| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | Is $ 0.05 per source word a "fair amount" for translators? Thread poster: Chiara Deaglio
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Michael Beijer 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:38
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
$0.035, for your language pair and direction, is ludicrous. That works out at around €0.027!
However, it is important to figure out how good you are first, as I am sure there are also translators out there who deserve $0.027.
German/English is one of the lucky pairs. If you are any good at all, you should be able to to charge a lot more than €0.027. I work in another ‘blessed’ language pair: Dutch-English, where anything below €0.08 is too low, at least for m... See more $0.035, for your language pair and direction, is ludicrous. That works out at around €0.027!
However, it is important to figure out how good you are first, as I am sure there are also translators out there who deserve $0.027.
German/English is one of the lucky pairs. If you are any good at all, you should be able to to charge a lot more than €0.027. I work in another ‘blessed’ language pair: Dutch-English, where anything below €0.08 is too low, at least for me. I started out at around €0.06–€0.07, worked my way up through €0.08, then €0.09, €0.10 and beyond. I currently average at around €0.10, but have set my sights on €0.15 and beyond.
I would advise you to find a translator who (a) works in your language pair/direction and (b) seems to know what they are doing, and ask them if they would mind having a look at a sample translation of yours. This will offer you a quick way to see how much you are worth in the current market. A quick way to do this is via the Proz directory @ http://www.proz.com/translator-directory/?mode=filter&from=deu&to=eng&field= (have a look around there; maybe choose someone who charges higher than average, who has full profile and maybe a few WWAs, then send them a private message, offering to pay them for the trouble)
Another option is to ask via the Exchange thingee here on the site: http://www.proz.com/?sp=exchange
Michael ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Minimum level | Sep 25, 2014 |
Gabriele Demuth wrote:
Otherwise I believe that the earnings or rates of a translator should reflect their skill level as well as the level of education. Most translators, as far as I can judge, are educated people who have had another professional career. So why should people like that work for minimum wage or below? This is what I can achieve on sites like Elance or ODesk (it was a way in for me though). I did apply to agencies some months ago, but have not heard back from many, one suggested I set my rate at $0.035 per word?
You should consider the free option.
Now and then I am requested to fix/salvage/redo unsatisfactory translation work. Most of what I've seen done in my pair (EN-PTBR) at 5¢/word or less is about as good as (I mean as bad as) Google Translate's free automatic translation. The flaws presented by such cheap translation differ in their nature from GT's, however the overall quality is about the same.
So why waste 5¢/word or less on something one can get for free?
I suspect the next slot up, let's say it's 6¢/word should be a deserted chasm. Translators who can deliver better quality than machine translation move up, to create a distance. On the other hand, clients who accept sloppy translation move down.
If my suspicion is correct, in this specific language pair, a fully trained/qualified albeit completely inexperienced translator should charge at least 7¢/word.
Proz Community Rates for this pair seems to endorse that:
English to Portuguese:
Average standard: $0.11/wd
Average minimum: $0.08/wd
Of course, as a translator develops expertise/experience beyond average, s/he will also go beyond the average rate.
This should answer the OP question, provided the specific language pair market is considered.
[Edited at 2014-09-25 15:54 GMT]
| | | | | Thanks Michael! | Sep 25, 2014 |
That is a good idea, in terms of what to charge!
I am enrolled on a course for the DipTrans and get some feedback there. Also, I did have quite a bit of feedback from clients who I worked for (for this hideous rate), I did win contracts after doing test translations, including a book. So, although I don't consider myself experienced yet, I do think that I am worth more than $0.03.
| | | | gangels (X)
Local time: 00:38
German to English
+ ...
| Standing up to ridiculous rates | Sep 28, 2014 |
The subject would be a nonentity if ALL translators stood united in accepting NO LESS than $0.10/word or $30.00/hour for proofreading/editing, period.
When I started out in the late 1980s in Chicago, the going rate was $0.10/word of the target language, no kidding. I am sure there are still witnesses around who could corroborate this fact. Enough said.
Lately, agencies are expecting translators to download/upload files (also invoices) from and to various proprietary systems or module... See more The subject would be a nonentity if ALL translators stood united in accepting NO LESS than $0.10/word or $30.00/hour for proofreading/editing, period.
