As a freelancer, how are your rates and your sanity related? Here’s how:
I’m a fan of work/life balance, or however you want to phrase it (I know, there really is no balance, there are only choices that we have to be clear about!). I love my job and I find it fulfilling, but I also don’t want to look up from the screen in 10 years and expect everyone and everything I care about to have paused. I know that I need (and want) to enjoy the people in my life now, and that I don’t want to put off all of my non-work goals for the future. When people ask, “How do you find the time, and how can you afford to take an actual vacation/pursue your non-work interests/not work 60 hours a week?” here’s my answer:
I set my rates so that I can reach my target income by billing (not working, billing) about 25 hours a week, and then I actively seek out clients who will pay those rates. That’s what allows me to reach my financial goals without working a million hours.
How many hours a week you can bill depends on who you work for. If you work for direct clients or individuals, I think you’ll probably spend at least 40% of your time, and perhaps closer to 50%, on non-billable tasks: things like marketing, professional development, networking, issuing quotes, e-mailing with clients, doing research, accounting, etc. If you work for agencies, you may be able to bump your billable hours up to 75% of your time or more, because your administrative overhead will be much lower.
Setting your rates so that you can reach your financial goals while leaving yourself a “buffer” of non-billable time is what will save your sanity as a freelancer. If you have to bill 40 or more hours a week in order to reach your financial goals, it’s not surprising if you’re currently losing your mind. That leaves you no time for non-billable work, and more importantly no time to market to better-paying clients.
The key here is twofold:
-Know what hourly rate (or the per-word equivalent) you need to charge in order to reach your target income. To calculate this really quickly, start with your target gross income (let’s say $100,000), divide by the number of weeks you want to work (let’s say 48), and then divide by the number of hours you want to bill (let’s say 25), which would give you an hourly rate of $83.
-Actively market to clients who will pay that rate. And remember, you don’t need 500 clients. You only need enough clients to create a sustainable income base. For most freelancers, I’m guessing that’s 3-7 regular clients plus some at other tiers. Surely there are three to seven clients in the world who have interesting work and will pay what you want to earn!
Rates
Are pandemic discounts a good idea?
The pandemic is doing odd things to people’s freelance businesses: something I’ve discussed in a pandemic roundtable podcast, and a blog post. About all that can be said is that some things are up and others are down. I’ve heard from multiple freelancers (translators and interpreters) who’ve never been busier, and from others who are considering a career change because their businesses have crashed. It really just depends on who you work for and how your clients, or your clients’ clients, have been affected by the pandemic.
In my case, what was true in June — direct client work stable, agency work slim to nonexistent, court interpreting work slim to nonexistent, online courses selling out as fast as I can get them posted — held true until this month, when I landed a large new agency client. More on that below.
Let’s talk about discounts in general
By far one of the biggest questions on freelancers’ minds seems to be: should I offer a pandemic discount? Former students have told me that their clients are pressuring them for pandemic discounts; others whose work volume is way down wonder if discounts might help it rebound. Let’s take a look:
- Most importantly, never give a discount unless there’s a business case for you to do so. Make sure you can complete the sentence, “I am offering this discount because…” It always irks me when freelancers say, “The client made me lower my rates (do extra work without extra pay/agree to be paid by the word for editing/etc. etc.).” No, sorry, the client didn’t make you do that, because you’re not even their employee, much less their indentured servant. The client asked for that, and you said yes, or at least did not say no. So first, make sure that you are intentionally offering a discount for a specific reason.
- Second, remember that there can be economic reasons for not offering discounts, and there can be non-economic reasons for offering discounts. Here’s what I mean: if your work volume is low, consider whether you’d in fact be better off raising your rates and looking for higher-paying clients, rather than offering discounts to your current clients. In my case, I offered a new agency client a discount for a non-economic reason: because, for a while, I’ve had a goal of landing a new high-volume agency client, especially since one of my main direct clients (a grant-funded NGO) is winding down their work on the project I translate for. My income this year will be almost exactly what it was last year, which I’ll put in the “win” column considering the pandemic and that I’m in grad school. I didn’t have an economic reason to offer this client a discount. But for various reasons, I’ve been interested in landing a new agency client with large international development projects, so I jumped at the chance to do that, and I offered them a rate that “split the difference” between their ideal rate and mine. In the end, I think both parties were happy.
- Third, remember that if you look for lower-paying work, you’re likely to find it. And then…you’re stuck doing that work, putting in longer hours for less money, perhaps resenting it, and so on. There are valid reasons to give discounts, but before you take a self-inflicted pay cut, make sure you’re clear about your reasons.
Is the pandemic itself a reason to give a discount?
