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How much should I charge as a freelance translator starting out?
Thread poster: Louise Robinson (X)
Louise Robinson (X)
Louise Robinson (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
French to English
+ ...
Feb 19, 2019

Hi everyone, I am hoping you can help! I am a freelance translator who is just starting out. I have approached some companies and have been asked to send over my CV and my rates. I have recently finished university so am new to this industry and don't want to price myself too high and not get work or too low and be working for virtually no money.

My languages are French and Spanish which I appreciate is an already crowded market therefore prices may be lower than other languages. ... See more
Hi everyone, I am hoping you can help! I am a freelance translator who is just starting out. I have approached some companies and have been asked to send over my CV and my rates. I have recently finished university so am new to this industry and don't want to price myself too high and not get work or too low and be working for virtually no money.

My languages are French and Spanish which I appreciate is an already crowded market therefore prices may be lower than other languages.

Can anyone in the industry give me an insight into what they charge, what is acceptable, what is a good starting point, etc.?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Louise Feb 19, 2019

louiserobinson2 wrote:
Can anyone in the industry give me an insight into what they charge, what is acceptable, what is a good starting point, etc.?


Find out what is the average for your industry and language combination (e.g. here or here), and then charge two notches above it (and be willing to drop down to one notch above it, if clients ask for a lower rate). You'll miss out on some jobs, true, but the jobs that you'll miss out on are jobs that pay much less than the average rate.

The reason why you should not charge the average rate, or even slightly less than the average rate, is because it's not going to bring in that many more jobs than charging two notches above the average rate. If you charge the average rate (or slightly below it) you're throwing away money for no benefit.

You may find as a beginner translator that you're not getting as many jobs as you were hoping to get, and it's going to be tempting to think that the reason for that is your rate, but that is not so: it simply takes time to build up a client base. However, with an empty profile page on ProZ.com you're not going to get far.

You may also be tempted to think that you should charge less because you're a beginner, but that is unfair to established translators who charge more, and it just puts you in a lower bracket from which you'll never escape.


[Edited at 2019-02-19 10:30 GMT]


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Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
Member (2018)
French to English
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:) Feb 19, 2019

Welcome to the industry Louise! As someone who only started working full-time as a translator herself about 6 months ago, I know how daunting it can seem to set rates.

What helped me was the rates calculator tool on ProZ: https://search.proz.com/?sp=pfe/rates. Here, you can see the average rate as well as the minimum rate that the ProZ community reports that they set for each language
... See more
Welcome to the industry Louise! As someone who only started working full-time as a translator herself about 6 months ago, I know how daunting it can seem to set rates.

What helped me was the rates calculator tool on ProZ: https://search.proz.com/?sp=pfe/rates. Here, you can see the average rate as well as the minimum rate that the ProZ community reports that they set for each language pair. My advice to you is to go a bit above the minimum rate/just below the average rate and then make sure you set a threshold that you won't go below for when agencies try to haggle with you. If they take your initial rate then great! But it they don't you know you have a little room so that you can still accept work from them to get that all important experience and earn a decent amount.

I'd definitely work on filling up your ProZ profile too, a lot of agencies ask for a link to your profile so they can find out more about you

Good luck!
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Paula Graf
R. Lazur
 
Louise Robinson (X)
Louise Robinson (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Competitive pricing Feb 19, 2019

Thank you for your replies! I will definitely look at completing my profile ASAP.

I had a look at the rates calculator and see that it is all in $. Do you charge in dollars or sterling? Do you change your rates to suit the currency conversion?

For example, if I was to charge £0.10 per word for a French translation, is this extremely expensive or is this a competitive price?


 
Emily Gilby
Emily Gilby  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
Member (2018)
French to English
+ ...
£ Feb 19, 2019

Being that I'm also in the UK, I charge in GBP where possible. With the rates calculator you can just convert it into GBP

Unfortunately, I can't really say whether 0.10 GBP is a competitive rate, it really depends on your specialism. I'd recommend just finding somewhere in between the minimum and average rate and seeing what feedback you get from agencies, but remember, set a threshold and don't go below it, otherwis
... See more
Being that I'm also in the UK, I charge in GBP where possible. With the rates calculator you can just convert it into GBP

Unfortunately, I can't really say whether 0.10 GBP is a competitive rate, it really depends on your specialism. I'd recommend just finding somewhere in between the minimum and average rate and seeing what feedback you get from agencies, but remember, set a threshold and don't go below it, otherwise you'll end up working long hours (to begin with anyway as you get used to translating full time) for very little gains. You're a qualified professional and you shouldn't accept lower than what you feel you are worth! It's hard at first, but you start to get a feel for things once you start talking to some agencies.
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Paula Graf
R. Lazur
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Opinions Feb 19, 2019

Samuel Murray wrote:
You may also be tempted to think that you should charge less because you're a beginner, but that is unfair to established translators who charge more, and it just puts you in a lower bracket from which you'll never escape.