When I started out in the late 1980s in Chicago, the going rate was $0.10/word of the target language, no kidding. I am sure there are still witnesses around who could corroborate this fact. Enough said.
Lately, agencies are expecting translators to download/upload files (also invoices) from and to various proprietary systems or modules instead of sending the files directly to you. More often than not their instructions are confusing or indeed bewildering, wasting the translator's time by having to go back and forth and in the end checking with the outsourcer.
I make it now a point refusing to go along with being an unpaid administrative assistant for those outsourcers. If you are firm, they invariably will yield and send you the files straight up, because they are always in a hurry to get the translation done. How they process or incorporate the end product into their various systems should be their problem, not the translator's.
Any thoughts on this? ▲ Collapse
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| Great in theory ... | Sep 28, 2014 |
gangels wrote:
The subject would be a nonentity if ALL translators stood united in accepting NO LESS than $0.10/word or $30.00/hour for proofreading/editing, period.
When I started out in the late 1980s in Chicago, the going rate was $0.10/word of the target language, no kidding. I am sure there are still witnesses around who could corroborate this fact. Enough said.
Lately, agencies are expecting translators to download/upload files (also invoices) from and to various proprietary systems or modules instead of sending the files directly to you. More often than not their instructions are confusing or indeed bewildering, wasting the translator's time by having to go back and forth and in the end checking with the outsourcer.
I make it now a point refusing to go along with being an unpaid administrative assistant for those outsourcers. If you are firm, they invariably will yield and send you the files straight up, because they are always in a hurry to get the translation done. How they process or incorporate the end product into their various systems should be their problem, not the translator's.
Any thoughts on this?
Yes, that would be ideal, but before you ask for such a minimum fee, you have to know what it should be ... I started with google and found websites where $0.04 per word is in the upper band!!! Then, what about someone starting out with not much of a specialist field vs. the experienced translator with specialisms ... and what about the global market ... where some people are happy with less ... great idea, but how would you implement it.
| | | | | Theory can become reality if you try | Sep 28, 2014 |
Gabriele Demuth wrote: gangels wrote:
The subject would be a nonentity if ALL translators stood united in accepting NO LESS than $0.10/word or $30.00/hour for proofreading/editing, period.
When I started out in the late 1980s in Chicago, the going rate was $0.10/word of the target language, no kidding. I am sure there are still witnesses around who could corroborate this fact. Enough said.
Lately, agencies are expecting translators to download/upload files (also invoices) from and to various proprietary systems or modules instead of sending the files directly to you. More often than not their instructions are confusing or indeed bewildering, wasting the translator's time by having to go back and forth and in the end checking with the outsourcer.
I make it now a point refusing to go along with being an unpaid administrative assistant for those outsourcers. If you are firm, they invariably will yield and send you the files straight up, because they are always in a hurry to get the translation done. How they process or incorporate the end product into their various systems should be their problem, not the translator's.
Any thoughts on this? Yes, that would be ideal, but before you ask for such a minimum fee, you have to know what it should be ... I started with google and found websites where $0.04 per word is in the upper band!!! Then, what about someone starting out with not much of a specialist field vs. the experienced translator with specialisms ... and what about the global market ... where some people are happy with less ... great idea, but how would you implement it.
Hi Gabriele,
Each and every translator has to figure out what he or she charges in order to make this endeavor a respectful and successful (and I mean financially rewarding) career. That's my premise. In that regard, I don't need anyone telling me what a minimum wage is. In order to earn enough to live a happy life, not one of surviving from one day to the next, I wouldn't dream of working for a minimum wage. When you say "I started with google and found websites where $0.04 per word is in the upper band!!!," it has nothing to do with any successful translator's (or agency's) approach to the rates/prices he/she/it charges and it lacks complete respect and self-respect. It doesn't matter how many low-balling agencies or websites or translators are out there, you can't just argue that because you see this that it must be in some way justified, must be accepted by translators, or makes sense at all. It doesn't if you really think about what it is you are doing. Although I don't agree with everything in the article below, esp. when it comes to CAT tools and discounts, it gives you good advice on how to approach a successful career as a translator and to start figuring your rates correctly.
It's not about following what others are doing, it's about taking a real look at your situation, getting the best information and advice from people who have been doing this for a while and in a respectful way.