Honestly, this depends very much on the sectors in which you work. If clients are approaching you, claiming that their own business has been affected by the pandemic and thus they want lower rates from you, that might or might not be true. If they’re in the hotel industry, or commercial real estate, or aviation, then they are probably correct (which still doesn’t mean that you have to offer a discount; it just means that the client’s revenue is probably down by quite a bit). If they’re in the medical supply or online education sectors, then it’s a different story. Yes, lots of businesses have gone, or will go bankrupt because of the pandemic. But it’s simply not true that all businesses are suffering: if you bought Zoom stock a year ago today, you would have paid around $50; today, over $400. Not every industry has been affected equally.
And again, the client’s financial situation is not your problem. Your financial situation is very much your problem. But it’s worth considering whether your clients’ businesses have actually been affected.
What’s your mental state right now?
This is a non-economic factor worth mentioning. The other day, a former student told me that she offered her biggest client a pandemic discount, because she’s homeschooling two kids, feels constantly stressed out, and needs a steady flow of work that she can do without too much extra stress. Her take: now is not the time for a demanding new client, even if they pay well. Fair enough. I’m on board with that line of reasoning.
Could some sectors have a delayed reaction to the pandemic?
This is something I think about a lot. For example, my international development work is relatively unaffected at the moment, and I’ve even landed a new client. But I wonder if, because NGOs tend to operate on long funding cycles — sometimes three years or more — there could be a bit of a boomerang effect next year or even later than that. I really don’t know.
Is it better to just look for new clients?
This is always the question: when are you better off sticking with a long-term client who is easy to work with and sends you lots of work (but asks for a discount), versus looking for new, higher-paying clients. Of course there is not a yes/no answer to this, but I’d consider factors such as:
- Is this client’s request based on their specific situation, or do you work in a sector that’s been hard-hit by the pandemic in general?
- What is your financial cushion like right now? Again, there’s a huge range: if your spouse has been unemployed for six months with no end in sight, now may be a time to stick with the bird in the hand. If you’ve been earning the same as before the pandemic but spending less because there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do (this is the case at my house!), perhaps it’s a good time to make the leap.
- How much time and energy do you have for marketing? Realistically, it’s a very tough time to be a freelancer if you have young kids doing online school from home. That’s a valid consideration right now.
- What new clients would you market to, and what’s your pitch? Here again, you want to think in a sector-specific way. With the recent news about highly-effective vaccine trials, it seems like there’s at least a shred of a chance that we might see the other side of the pandemic in mid to late 2021 (is that wishy-washy enough…I’m trying not to make predictions here!). So it might be worth doing some “get ready for the rebound” marketing to industries that have been hard-hit. Or those industries may be reeling so badly that you don’t want to rub salt in the wound. That’s something that you need to research and think about on an individual basis.
Readers, over to you: your thoughts on pandemic discounts?
Should you post your translation rates on your website?
A reader asks: Should I post my translation rates on my website? I feel like this could discourage some of the low-balling clients I don’t want to work with, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. Let’s take a look!
Why might you WANT to post your rates?
Posting your rates has a few advantages:
- If potential clients look at your posted rates, they have some idea what you charge. Your posted rates might not align exactly with what that client needs, but they might help answer the question, “Is this translator in my budget?”
- Posted rates can dissuade “tire-kickers”–potential clients who take up a lot of your time preparing a complicated quote, then don’t turn out to be serious about their project
- Many translators fantasize that posting their rates will free them from negotiation–a process that many freelancers find excruciating. This may or may not be a valid reason to post your rates (more below)
Why might you NOT want to post your rates?
Well, a bunch of reasons:
- Once you post your rates, it’s hard to charge more than what you’ve posted. A potential client may be thrilled if you charge less than what you’ve posted, but they may (somewhat understandably) feel a bait-and-switch coming if you charge more
- Posted rates lock you in; either you have to post a rate for every single factor in a project that might cause you to charge more (rush, complicated formatting, PDFs, documents requiring a lot of research, handwritten documents, and so on), or you have to explain to the potential client why you’re not charging the posted rate
- Posted rates don’t necessarily help clients–especially direct clients who may not know much about translation–answer the all-important question, “How much is it going to cost me to get this thing translated?” Even if you say that you charge per word, many clients still won’t understand what that means; you’ll get questions (as I once did) like, “Do you charge for the little words?”
- In my experience, most clients will still contact you for a quote. To be honest, I have direct clients who I charge by the word at a per-word price that we agree on for the entire year, and they still e-mail me their files and ask how much it’s going to cost to translate them. So I’m skeptical that listing your per-word rate will result in fewer requests for custom quotes.
