are more productive this should be rewarded, we know this model is not for everyone but it does work really well for a lot of the translators who work for us. It’s only possible as all the translators work inside our online workbench so we can track time and efficiency (again not for all). There is more information on this model on our website http://www.strakertranslations.com if you wanted to read up on it.
Thanks for your comment Gary! That’s an interesting topic to ponder; I think that in general, the issue with charging by the hour (from the translator’s point of view!) is that clients will almost always pay more per word than per hour. For example if a translator is working for an agency, making, say, 15 cents per word and producing 500 finished words per hour, I think it’s unlikely that that agency would pay $75 per hour, although they’re effectively paying that as it is. But your model is really interesting, I would love to hear how it works for you!
Thanks Corinne! A pleasure again to meet you in Boston and to read your last great book. You are soo right! You gave me very useful information and hints on how to proceed from now on. Promise to send you my feedback on my new endeavor: work for a decent rate. Judy was right. You are a very generous professional and your ideas and opinions are extremely valuable and essential to our profession.
THANKS for sharing!
Thanks Dolores! It’s always fun to give advice to people who work hard and implement it!
Great points in your article; plan on sending to my colleagues. I work for a localization firm and negotiate with both freelance translators and agencies quite often. Our methods are to establish set prices that we can rely on so that we DON’T have to haggle over price on each project (we have thousands per year). Occasionally on very large projects we may take extra time to try to work out a volume discount, but due to the nature of our business, speed is often as much of an issue as cost. Having established, agreed-upon rates that meet our target rates mean guaranteed work for the vendors in our network. It’s a win-win we believe.
Unfortunately, in today’s economic climate, as well as with an increase in translator workforce, a lower per word rate becomes a necessary part of the industry. We are at the mercy of our clients to produce the final product more cost efficiently for their bottom line, or risk losing their business.
I believe that translators can however rest assured that with a future improvement in the global economy and continuing globalization, the need for translation, followed by more work, will undoubtedly increase, inevitably along with rates.
Thanks!
Thanks Corinne for putting together such a helpful article for the translation community. I have been trying to write something similar for freelance translators. Actually, it is a work-in-progress covering the main points of a career in freelance translation: Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Freelance Translator