See: http://wiki.proz.com/wiki/index.php/Determining_your_rates_and_fees_as_a_translator
Then you say " ...what about someone starting out with not much of a specialist field vs. the experienced translator with specialisms?"
When I started out, I already had enough experience to provide accurate translations for the texts I chose to take on. And anyone starting out should only take on what she/he is comfortable with. That doesn't mean you can't get any jobs. No, arriving at the start of your professional career as a translator, you should have gone through a special process (in life and/or in education or both) that has prepared you for this. I wouldn't want to be in a situation where I accept work that is inadequate in order to accept/excuse inadequate rates, no matter where I stand in my career. When you decide to become a professional translator, you need to strive for doing and be able to do it right from the first job on, and because of this, you always deserve adequate compensation. Of course, you will gain more and more experience and be able to specialize, clients will start holding you in high regard, and you will be able to increase rates, not just for inflation but for the fact that you do and have been doing a great job. What it doesn't mean is that you should accept inadequate rates because you are new to the profession.
You then write "and what about the global market ... where some people are happy with less ... great idea, but how would you implement it."
You show me one professional translator who is happy with USD .04/word - I guarantee you will find none. And as far as the global market is concerned - I have to refer you back to what I said before - you can't just look at something without relating it to the consequences it has for your life. No one can deny that bad apples are spoiling the global market. But bending to these bad apples is no solution. You just enable these people by working for low rates. Look at me - I am still here and I won't budge.
If the whole market agrees to work for USD .000000000001/word, I'm not going to be part of it and no other professional will. Let me rephrase that. If the whole market agrees to work for inadequate rates that deny the translator a life he/she deserves (and that starts much earlier than at USD .04/word), I won't be there.
Then the market will crash.
So what septima has so eloquently suggested below, might once become reality. And I believe that the good translators don't have to get out and find other jobs - I believe there are already enough clients out there who realize the worth of our work. So when it gets hard to find jobs, we all need to find ways to get through, but lowering our rates and working to increase someone else's profits who basically does nothing else but write emails and shift money around, pays late and doesn't give a flying #%42 about you is not the way. Let the ones who don't know what they're doing work for low rates, and stay your course. It's the only way to be successful.
In one sense, Gangels' advice is not bad. If every translator would do that, we wouldn't have to worry about abominably low rates and low-balling shysters. But in another sense, I rather distinguish myself clearly from those who don't know or don't want to know any better. It adds to my professionalism and shows the difference much more clearly.
Here is what septima wrote:
http://www.proz.com/forum/money_matters/211936-rates_going_down-page5.html
Dec 30, 2013
Fear not
Don't concern yourself about rates.
A real rain is going to come and wash this translation business clean of all that's bad about it, rotten. The amateurs, the subservient, the discount beggars. The moonlighting part-timers, the google-translators, the fake natives, the eager galley slaves. The post-editing monkeys in a cage, the marketers of many tongues and masters of none. The terminally blind led by the terminologically blind. The rejected and desperate, the otherwise unemployable, the slave masters and kitchen table agents. The secretaries, the sellers of false wares, the corrupt.
Yeah, rates are going down. For all those listed above.
But that's only the onset. Maybe there's five more years before the storm breaks in full. Maybe a little more. Maybe a lot less. But mark my words – everything you see here now will be ancient history by 2020. Dead. Forgotten.
The only translators left when it's over will be native speakers of their target, specialists in a field, 10+ years of experience, great writers, skillful researchers, vital parts of the economy, confident, proud, respected, and expensive.
So don't worry about rates now. Just try to be among them.
Or get out of the open marketplace already, before the rain comes.
[Edited at 2014-09-28 15:22 GMT]
| | | | | Thanks Bernhard! | Sep 28, 2014 |
Thanks for your links and insights, I will have a look.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to defend low rates, neither was I being pessimistic. I was merely stating what I have experienced so far - while trying to gain some experience. What kind of agency would give me a job without any experience?
I enjoy translating, but if $0.03 or $0.04 was all I could get in the long run I wouldn't bother and go back to teaching.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 07:38
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| An agency that needs your services | Sep 28, 2014 |
Gabriele Demuth wrote:
What kind of agency would give me a job without any experience?
Pretty much any type of agency. It's just a case of being in the right place at the right time, and presenting a professional service offer.
