When a client asks, “can you lower your rate?,” you can respond in various ways. You could get defensive and belligerent (“For your information, I’m a serious professional whose work is worth real money”). You could offer some snarky feedback on the rate the client is proposing (“No serious professional translator would work for what you’re offering”). I don’t recommend those strategies, but lots of translators go that route. You could justify why you charge what you do (“I have 20 years’ experience and a Master’s in Translation”). You could just say no, and suggest that they find another translator; fair enough.
But the best response is, “I’m unable to offer a discount, because I’m busy all the time at my regular rates.”
First, if you’ve already told the client your rates and they want to pay less, let’s be honest: they’re asking for a discount. Asking is fine; some clients will ask just on principle, to see if they can save some money. Don’t freak out just because they asked. But from the freelancer’s point of view, the best defense is to simply be busy all the time at your regular rates. That way, you don’t need to get angry, or defensive, or engage with the “how low can you go” clients. If it’s within the client’s budget to pay your regular rates, great. If not, no problem (for you at least!) because you’ll just continue working with the clients who will pay your regular rates. When I use this strategy with clients, I feel that this has the advantage of being true (never an absolute must in a business negotiation, but always a plus!). I’m not getting nasty, or superior, or defensive; I’m just saying that, truthfully, it makes no sense for me to work for less than what all my other clients pay.
Getting to “I’m busy all the time at my regular rates” is a long-term project; lots of posts on this blog and others (check out Marketing tips for translators in particular) can help you get there. But keep that goal in mind: yes, the client’s proposed rate may be laughably low; yes, you may have 20 years’ experience and certification and a Master’s in Translation; yes, you’re a serious professional. But there’s one real reason not to offer discounts: you don’t need to.
I absolutely agree Corinne! It’s never going to be possible to drop prices to undercut people living in cheaper economies who can afford to work for lower rates – quality has to be the differentiator. Thanks for your blog!
You are so right! I actually got a long-term client by educating him on proper rates the right way.
#1, many direct clients don’t know much about the work we do;
#2, many agencies want to keep their margin of profit by reducing our rates, rather than their spread;
And that is the nature of business. For me the best part of being a freelancer is being able to choose my clients. My criteria are: field, rate, flexibility (regarding texts, creative license, pay timeframe).
See you in November?
Thanks Giovanna; excellent points and thanks for your comment. And yes, I’ll definitely be in Miami in November!
Great answers Corrine!
Thanks Nora, glad you enjoyed the post.
Thanks for the tip, Corrine. I’m still relatively new (3 years) and building up my practice (how I think of it, I must admit.) And I don’t have my younger sister’s gift for Irish diplomacy, so ideas like this are welcome!
Thanks Stephen, glad it was helpful.
Thanks for the tip Corinne. It is a good one, when you don’t mind loosing a particular project. I had recently such a request from a direct client. The main problem for me that time was my great interest in the project, I really wanted to get the translation! I got it… but I lowered my rates… Anyway, I’m happy with that because the text is just so interesting, I really enjoy it!
Thanks Nathalie. Yes, you definitely have to be willing to lose the client to make this work; the key is just to have plenty of other work coming in.
Personally, I prefer yet another angle, and it’s the cold fact that it would be impossible to maintain the same level of quality with a lower rate.
Dear client, we both know that your projects, while messy and rushed, are very important for you and your clients. And giving you the guarantee that the translation will be in good shape requires time and effort from our part, and thus a certain rate. Cutting the rate further would force me to reduce the quality bar to a level we will both be uncomfortable with. I’m afraid it will not be viable to apply the discount you requested. Regards, xxx
In other words, I just prefer to keep it focused on the client himself. Sure, I am a qualified professional and I have other clients to fall on (otherwise I couldn’t even start this discussion) but the main point is that you don’t want this change either, dear client 🙂
Thanks Alain; that is a great solution too!!
Thanks for sharing your experience and it’s happen with every client. Many client asking discount for translation service while i am doing in Water stone but i don’t mine to that client and look over into others. It’s a Great answer and will work well.
