After “How do I find some clients?,” I think that the most common question I get from beginning (and for that matter, experienced) translators is “How much should I charge?” My sense is that most people want an answer like “If you work for agencies, charge 16 cents. If you work for direct clients, charge 30 cents. Anything else I can help you with?” But of course, it’s not that simple. As I always tell the students in my classes, I can’t tell you how much to charge, but I can help you figure out how much to charge. Here’s a short course in how to do it:
If you want a step-by-step guide, check out Jonathan Hine’s pamphlet I am worth it! How to set your price, and other tips for freelancers. Jonathan’s advice is right on: first, figure out how much you want to earn, and what your business expenses are. Then, figure out how many hours you want to work (or, conversely, how much time you want to take off). Then convert that into an hourly rate, figure out how fast you usually translate, and that will yield your target per-word rate. Again, this is a major oversimplification, but you get the idea!
Most translators base their rates on factors like this:
- Fear (of charging too much, of earning too little, of pricing themselves out of the market, of living under a bridge when they’re old)
- Speculation (about what other people are charging, because most people won’t talk openly about their rates)
- Vague notions of “what the market will bear,” or “what clients are willing to pay,” with little to no actual data to back that up
Whereas most translators should base their rates on factors like this:
- The types of clients they want to work for (agencies, direct clients, or both)
- The balance of supply and demand in their language pair or specialization.
- Whether most of their clients translate things because they have to, or because they want to.
- How much they want to work
- What their financial and lifestyle needs are: kids, student loans, aging parents, a desire to be location-independent, a desire to retire early, a passion for high-level clients, a passion for running ultramarathons while still earning a good living, etc.
- Actual conversations with other translators about how much they charge.
Here a few other Zen koan-like tips on how to decide how much to charge:
- “The right rate” means that you and the client both feel that you’re getting a fair deal.
- “The right rate” means that you are motivated to do an excellent job.
- “The right rate” means that you can live the life that you want to live.
- If 100%, or even 95% of potential clients accept your rates with no negotiation, it means that you could definitely be charging more.
- The best time to raise your rates is when you’re too busy. Try a higher rate with the next new client who sends you an inquiry: if the client turns it down, you still have enough work.
- How do you significantly raise your rates with existing clients? You don’t. You raise those rates a little bit, then you make the big jump with new clients.
- Broken record alert, but here we go again: There is *lots* of good, high-paying translation work out there. Income of six figures is becoming more and more realistic, even if you work with some agencies and some direct clients. There are even clients who are *looking* for someone like you and don’t know where to find you. So you have to go and find them. But most people won’t do that. They’ll continue to take what lands in the inbox, while complaining that some (other) people have all the luck in this industry.
heila2013 says
Very valuable post. Thank you! Heila
Corinne McKay says
Glad you enjoyed it!
Shannon says
Besides doing freelance work in my own language pair, I occasionally outsource work in other languages, and I can tell you that rates give a powerful first impression. I am very likely reject anyone with ridiculously low rates as being unqualified and, conversely, I am much more likely to consider someone with higher rates, as they are usually professionals who know the value of their work. High quality clients are not going to base their translator choice on rates alone.
Corinne McKay says
Amen! That is such a great example, thank you so much for that comment!
Daniel Steve Villarreal says
Shannon, thanks for the comments about rates. I’m wondering how they’re perceived from a potential client’s perspective, rather than from the perspective of a Translation & Interpretation professional who may see these things via a different prism.
Thoughts on that?
Thanks,
Dan Villarreal
Taipei, Taiwan
Eve Lindemuth Bodeux (@ebodeux) says
Shannon is after my own heart! My thoughts exactly! I am SCARED away when someone’s rates are too low. It makes me want to run – not hire them! (I do a significant amount of subcontracting). Good thoughts all around!
Corinne McKay says
Great to hear that from the perspective of someone who does a lot of subcontracting…thank you!
Gaelle Linard says
I’d be interested in knowing at which point your alarm bells go off. Would you mind sharing? And, say, for the same low-ish rate: would your alarm bells ring less for someone from a poor country (hence not used to high salary around him/her) or as much as someone from a western country?
I’ve never been subcontracting yet so I find this quite interesting 🙂
Veronica Sardon says
I completely agree with your assessment, Corinne, and also with Shannon’s (and Eve’s!). However, I would like to point out one thing that I feel sometimes veterans overlook: rates are, and need to be, dynamic.
In most professions, including the best paid, newcomers work for little and even for free before growing professionally and hopefully going on to earn lots. I am a seasoned translator but I am only a year into my career as a freelancer (in fact, I am still moonlighting and keep my day job as a journalist). I already charge a lot more than I used to when I started out, and I hope to be charging a lot less than I will this time next year too! Basically, I have not reached maturity as a freelancer yet, and I need to do as I did when I became a journalist: be an intern, work for less than I was worth and gradually close the gap.