If they need a short, uncomplicated piece of translating done on a bank holiday, and all their established providers say "Sorry!", they'll look elsewhere. That's where your carefully prepared profile text (here or wherever your "professional showcase" is) and CV, immaculate samples, great introductory letter, etc come into play. Even though they know you have no experience they might well be prepared to take the risk. But low rates won't encourage them to take that risk; they'll discourage them!
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Gabriele Demuth wrote:
Thanks for your links and insights, I will have a look.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to defend low rates, neither was I being pessimistic. I was merely stating what I have experienced so far - while trying to gain some experience. What kind of agency would give me a job without any experience?
I enjoy translating, but if $0.03 or $0.04 was all I could get in the long run I wouldn't bother and go back to teaching.
There's no need for a translator to work at all at these rates. Find the confidence to expect more!
When I started out I quoted sustainable rates for someone living in Norway, but offered to do a small amonunt of work at no charge. I was confident that the clients would come back once they understood the quality of my work, and told them so. Many here will be reading this with a frown of disgust, I'm sure, but for me this approach worked. It's hard to enter even the mid-range market as a translator with no experience, and this turned out to be a good way to at least get to present my work.
I checked out gengo.com after reading about it here. It's ridiculous. I was presented with a multiple choice test where I was expected to choose the best translation out of five equally terrible suggestions. Only one of the questions had a reasonably well translated alternaltive. I tried to choose the least offensive mistakes based on overall readability. I didn't pass!
Stay away. Don't let the pretty design fool you
| | | | | Thanks SteinarB! | Oct 8, 2014 |
I am well aware (now) that $0.03 or $0.04 is too low, however, I am still unsure where to place myself. This website suggests a minimum of $0.09 for my language pair. However, the rates agencies appear to offer here are much lower (0.06 or 0.07 on the job board). Someone else said that they started with $0.06 per word and increased their rates with experience. So maybe I should go with what is offered and see from there, it is still a lot more than I have worked for so far.
I gained... See more I am well aware (now) that $0.03 or $0.04 is too low, however, I am still unsure where to place myself. This website suggests a minimum of $0.09 for my language pair. However, the rates agencies appear to offer here are much lower (0.06 or 0.07 on the job board). Someone else said that they started with $0.06 per word and increased their rates with experience. So maybe I should go with what is offered and see from there, it is still a lot more than I have worked for so far.
I gained one client here who paid 0.08 Euro and was happy with the job, so maybe there will be more. Otherwise I am not sure whether I am pricing myself out of the market with $0.09 for someone with little experience. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Monika Soeren (X)
Germany
Local time: 08:38
Polish to German
+ ...
Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:
Maybe in the third world or developing countries.
Off-Topic: I find this reply a bit unfair. Are our Peers from those countries worse than us? They deserve fair amounts as well.
| | | | | Rate isn't always a guarantee for quality! | Oct 8, 2014 |
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Now and then I am requested to fix/salvage/redo unsatisfactory translation work. Most of what I've seen done in my pair (EN-PTBR) at 5¢/word or less is about as good as (I mean as bad as) Google Translate's free automatic translation. The flaws presented by such cheap translation differ in their nature from GT's, however the overall quality is about the same.
So why waste 5¢/word or less on something one can get for free?
I suspect the next slot up, let's say it's 6¢/word should be a deserted chasm. Translators who can deliver better quality than machine translation move up, to create a distance. On the other hand, clients who accept sloppy translation move down.
If my suspicion is correct, in this specific language pair, a fully trained/qualified albeit completely inexperienced translator should charge at least 7¢/word.
Proz Community Rates for this pair seems to endorse that:
English to Portuguese:
Average standard: $0.11/wd
Average minimum: $0.08/wd
Of course, as a translator develops expertise/experience beyond average, s/he will also go beyond the average rate.
This should answer the OP question, provided the specific language pair market is considered.
[Edited at 2014-09-25 15:54 GMT]
You seem to assume that everyone who works for low rates will deliver equally low quality, but you forget that behind every bid is a person, who may be starting out or may not be very skilled in negotiation ... therefore the question of the OP.
On sites like ODesk, where I got some work to start with no-one would get more than $0.03 or $0.04, but I don't think they are necessarily all bad, some are even very qualified. But I don't think good translators stay there for long, because it isn't worth their effort. On the other hand I have been asked to correct a translation by a person who had lots of 5-Star ratings from clients (I think it must have been just one client) but the translation was terrible and I had to rewrite it. It was an amazon listing and the client came back to me recently thanking me again. He must have sold his product? If he does come back to me in the future, at least I feel I can negotiate a good rate as I seem to have added value to his business.
