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!
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This week’s newsletter topic is: One whale, or a school of fish?? Are you better off with a few large clients, or more, smaller clients? Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each model.
Larger clients=less juggling, but more risk
I’m in a couple of really helpful freelance writer groups, and this topic comes up a lot. One writer recently commented, “I set my minimum retainer fee at $5,000 a month, because I want to earn $15,000 a month from three clients.” There are a number of advantages of “whale” clients:
- You get to know them, and they get to know you; you generally do better work, with less oversight from the client.
- You spend more of your time on the actual work, rather than questions about the client’s procedures. Do they want your edits in Track Changes? How early do you show up for the sound check? Can you send a translation with questions in it? How do they feel about translator’s notes? These things take up your time, and the client’s, and if you’re getting paid a flat rate, they decrease your effective hourly rate. Repeat clients require less “overhead” on your part.
- You’re not constantly hustling for work. If you’re working with 12 clients a month, chances are they’re cycling in and out, or sending you work only sporadically. This can lead to a lot of hustling on your part, and that’s time that you’re not making money.
- Your administrative overhead is greatly decreased. Things like invoicing and tracking payments also take time. There’s also a greater risk of something (a missed payment, an invoice you forgot to send) falling through the cracks if you’re managing a lot of clients.
In exchange for the relative security that large clients offer, you’re going to make some tradeoffs:
- Losing a client that represents 25-50% of your income can be pretty destabilizing. Personally, I also find that losing a large client hurts (financially and emotionally) more than the loss of a small client, because it’s the end of a significant, long-term relationship. It’s harder to avoid taking large client losses personally.
- It can be harder to say no to a huge client. The client wants you to work on weekends, or asks for unrealistic deadlines, or doesn’t want to pay your minimum charge…and it can be really stressful to approach a rate increase with a huge client (more on this below).
What about the little fish?
In general, I prefer large clients (there, I said it!). I dislike all the administrative juggling that small clients require; in some cases I’ve spent almost as much time filling out a client’s onboarding paperwork as I did working for them. I worked for 22 clients in 2023, 19 clients in 2024, and I make about 70% of my translation and interpreting income from my top four clients. Still, there are some advantages to more, smaller clients:
- You’re a lot less tied to each of those clients. If a client ghosts you, it’s not that big of a deal if they only represent 2% of your income. If you decide to implement a significant rate increase, you can afford to lose a few clients if you’re working for 10 clients a month, which is not true if you’re working for three clients.
- Your risk is much more diversified. In the past month in the U.S., we’ve seen previously ultra-stable sectors (international development, medical research, the government itself) essentially crumble. If you have three clients and they’re all USAID-funded NGOs, you’re in a very tough situation right now. Risk-spreading can be a very good thing. Personally I prefer to diversify in terms of services: translation, interpreting, and teaching/writing/consulting, but you can also diversify by working for 50 clients a year instead of the 19 clients I worked for last year.
My method
Here’s what I do, which doesn’t mean you should do the same thing; it’s just an example.
- I’m a lot more receptive to “whale” clients than I used to be, simply because I enjoy working with clients who really feel like partners. I also think this is worth considering: in the U.S., you can be let go from a salaried job without a whole lot more notice than a freelance client would give. This is really different in a lot of other countries, but in the U.S., if you’re an “at will” employee (meaning your employment contract is not for a fixed term), your employer can terminate you with no notice at all. Meaning that you basically have one “client” that represents 100% of your income and has no ongoing obligation to keep you. That perspective has made me less afraid of having large clients.
- If I had to put some numbers on it, I’d say that the ideal number of significant clients is between three and six. We’re always going to have random and one-off clients. In fact, I enjoy working with individuals, who are nearly always one-off clients. But here, I’m talking about your “backbone” clients. I’d say that ideally, you want to be earning 60-80% of your income from three to six regular clients, then filling in the remaining 20-40% with one-off or sporadic clients.
- To protect myself against the sudden loss of a major client, I maintain a significant ($10,000) business savings account, and I’m always thinking about a couple of things: who I might try to work for if one of my major clients dissolved, and whether I have any clients I could upgrade to “major” in that situation. I honestly feel like my business savings account is the best weapon here, because I’m not afraid of how I would pay the bills next month if a major client dropped me tomorrow.
I hope these tips are helpful if you’re thinking about your own mix of clients!
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