If I were you, Shannon, I would open a little window for translators who, like me ;), are fantastic at what they do but still lack the experience, the contacts and the professional presence, so to speak, to command the rates that they are actually worth. They just haven’t got there yet.
From what I have read, of course, some newcomers appear to start with low rates and keep them forever, which is appalling: whether you are a lawyer, an economist, a designer or a translator, if your income does not grow to reach some form of maturity over the years, you must be doing something terribly wrong.
Amanda says
Veronica, you are spot on! That’s where I am at the moment too, at the beginning of my translation career with not that much experience. I have years of experience working, so can demonstrate all the necessary work skills, but my actual experience as a translator is naturally much less. It is so tricky at this point to get the right balance on rates: not so low that I come across as untrained but not too high because I know I’m not all that experienced yet….. I wish agencies (because direct clients aren’t likely to do it) would have some sort of graduate scheme for freelancers whereby they give some advice and help whilst paying you slightly less, but as you grow, they pay you more, or you jump ship and go elsewhere, but at least with some experience under your belt! I know, that’s what in-house positions are for…..!
Carolyn Yohn says
I agree with you, Veronica! I’ve been doing the same thing for a couple years—using pro bono work to fill out my portfolio (and my days), gradually replacing those clients with paying ones.
The important thing to remember when just getting started is, when you do volunteer/pro bono work, don’t just practice your translation skills! Use those jobs as “training wheels” for your business skills, too. Hopefully, that way your professional presence etc. grows in tandem with your professional-quality hard output.
Jesse says
Excellent post Corinne, thanks for the advice! I especially liked the Zen koan- like tips.
Corinne McKay says
Great! Glad they were helpful. I’m not sure that “Zen koan-like tips” is an official category, but I’ll claim it!
Ana Clemencia Uriarte Lau says
For a Nicaraguan free-lance translator and interpreter, with a 5 years old college degree and with probably more than 23 years of experience this article has been heaven to me, as in Nicaragua only few translator (holy cows) control/lead the very small existing market, they actually have the monopoly of the tiny market in this country, so for new translator is such a big challenge here as they only want subcontract us and never share their rates. I have struggled for years to develop myself as a free-lancer and I am developing my own customers network step by step from scratch. It’s been a hard, hash and solitary path but now I am seen the outcomes and it worth it every step of the way. Thanks so much and I will share it with new young translator. Thanks for your amazing honest and experienced tips.
Corinne McKay says
Thanks Ana! Glad that you found the post helpful!
ciclistatraduttore says
Dear Corinne —
Thanks for the plug. I wondered why we suddenly got orders for my booklet yesterday. From Argentina, the Czech Republic and France. You have quite a following!
¡hasta a San Antonio!
Jonathan.
Corinne McKay says
Thanks Jonathan; your booklet is great, I hope people get a lot of use out of it! See you San Antonio…hopefully with a tailwind for you!
Tess Whitty (@Tesstranslates) says
I really liked the zen-approach. I am going to use that one. And you hit the nail with ” There are even clients who are *looking* for someone like you and don’t know where to find you. So you have to go and find them. But most people won’t do that. They’ll continue to take what lands in the inbox, while complaining that some (other) people have all the luck in this industry.” That is the hard work.
Corinne McKay says
Thanks Tess! Yes, I do think all of us (definitely including me) fall into that trap sometimes. When I feel like I want more of a certain kind of work, I try to be honest about how much time I am putting into *actively seeking out* that work. The usual answer: not enough. So it’s a good reminder!
AzzTranslations.com says
Hello,
Nice post. Your article is very much helpful to translate languages. The thoughts are very good. Thanks for sharing….
foxtailes says
This is probably the most valuable source of information on setting rates I’ve seen to date. Thank you so much! I just have one question: I see a lot of talk about “What do you want to earn?” “When do you want to retire?” etc. I must admit that I find these questions unhelpful since every would like to earn plenty of money and few would mind retiring early (after all, retirement is not necessarily ceasing to work; it it ceasing to need to work to earn a living).
I do think there is a dearth of quantitative information out there for new translators setting their rates, and that it’s not unfair to request this information in some genuinely useful format. Isn’t there anywhere we can find ballpark figures for a wide variety of individual situations (specialization, language pair[s], etc.)–keeping in mind that we absolutely must consider all of the factors you list above and more when setting our own individual rates? It seems problematic to have absolutely no qualitative guidelines whatsoever when we are just starting out, and may acquire some clients early on who quite like our work and continue to hire us…and we want to keep them happy, of course, but we realize that we have undersold ourselves…or we lose out on working for a client in the first place because we are trying to oversell ourselves. The notion of ‘learning as you go’ does not help much in these contexts.