Thanks Alex, glad it was helpful.
I love your article, but I’m just not sure that the industry stands much of a chance with so many third-rate vendors busily turning translation into a commodity. I think this may be less noticeable in a language pair like French-English because there are relatively fewer of you, but in Spanish-English the overabundance of cheap translators exerts an undeniable influence on prices.
I’m convinced that the long-term trend in translation rates is downward, and I’m also convinced that translators and translation agencies share a large part of the blame for this ongoing devaluation. So many of us have adopted a fast-food approach to the business. Instead of insisting on getting detailed job specifications from clients, our conversation with them is usually limited to word count, subject, and price per word. Combine that with steadily improving machine translation technologies and the absence of legally mandated certification requirements in the United States and other countries, and you have a perfect storm for freelance translators.
Thanks Ariel! Actually you’ve given me an idea for a whole other blog post…
Very simple, very honest, very wise 🙂
Great, glad you liked it!
It’s good to have dignity. It doesn’t matter how low your rate is, they will always try to get the work done for even less. It happened to me yesterday. Finally, the potential client found my rate too high for his expectations -and obviously nobody offered a lower rate- and thought he’d do it himself.
Thanks Gisela! Yes, sometimes the client decides to cobble together a free solution, and there’s nothing you can do about it…
We had a client that, after a couple of years of steady jobs, a reasonable 1/2 workload for one person (2 of us work togther), told us they wanted us to drop our prices 20% or they would go to someone else. I said that was fine, and they stopped sending us work. 18 months later they contacted us and told us they had tried the new translation supplier, but they weren’t happy with the quality they were getting. I told them that would be because, no matter how experienced and qualified the other translators were (I had no info to suggest they weren’t experienced and qualified!), they weren’t paying the translators enough to be able to afford to spend time checking and improving their translations, so it was their fault the quality suffered, not the new translators. The client asked if they could send us texts for translation again, and I told them that we had not spent the last 18 months waiting for them to call us, but had found new customers, who paid more, and that if they wanted translations from us again, they would have to pay 15% more (it was true that we had found new customers, and I wasn’t bothered if we got this client back!). They did send us more texts, and became a major customer until they were bought out by a multi-national 8 years later (our fault for making the English documentation so good:) Moral – not sure! Perhaps it’s “stick to your guns” after you’ve worked out what you really need to earn, and so the rate you really need – there are always new customers, even if repeat custom is best!
Thanks Duncan, I love that story!!
I’m with Alain here, I think it’s nice to explain the client what they could lose if they try too hard to save a couple of cents per word.
Explaining that you’re already busy at your current rate is of course way better than many of the other options you mentioned, but some clients may feel you’re telling them “I don’t need you”, which might be true, but not necessarily something you want to be reminded about.
I loved Chris Durban’s view on this – she presented it at the ITI Conference in Newcastle earlier this year. “If a client asks you for a 10% discount, wouldn’t you rather just take a month off?”
Do you ever consider a discount if there might be a reason behind it such as repetition within files?
Excellent post.
As a freelance translator with almost 13 years of experience-cum-boutique translation agency owner, I couldn’t agree more.
We seek clients who are willing to work with us at our rates. There’s always room for a little tiny bit of leeway, but when you really get down to it, we ask certain rates because our translators are industry professionals. As such, they attend continuing education, invest in pricey CAT tools, pay taxes (!), etc. When a client pays a premium rate, s/he is getting all of that. It is absolutely a guarantee of impeccable quality, and we accept/offer nothing less.
I would tell all clients to beware of fly by night agencies and rock bottom rate accepting freelancers. Nine times out of ten, you get what you pay for. Caveat emptor, indeed.
Great, thank you so much for your comment!
Interesting, though openly invoking supply and demand doesn’t work in all parts of translation world, at least if you deal with direct clients. In legal or medical it could be a problem; in some cases it could be inconsistent with your image, especially when dealing with small orders.
You took the words right out of my mouth when you said to say you don’t offer a discount because you’re busy at your regular rates. I say this all the time, it’s actually true: I am very busy.