Greetings, Training for Translators subscribers! My April master class, Aiming for six figures as a freelancer, is next Wednesday (April 10). Registration ($75) includes the recording, and we’ll talk about how to analyze your current workflow, use rate zones (green, yellow, red, gold) to decide what work to accept and decline, and how to create a plan for earning US $100,000 or more (or the part-time equivalent) without working crazy hours.
On to this week’s topic: Are low rates for freelance translation or interpreting work a personal decision, or a group issue?
I don’t have the answer here, and this is something that I think about a fair bit. It happens to me with some regularity (and thus, I assume other people have this experience as well): I’m contacted by a potential client, typically a translation agency (this seems less common with interpreting, more on that later), in this type of way:
- 9:00 AM: Hello! We have a project of X words, due on X date; this requires an ATA-certified translator and we can offer X cents per word. Can you let us know if you’re available?
In this situation, X is typically something outside what I would consider to be professional working conditions: a huge project on an incredibly tight deadline, at an incredibly low rate. But while I’m contemplating how, or if, to respond, I get another e-mail from the agency:
- 9:03 AM: Please disregard our previous e-mail! This project has been placed. We’ll contact you in the future if anything else comes up.
Meaning that someone (in this case, an ATA-certified translator), snapped this project up before anyone else could even respond. Here’s my dilemma:
- It’s a free market, working is better than not working, and you have to keep the lights on. Really, who am I to tell someone else what to charge?
- And at the same time, if agencies couldn’t get translators to work at these rates, they would only have two choices: 1) Pay more, or 2) Go out of business.
Interestingly enough, I find that interpreters tend to exert more rate-related pressure on each other than translators do. There’s a lot more talk in the interpreting world about, “Not spoiling the market for everyone else,” “It’s better not to work than to accept a low rate,” “If one person says yes, then clients expect everyone else to work at that rate.” It’s also easier to find reference points for interpreting rates: most state court systems, and the Federal court systems, publish the rates that they pay their interpreters. Entities like the UN publish the rates that they pay contract conference interpreters. Perhaps this also has some sort of “elevating effect” on the interpreting market?
Which brings me to my next question: is this a personal decision (live and let live/to each their own), or is this a problem that affects us as a group? Yet another issue is the US’s very strict antitrust/anti-price-fixing laws, wherein it is legal to give objective pricing information (here’s what I charge), but illegal to give anything that sounds like a pricing recommendation or collusion (here’s how much you should charge/here’s how much I think this client would pay).
I’m honestly not sure, and that’s my answer!
- There are times that I feel like telling other translators, if 2 cents per word meets your financial goals, go for it. It doesn’t meet my financial goals, but you’re welcome to that work if you want it.
- And there are other times that I feel like saying, “Hey, I’ve got a great business idea. I’m going to become like the H&R Block of legal services. I’m going to have a chain of law offices that charges a flat rate of $50 an hour, where the lawyers get paid $25 an hour and I get $25 an hour for running the business!” If that strikes you as crazy, as if I’d have to either pay my lawyers more, or go out of business, then why can’t we apply that logic to our own profession?
In my observations, this is a phenomenon that primarily (although not exclusively) affects work from translation agencies. In the 21 years that I’ve been a freelancer, translation agency rates have dropped by about half, largely due to the phenomena I describe above: agencies seem to be finding enough people, who do a good-enough job, to fill the demand. But what if they couldn’t? Food for thought!
Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. An ATA-certified French to English translator and Colorado court-certified interpreter, she also holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College. For more tips and insights, join the Training for Translators mailing list!
I think you underestimate the amount of subpar translations that, somehow, remains under the radar and since nobody at the agency level or at the client level possesses the skills to assess these translations, these ‘works of art’ are presented to the intended audience which, too often and unfortunately, does not feed back their dissatisfaction or lack the appropriate channels to do so. Hence, just like thousands of cars are released daily back on the roads but have only been sloppily fixed by unskilled mechanics, we all chug along as best as we can on this planet in the Milky Way.
Right, I think this (my own delusional optimism about the quality of these translation) is a major factor! I was just saying this to someone else on LinkedIn, that I think I’m asking, “Where are agencies finding these really great, really cheap translators,” and in fact, lots of agencies are using the quality standard (Marc Prior pointed this out on LinkedIn) that any translation where the client doesn’t complain, is “good enough.”
I have asked myself the same questions. Quite often potential clients find “better” quotes (meaning cheaper) and they won’t tell me unless I call them to get an answer. Who are these translators that offer very cheap, very good and very fast services? I consider my rates fair, yet some one else is offering even lower rates. I am not complaining, but I think people who drop their rates too low to get more jobs are damaging the profession.
Yes, I think you’re asking all the right questions here (I don’t have the answers, but it’s a good discussion!).
I suspect that big end customers are using AI as it is all the rage nowadays. They expect that AI does the bulk job for free and a professional to clean the product up in postediting for cheap. We’ll see what happens with the quality later. Something bad, perhaps. Someone may die (medicine, pharmaceuticals) or get sued (legal, financial) sooner or later.
Ugh, I hate to think about that but you’re probably right!
Hi Corrine,
I like reading your insights, and I enjoyed your book.
I have been a full-time translator since 2014, and I have experience major shift in work ethics, work etiquette, and rates in the past four or five years.
Unfortunately, translation isn’t a growing profession, to say the least. I’m still on the records and get the odd project from agencies, but these automated emails are just as you described them; who doesn’t want 10,000 words for tomorrow for 6 cents a word of complex legal or medical docs in scanned PDF?? Not to mention the CAT tools that deduct % for “repetitions” (as if those don’t have to be read and corrected)…
I’m also a translator of Japanese literature into Hebrew, there are only two others in the country. If I told you the rates, it is jaw dropping.
I never expected big bucks, right? 🙂 it afforded me a certain lifestyle; I was a digital nomad years before the trend on YouTube, thanks to the translation profession.
I hope there might be some recovery, but it seems to be on the decline with AI and machine translation.
I vented a little, sorry!
Take care,
Einat
Sure, feel free to vent any time!! I personally believe that there is still a lot of good translation work out there, but there are also a lot more low-paying agencies, and a lot more translators willing to work at those rates, which makes things a lot harder!