Hopefully my question makes sense…tell me if I’m just being stubborn! 😀 I’m not looking for prepackaged answers, but some sort of starting point. Translators all over the world have set rates, and if we newbies knew what those rates are and compared our own circumstances and abilities to them, we’d have a better idea of what is realistic to charge.
Moira Monney says
Hello, I know I’m late to the discussion, but maybe it’ll help someone anyway. Proz has got a page showing “average translation rates” charged by the community here: http://search.proz.com/?sp=pfe/rates This may be a useful starting point, even though the rates displayed are very low for certain language pairs IMO.
Bina says
That’s an excellent suggestion, and very helpful I just signed on with that site myself, and used the average rate as a general guideline.
(Hi everyone, first time poster here!)
villebilingue says
Hello Corinne,
I have been following your blog for sometime now, I’m in Nigeria – Africa , anyway, we can get access to some of the books you recommend especially when Amazon tells you it’s unavailable in your region.
Thank you
Fathy Shehatto says
It’s worth reading!
Reggie says
This is exactly where I find myself, Veronica. I agree with you 100%. In my case, I am a trained financial accountant with over 15 years of experience in administration, financial accounting, financial management, human resources management, and grants management. Over the last 12 years I have done volunteer translation of English, French, and Haitian Creole works, both as source and target languages, vice versa – mainly medical, business, literary, academic, and scientific documents. My knowledge of the English, French, and Haitian Creole languages is professional translator. I can translate all types of works. In addition to translating, I also have experience in editing and proofreading translated as well as original documents.
I have a friend of mine, a retired university communication professor in Las Vegas, who is the publisher of an ezine. I have been voluntarily translating some of his articles for publication in a French-speaking newspaper based in New York City. He has been very impressed with the quality of my work. I had been so focused on financial accounting that I did not really treasure translation as a skill until he persuaded me to use it as a side business. He has even volunteered to be one of my professional references.
That being said, since I have never been paid for my work, I may not know exactly what to expect from a potential client. Now I feel emboldened to use my translation skill to make a living.
If anyone of you is aware of individuals or organizations that might be in need of a reliable freelance translator, please kindly let me know. I welcome any suggestions you may have for me. Thanks in advance!
koyoandi says
My husband has his first translation job and I am wondering one thing…how long after billing a client one should expect payment. For example, if the client prefers to receive an invoice at the end of June for June’s work, how long do you suggest giving a client as a deadline to make a payment? One person thought the end of the following month would be reasonable, but the end of July seems like a long time to wait for work one did in June. No sites I found only talked about rates but not when to reasonably expect payment. Any guidance we can get would be great!
ciclistatraduttore says
Koyoandi — The industry standard in North America (and law in the EU) is “net 30”, which means payment should be 30 days after presentation of the invoice. The translator should specify the payment terms in the estimate before working, and again in the invoice, to remind. Like most business people, clients have every incentive to hang on to their cash, so any supplier who will take later payment can expect to be paid late. We are the suppliers in this scenario.
Notice that what you describe is normal, not unusual. I would not worry until two weeks after whatever terms were agreed, or six weeks if no one mentioned it. Then your husband can ask them about where the payment is. I usually couch it in terms like, “we have not recorded receipt of payment yet. Perhaps we missed it or misfiled it. Could you provide the date and check no, so we can trace it from this end?” That sort of approach usually gets me a quick apology and an expedited check. Clients who make the chasing of late payments go on forever will find me unavailable when they need me next.
IHTH.
Jonathan.
koyoandi says
Hi Jonathan! Thanks so much for your reply. Input like yours really helps folks who are finding their feet.
I really like your “indirectly direct” approach to give clients that little nudge they need. While there are some who may actively try to put off paying, I am sure most simply forget and need the reminder. Things here are not quite at the point yet where a nudge would be necessary, but good to have some phrasing in the back pocket in case needed. Both of us were introduced to this small business owner through a mutual acquaintance and long story short, trust them…they are just overly busy and forgetful at times. However, a very good, small-scale way to learn how to get through some of the obstacles and problems that can arise!
Thanks so much!
Andi
sophiekarbjinski says
Hi! I am actually looking for a specific range, can you help me out please? I am a college student and native german speaker and am supposed to do translation work for a health agency who has a client in Germany. Job is 5 – 10 hrs over the next month, how much can I charge?
Mirdul says
Translation rates varies according to what you are providing. The rates will be automatically increased according to expertise.Long lasting customer relation depends on results of translators not on prices.I will always prefer the quality of work first.
Mateus Mendes says
thank you for that post! it really clears the mind on the subject!