Tariffs and rates: how to do it?
Tópico cartaz: Laura Maria Nicosia (X)
Laura Maria Nicosia (X)
Laura Maria Nicosia (X)  Identity Verified
Reino Unido
Local time: 00:01
inglês para italiano
+ ...
Nov 25, 2009

Dear all,

I am a young translator and I just got my first job as a freelance.

Although I'm very happy and excitedI have a problem. The agency asked me about my tariffs and I don't know how to answer them.

I know that you can have tariffs by word, page, hour, so how should I charge them??
I mean which is the bes way to establish your own tariffs???
And then also sometimes th
... See more
Dear all,

I am a young translator and I just got my first job as a freelance.

Although I'm very happy and excitedI have a problem. The agency asked me about my tariffs and I don't know how to answer them.

I know that you can have tariffs by word, page, hour, so how should I charge them??
I mean which is the bes way to establish your own tariffs???
And then also sometimes they ask you how many words you are able to translate per hour. To be hones I have no idea?

I would appreciate if you could give me any useful advice about this.

LAura NIcosia
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Inaki Alvarez
Inaki Alvarez
Espanha
Local time: 01:01
inglês para espanhol
Rates Nov 25, 2009

Hi Laura,

In my combination (English into Spanish), I would say that anything from 0.09 €/word upwards. I charge 0.12 €/word for work in my fields.

Regarding the words per hour, that will take you sometime to figure it out. At the beginning you will probably work at a slower pace and eventually you will get more efficient. I can do about 2000/3000 words per day, if it is a technical document (long one) like a manual, I can do up to 4000 words.

Ah! and
... See more
Hi Laura,

In my combination (English into Spanish), I would say that anything from 0.09 €/word upwards. I charge 0.12 €/word for work in my fields.

Regarding the words per hour, that will take you sometime to figure it out. At the beginning you will probably work at a slower pace and eventually you will get more efficient. I can do about 2000/3000 words per day, if it is a technical document (long one) like a manual, I can do up to 4000 words.

Ah! and translate only within your specialties.
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David Young (X)
David Young (X)  Identity Verified
Dinamarca
Local time: 01:01
dinamarquês para inglês
Sit down and work it out Nov 25, 2009

Congratulations on your first freelance job, Laura. Let's hope it leads shortly to your first book! Did you get it without quoting or did you just accept the agency's offer?
There are no short cuts. You just have to sit down and translate for a few hours, see how much you get done in the time and average it. MS Word will tell you how many words there are. For what it's worth, my words per hour varies between 250 and 400 after proofreading and revision, depending on (a) how technical i
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Congratulations on your first freelance job, Laura. Let's hope it leads shortly to your first book! Did you get it without quoting or did you just accept the agency's offer?
There are no short cuts. You just have to sit down and translate for a few hours, see how much you get done in the time and average it. MS Word will tell you how many words there are. For what it's worth, my words per hour varies between 250 and 400 after proofreading and revision, depending on (a) how technical it is, (b) how much of the vocabulary is already in my glossary, (c) how many distractions I find on the internet and (d) how much wine I drank the night before.
Then ask yourself how much you want to be paid - I guarantee you that no agency will pay you what you want. I'm always being told by agencies that my rates are "above the market average", which is nice to know. My response to this is usually to quote the old adage about peanuts and monkeys - doesn't exactly get me many jobs but makes me feel better.
Then see how the rate you want compares with others in your language pairs - I imagine there will be a fair variation, but it's useful to see if you wildly differ from others.
I usually quote a rate per word, but I have been asked to quote a rate in "characters without spaces" - which always amuses me because Word counts commas and full stops so you feel like you're getting paid for translating them too. Mind you, Danish punctuation rules seem so totally insane that translating the punctuation is actually part of the exercise.
Good luck with the job(s) and welcome to proz - even if it doesn't bring you any work, it's a great place to hang out.
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Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton  Identity Verified
Chipre
Local time: 02:01
turco para inglês
+ ...
From my own website Nov 26, 2009

The following may give you food for thought:

http://www.timdrayton.com/2.html


 
Andrew Steel
Andrew Steel  Identity Verified
Espanha
Local time: 01:01
espanhol para inglês
Take a look at the free CalPro rate calculator Nov 26, 2009

Laura,

The free CalPro rate calculator was created to help you answer exactly those questions.

It's available for download from the website run by Asetrad, Spain's national translators' association:

http://www.asetrad.org/PDFs/CalPro_v1.3_(EN-GB).xls



Andrew


 
Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton  Identity Verified
Chipre
Local time: 02:01
turco para inglês
+ ...
Agencies just want a blanket rate Nov 26, 2009

Tim Drayton wrote:

The following may give you food for thought:

http://www.timdrayton.com/2.html


PS - Agencies, in my experience, do not want anything so complicated. They just expect you state your 'rate', e.g. 'x per 1000 source words', or 'x per target word'. I would make sure, if you agree to work on a word/1000 word basis, to specify whether this is for source or target words to avoid later confusion.


 
philgoddard
philgoddard
Estados Unidos
alemão para inglês
+ ...
Source/target Dec 6, 2009

I would ask them whether they charge their clients by source or target wordcount, and then use the same basis myself. In English to Spanish and Italian, target is likely to be more lucrative because these two languages are more wordy than English.
Good luck!


 


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Tariffs and rates: how to do it?






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