Tariffs and rates: how to do it? Thread poster: Laura Maria Nicosia (X)
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Laura Maria Nicosia (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:58
English to Italian
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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 ▲ Collapse
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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. ▲ Collapse
| | | | David Young (X)
Denmark
Local time: 15:58
Danish to English
| 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... See more 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. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 16:58
Turkish to English
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| 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
Cyprus
Local time: 16:58
Turkish to English
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| Agencies just want a blanket rate | Nov 26, 2009 |
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.
| | | | | 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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