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Gabriele Demuth wrote:
You seem to assume that everyone who works for low rates will deliver equally low quality, but you forget that behind every bid is a person, who may be starting out or may not be very skilled in negotiation ... therefore the question of the OP.
What I'm saying that now that Google Translate and perhaps other lesser MT contrivances have asymptotically developed to a certain level, from the limited sample of work assigned to me for redoing, and within my language pair (EN/PT), I am led to think that 0.5 of the market rate (assuming that Proz community rates represents it) is the cut point, where the overall translation quality provided by humans and computers is about the same.
Please keep in mind that the flaws are strikingly different in their nature. While humans will tend to be more mindful of grammar and 'making sense', they'll often indulge in making different guesses on the translation of the same word, and might be careless to the point of leaving some things out, on top of other shortcomings. On the other hand, machine translation will always be 100% consistent, in both its hits and misses. So we are comparing these two types of translation by their overall "grade", if there could be any.
The entire issue is that if I moved, say, from Sao Paulo to Tashkent tomorrow, I could go on translating EN/PT there, and it shouldn't make too much of a difference to most of my clients, provided I had a good Internet connection there and kept odd working hours. Ongoing globalization has ironed out many issues, however translation has its peculiar ones from being ubiquitous.
So why should a competent translator sell their wares for less than half of they are worth?
Again, in my pair (figures on my previous post), a fully qualified, yet possibly inexperienced translator, should charge at least 7¢ per word. As they gain experience and hone their skills, they may move up.
Think of it in terms of drinking water. If you can buy bottled water for half the regular price, however it has a rusty cap, and tastes like drawn from a polluted urban river, why not drink - for free - treated public utility water from any tap?
My stance is that if a translator can deliver acceptable (no matter how barely acceptable, however still acceptable) work, they should charge accordingly.
I don't know what's the "cut point" for other language pair, nor if it is influenced by the availability of amateur vs. professional translators, however it might be an interesting study.
I just had a surprise. Most Western translators tend to complain about the rates offered by translation agencies in India and China. So I checked the Proz community rates, and found surprisingly "normal" average rates (in USD/word):
English > Hindi = Std. 10¢ / Min. 8¢ (679 entries)
English > Chinese = Std. 11¢ / Min. 7¢ (4,562 entries)
So my take is that agencies offering 5¢/word or less are merely trying to fool naive or ignorant people who (think they) can translate. End-clients offering that are merely naive or ignorant themselves. And skilled translators who accept that will be merely underselling what they have to offer; it's their deliberate loss.
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 14:38
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
| The bottom line | Oct 8, 2014 |
If you're starting out, the absolute minimum that you should charge is the rate that comes out to an hourly income at least equal to what you might expect to make in full-time employment, commensurate to your skills and education, irrespective of any other factors that might prevent you from finding such employment.
Beyond that, it's your own game and you adjust your rates to reach your own equilibrium on workload and income.
| | | | | sometimes life forces you to accept 0.005 USD per word | Oct 9, 2014 |
Hi dear friends and colleagues,
Life is so complex. We might for hours indulge in philosophizing in an Anglo-Saxon capitalist manner on what our intellectual output is worth. But life often proves our expectations from the market are futile. Life is very complex. And you have to struggle to survive. When I was a graduate student in Turkey, I could not often find money to pay my monthly bills in the amount of 50 USD!!! And then I found a solution in translating for a translation agen... See more Hi dear friends and colleagues,
Life is so complex. We might for hours indulge in philosophizing in an Anglo-Saxon capitalist manner on what our intellectual output is worth. But life often proves our expectations from the market are futile. Life is very complex. And you have to struggle to survive. When I was a graduate student in Turkey, I could not often find money to pay my monthly bills in the amount of 50 USD!!! And then I found a solution in translating for a translation agency that paid 0.005 USD per word! I had to translate day in and night out just to pay my bills and not to die out of starvation!
The situation in Turkey has not changed very much since those dark days. There are still agencies that pay 0.005 USD per word.
So it is the very life that dictates us its rates!
[Edited at 2014-10-09 14:44 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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