I don't agree. It's a legitimate way of getting your foot in the door. Raising your price later is as easy as firing off an email.

Established translators should be better and quicker than you and so have nothing to fear from you.

Louise Robinson wrote:
For example, if I was to charge £0.10 per word for a French translation, is this extremely expensive or is this a competitive price?

I can't see any agencies paying that much to a new translator for any language, let alone French.

I would go in just below average. That assumes that you are actually able to translate to a professional standard, which is unlikely without some training and experience - do you have that?


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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Louise Feb 19, 2019

Louise Robinson wrote:
I had a look at the rates calculator and see that it is all in $. Do you charge in dollars or sterling? Do you change your rates to suit the currency conversion?


The ProZ.com list of community rates is a bit simplistic because there are many variables that influence a rate. You can't really just use bank exchange rates to convert rates for one region to rates for another region.

Often, clients within a certain region will have certain rates that they consider cheap, normal or excessive. For example, $1 = £0.75, but that doesn't mean that a rate of $0.10 per word for a US client is equivalent to £75 per 1000 words for a UK client. In fact, my experience with my language combination is that UK rates tend to be lower than US rates (so in my case, a $0.10/word rate is more equivalent to £60/1000 words). In addition, I would have no hope of landing the identical job for anything over $0.06 per word if the client was an Egyptian agency, even though the currency (US dollar) is the same.

The translator sets the rate, so you're free to set your rate as anything, but if you want more clients to accept your rate, you have to realise that clients from different regions will have different rate acceptance thresholds.

Chris S wrote:
[Charging less as a beginner] is a legitimate way of getting your foot in the door. Raising your price later is as easy as firing off an email.


Louise, I think this is bad advice for a beginner. Clients tend to have limited budgets and they value reliability (read: predictability), so while you're free to "fire off an e-mail" to raise your rate, you should ask yourself what your client would do if you do. A client faced with a rate increase must choose between (a) getting less of their work translated or (b) seeking a translator they can afford.

Don't forget the principle of repeat clients vs once-off clients: clients are expensive to acquire, so you must aim to get multiple jobs out of a single client before they ditch you.

What you can do as a beginner is to propose a higher rate initially (i.e. in the first mail, or in the bid), but then allow your rate to be "negotiated downwards" to a rate that the client prefers. Clients love it when they can convince the translator to reduce the price. But don't say silly things like "this rate is negotiable", which clients believe is code for "I'm desperate and I'm willing to work for half". Let the client *ask* for a discount.

Louise Robinson wrote:
For example, if I was to charge £0.10 per word for a French translation, is this extremely expensive or is this a competitive price?


A bit expensive, even for an established translator. I checked the rates of the top 25 French-English translators living in the UK and they are mostly between £0.06 and £0.08 (as mentioned on their profile pages). Note, however: rates mentioned on profile pages may be quite a bit lower or slightly higher than what the translator actually charges, depending on the translator's price reporting strategy.


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Colleen Roach, PhD
Colleen Roach, PhD  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 01:06
French to English
+ ...
top 25 FR>ENG translators in UK? Feb 19, 2019

Samuel Murray wrote:


I checked the rates of the top 25 French-English translators living in the UK and they are mostly between £0.06 and £0.08 (as mentioned on their profile pages). Note, however: rates mentioned on profile pages may be quite a bit lower or slightly higher than what the translator actually charges, depending on the translator's price reporting strategy.



Samuel: what do you mean by the "top 25 French-English translators living in the UK?" How do you find this information on PROZ?

Thanks for all of your research on the rates' question. Colleen


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 09:06
Member (2003)
Danish to English
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Your work has the same value for the client as anyone else's Feb 19, 2019

As a freelancer you don't start as the office junior and work up. You are chief cook and bottlewasher as long as you are in business. It is not really easy to raise rates. (It is as easy to lose a client as sending an e-mail, if you are going to be cynical!)
Many translators raise rates chiefly by finding better clients along the way, and dropping the ones who pay the lowest rates, or who involve a lot of time-consuming hassle that they don't pay for. If you have worked for them for some
... See more
As a freelancer you don't start as the office junior and work up. You are chief cook and bottlewasher as long as you are in business. It is not really easy to raise rates. (It is as easy to lose a client as sending an e-mail, if you are going to be cynical!)
Many translators raise rates chiefly by finding better clients along the way, and dropping the ones who pay the lowest rates, or who involve a lot of time-consuming hassle that they don't pay for. If you have worked for them for some time, you may get a feeling that you could ask for a higher rate, but with others you get the feeling that it won't work!