- Posting your rates closes off the best option for raising your rates, which is to try a higher rate with a new client when you’re already busy. If the new client saw the rate on your website, that’s what they’re going to expect.
Situations in which it’s helpful to post your rates
I think it’s almost never helpful to post your rates, for the reasons mentioned above. The only exception is a service for which you always charge the same thing, no questions asked: like X to translate a one-page official document, or X for a full-day conference interpreting assignment. If you never deviate from that price, go ahead and post it. For services like official document translation, posting your rates can streamline the process, so that you have as little unbillable time as possible, which is a good thing.
I feel torn here, because I’m a fan of rate transparency–I will tell pretty much any other translator what I charge, but I’m hesitant to post my rates on my website, mainly because every project–even a one-page birth certificate–is so different that I don’t like being locked in.
Situations in which you shouldn’t post your rates
If you want the flexibility to charge different rates to different clients, or different rates on different projects, don’t post your rates. It locks you in, and it’s unlikely to free you from having to issue custom quotes, at least to new clients.
Readers, over to you: any thoughts on posting or not posting your rates?
How much do freelance translators earn? Is it enough? 2018 edition
Back in 2011, I wrote this post about how much freelance translators earn. After almost seven years, it’s still the most popular post on this site, with over 21,000 views. A reader recently sent me a series of questions about translator income:
“I’m in college and deciding whether to try to make a career as a freelance translator or interpreter. I’m wondering about income potential. How much do you think a freelance translator just starting out can expect to make? If it’s OK for me to ask, how much do you make? And how much of your income comes from translation versus other things? Do you feel downward price pressure from clients? How much do translators and interpreters with in-house jobs make?”
Those are all good questions, young translator, so let’s take a look at what I wrote in 2011 and do a bit of an update.
The most recent American Translators Association compensation survey is from 2015, using respondents’ self-reported income data from 2014. Anyone can read the executive summary here, and ATA members can read the full report here. If you just want the gross income takeaways, ATA-certified translators reported that they earned about $54,000 a year, and non-ATA certified translators reported earning about $45,000 a year. We (I say “we” here in that I’m the current ATA President) are always looking to refine the survey questions for the next time around. One case in point: the ATA survey allows users only to choose between “full time” and “part time” status, with no gradations therein. And, for example, I work about 35 hours a week with 6-8 weeks of vacation a year. I consider that full time, but a lot of people would call that part time. However, this survey gives a good snapshot of T&I income levels for people who are freelancers, private sector employees, government employees, educators, and company owners.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics also has data on translators and interpreters. Their average of $46,000 a year falls below the average reported by ATA-certified translators on the ATA survey, but above that of non-certified translators. There’s a big asterisk here–to my knowledge (which is certainly not always correct!), the BLS data excludes both independent contractors and government employees, which essentially means most translators in the US. ATA is approximately 70% independent contractors, and I’d venture a guess that federal employees are some of the higher-paid translators and interpreters in the US, so this data is certainly skewed if those exclusions apply.
The Authors Guild recently did a survey of literary translators’ income, and the German literary translators association did the same in Germany. You can read an interesting summary of the results of both surveys in Slator. The numbers there appear dismal, with two-thirds of respondents to the Authors Guild survey reporting that they earned less than $20,000 last year from literary translation. However, the catch is that only 7% of respondents reported that literary translation is their only source of income. Still, I think it’s safe to say that rates for literary translation were not stratospheric to start out with, and are not rising.
Just for kicks, you can also cruise sites like Glassdoor, and see what they think translators and interpreters are getting paid. When I did this just now, they seem to be using the BLS average as their reported average salary, but there are definitely some decently-paying jobs listed on there, in the $75,000-$90,000 a year range.
My take
I don’t mind talking about what I earn. For context, here are my key stats from 2017:
-My gross income is in the low six figures and has remained steady for the past several years
-As mentioned above, I work about 35 hours a week and take 6-8 weeks of vacation
-In 2017, about 60% of my income came from translation and about 40% from book royalties, course registrations, and consulting
-I work almost exclusively with direct clients and individuals; at this point I have only two to three agency clients, and only one of those represents more than a few thousand dollars in income
-I do not make a concerted effort to increase my income, because I earn enough to meet my financial goals, and because a high quality of life, including significant amounts of time for my family and non-work interests, is very important to me
What’s the magic number?
In my opinion, many translators radically underestimate how much they need to earn in order to achieve a similar level of financial security to someone with a traditional job. One of the reasons I’ve pushed myself to earn in the low six figures is that that number gives me a level of financial security that I’m happy with. My family has savings. I can afford to take time off. I don’t worry about what would happen if I got sick and couldn’t work for three or six months. That was certainly not true when I started freelancing; but lots of translators get stuck in that rut. They’re perpetually in survival mode, one financial disaster away from taking on credit card debt or having to borrow money from family or friends to get by. After 15 years of freelancing, I don’t want that kind of worry. That’s part of the reason that I focus on direct clients whose budgets allow me to earn a healthy income.
At the same time, I think there’s nothing wrong with decreasing your living expenses so that you don’t need to earn a high income. With my daughter halfway through high school, I can see a point such as that in my own future–where I might make a deliberate decision to do something like rent our house out, hit the road for a year, and live off a lot less money. No problem there.
But for most freelancers, I’m going to say that in order to achieve a similar level of financial security to someone with a traditional job, you need to be earning in the range of $75,000-$90,000 a year, unless you have very modest financial needs or another source of income. I think that 75-90K is a good goal to aim for, and I think it’s realistic for most people who are good at the job, market themselves assertively, and make a concerted effort to move into higher-paying markets.
Finally, I see–among other translators I know and among students in my classes–a lot of income polarization in our industry. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does. But I hear from some translators that they earn well into the six figures while working primarily or exclusively for their long-term clients, doing very little marketing, and not needing to work crazy hours. I hear from other translators that they struggle to earn enough to live on, despite doing what they perceive as a fair amount of marketing, and that they feel downward price pressure from nearly all of their clients. This is a complex issue and perhaps deserves its own post.
Over to you, readers. Thoughts on these income-related issues?
Can you give us a quote and a turnaround time?
“Can you give us a quote and a turnaround time?” As freelancers, we hear or read those words a lot: a client, or prospective client, has a document that they need translated, and they want to know about how long it’s going to take, and about how much it’s going to cost. So, when you’re on the receiving end of that request, what’s the best way to proceed? Let’s look at a few options.
You could pick up the phone. If you have a confident but non-pushy phone manner, a phone call makes an immediate personal connection. “Just wanted to touch base about your document and ask you a few questions that will help me get a better sense of what you’re looking for. What’s the purpose of the translation? What’s the deadline?” On the plus side, you’re making the effort to make this personal connection, and you’re getting a better sense of what the client is actually looking for (which may be different from what they think or say that they’re looking for). On the minus side, the potential client might view the call as mildly invasive (if they’re thinking “just tell me how long it’s going to take and how much it’s going to cost”). You also need to make sure that you don’t sound awkward or overly salesy on the phone.
You could give them a brief and direct answer. It’s going to cost X, and it’s going to take X business days from your go-ahead. On the plus side, this is easy for the client to digest and respects the client’s time. On the minus side, there is no engagement here: the interaction is purely transactional (price and speed), and in a sense, encourages the client to select a translator based simply on those transactional factors. As an aside, *never* give a hard deadline (“next Tuesday”), because you don’t know when the client is going to respond. Always frame it as “X days from your go-ahead.”
You could give them a less brief, but still direct answer. In my unscientific tests, I think that most clients respond better to multiple pricing options, even if the “options” are a bit of a stretch. For example if a client asks for a quote for a 10,000 word document, I’ll often say, “My normally turnaround time for 10,000 words is five business days, and the cost would be X. However I could potentially translate this in four business days, for which the cost would be X. And if you’re not on a tight deadline and you have eight business days, the cost would be X.” I think that simply seeing multiple options makes the client feel that you’re flexible (even if the prices are not wildly different), and avoids a “take it or leave it” feeling.
You could give a ballpark answer. It’s generally accepted in the negotiating world that the first person to say an actual number (“it’s going to cost…”) is at a disadvantage. Because if you quote less than what the client was willing to pay, you’ve left money on the table. This is tricky: while it’s certainly possible to ask the client, “What’s your budget?” or “If you work with translators now, what are you paying them?,” it’s generally the service-provider who is expected to say a number first. I like the “what’s your budget” approach in theory, but I’d be very turned off if I wanted to hire a new accountant, asked about her/his rates, and was then asked, “What were you planning on paying to get your taxes done?” It’s a little odd.
Leave a little wiggle room if you want to. When I give a quote to a new client who looks promising (meaning that I’m very interested in their work), I always include phrasing such as, “If this is outside your budget, just let me know and we can talk further.” I’m not saying, “If this is too expensive, just say the word and I’ll charge less.” I’m just saying that we can talk about it. Maybe I can negotiate a longer deadline; or maybe I can ask about their budget and suggest what I could do for that amount of money. You’re not required to leave wiggle room, but it’s an option.
Readers, any other thoughts on requests for quotes?