Experience sometimes means you can work faster, but it sometimes means I am more cautious and spend time doing an extra check...

In the end, you deliver a job that is fit for purpose, and your translation has the same value for the client, no matter who did it. Newly qualified beginners have sometimes been taught about new developments that did not exist when older colleagues were training. So forget about beginners' rates, and charge as much as you can get clients to pay!

Setting your rates too low may put off clients who are really looking for quality - they know you have to earn a living and cover expenses. They are also the clients who will go on needing human translators as machines move in on the routine work. The others will try to press your rates down, so take the advice above on asking for a rate slightly above the average.

I set a rate high for a new client last week. I thought I had frightened her off, but she was just checking the budget... she agreed to my rate without a murmur.

Best of luck!
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Fiona Grace Peterson
Fiona Grace Peterson  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 09:06
Italian to English
Learning curve Feb 19, 2019

Christine Andersen wrote:

As a freelancer you don't start as the office junior and work up.


Once I would have agreed with you, but now I'm not sure. While I agree that all translators should be paid what they are worth, what IS that worth for a new translator starting out? Once we have been in the business for a long time, we forget just how much we have learned over the course of our career, and how much less work we are for agencies than people just starting out. Proofreading is probably going to be more onerous for work done by those with little experience; there's a reason why more experienced people in practically every profession get paid more than those just starting out.

Of course I generalise; some so-called "experts" are nothing of the sort, while I am sure there are some "inexperienced" translators who are very good at their job.

I think we need to change our mindset and think in terms of the quality we are providing to clients rather than the years we have been in business, since the two do not always coincide. Apart from the fact that newcomers are pretty much forced to charge lower rates, because they have less to offer, unless of course they come to the profession with some kind of specialist knowledge they can apply.


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Louise Robinson (X)
Louise Robinson (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks for all the advice Feb 19, 2019

Thank you so much for all the advice! It can be daunting not knowing where to start so I appreciate you all taking the time to reply.

Christine, I love your outlook in that we all provide the same service and deserve to get paid. Setting a higher rate and allowing room for negotiation seems to be a good starting place.

Thank you all again for your advice!


 
Yoana Ivanova
Yoana Ivanova  Identity Verified
Estonia
Local time: 10:06
English to Bulgarian
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A lot of good points were made Feb 19, 2019

This forum thread must be the first time I've seen experienced translators who understand what it's like for people starting out.

I have two years of experience and here on Proz I look like a joke compared to the leading translators with 20-30-40 years of experience. I can't afford to charge what they do, I can't apply to any jobs that require X years of experience or written references, so I have to take what I can get. No agency thinks I'll bring the same value to them as an exper
... See more
This forum thread must be the first time I've seen experienced translators who understand what it's like for people starting out.

I have two years of experience and here on Proz I look like a joke compared to the leading translators with 20-30-40 years of experience. I can't afford to charge what they do, I can't apply to any jobs that require X years of experience or written references, so I have to take what I can get. No agency thinks I'll bring the same value to them as an experienced translator will, no matter how high the quality I can deliver is.

So I agree with what's already been said, bid around the average and be prepared for negotiation. You should have a minimum that you never go below and stick to it. You can try to bid higher to new clients, feel out what they're willing to pay. Along the way you'll get eventually get better ones.
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:06
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Colleen Feb 19, 2019

Colleen Roach, PhD wrote:
What do you mean by the "top 25 French-English translators living in the UK?".


I meant I did a directory search for French-English translators living in the UK and looked at the first 25 results. I did not mean that these translators are literally the best 25.

https://www.proz.com/translator-directory/

FR-EN


 
Louise Robinson (X)
Louise Robinson (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:06
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Paid membership vs free membership of Proz Feb 19, 2019

Another quick question - I had a look at several jobs on Proz that I thought looked interesting but I am not qualified to apply for a lot of them as I signed up to the free version.

Would many people recommend paying for a Proz membership? Are the majority of jobs limited to paying members only?


 
Yoana Ivanova
Yoana Ivanova  Identity Verified
Estonia
Local time: 10:06
English to Bulgarian
+ ...
I would recommend it Feb 19, 2019

Louise Robinson wrote:

Would many people recommend paying for a Proz membership? Are the majority of jobs limited to paying members only?


In my experience, yes, most of the jobs are limited to paying members for the first 12 hours, which quite often is enough time to find a translator, if it's urgent.

But I also don't work in any of the popular language pairs, so I would suggest to keep an eye out on the job offers in your pairs for some time and then decide whether you want to invest in a paid membership.

There are a lot of benefits to a membership, however, and it's one of the criteria people searching the directory can choose and likely often do.


 
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