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Translation rates (UK): working directly with clients, and working with agencies.
Thread poster: Dariush Robertson
Charlie Bavington
Charlie Bavington  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:07
French to English
Sunday night puzzle resolution Mar 18, 2012

neilmac wrote:

For my part, I'm puzzled by the "rate per 1000 words", as I usually calculate my rates on a per-word basis;


But you're in Spain, dude. Over here in the mother country, it's done per thou. Allows for some finely tuned negotiation/rate setting without resorting to minor decimals of a eurocent per word, although that is effectively the same thing if you knock a quid of a price in a sudden flash of bonhommie.

FWIW, I stopped advertising rates eons ago partly because of the issues raised here, but mostly because no bugger paid any attention. Without fail, I was (and am) asked "how much" despite sticking the rates in flashing neon in a font visible from outer space on page called "prices".
Horse, water, drink, etc.


 
Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 02:07
German to Swedish
+ ...
But Mar 18, 2012

But we don't want the official rate. We're special and want your best rate.

 
Charlie Bavington
Charlie Bavington  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:07
French to English
Not special, just oblivious Mar 19, 2012

In fairness, it's not just the "best rate" merchants who seemed unable to read a page marked "prices" when prices were, as evidenced by email queries, what they wanted to know. Clients of every type were guilty of it.

 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 22:07
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
The best rate Mar 19, 2012

Joakim Braun wrote:
But we don't want the official rate. We're special and want your best rate.


There are ways to improve the rate the client actually pays without changing the amount the translator receives.

For instance, here in Brazil, receiving payment via PayPal costs me about 10%. If the client is in the USA, the same payment costs the client $5, and costs me nothing. No idea on how much a wire transfer costs my clients, however it costs me only some $23 per transaction to receive them.

Furthermore, a payment made by eCheck via PayPal will be delayed by up to two weeks. Considering Brazilian interest rates close to 10%/month (on credit cards or overdraft), there is almost 5% that may be cut here. The same interest rates apply to payment terms. If the client is willing to pay COD instead of 30 or more days later, this is another possible cut on prices.

Some clients - mostly American - enjoy a discount in the 15-20% range for COD payment via Xoom, and I prefer to give them this amount - that would never be mine - than to squander it with funds transfer fees and the time value of money.

This is what the best rate should mean. However too many translation outsourcers with limited business acumen just want to see if they can get lower rates and more time to pay. In fact, when they succeeed in this intent, they'll be actually doing two things: a) hiring cheaper labor; and b) borrowing money in places where interest rates are higher than where they are.


 
Mariusz Kuklinski
Mariusz Kuklinski  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:07
Member
English to Polish
+ ...
Sitting 12 hours Jul 3, 2017

Eleftherios Kritikakis wrote:


Don't underestimate what sitting on a chair in your home 12 hours per day can do to you - and how others perceive you, and how you feel yourself, when you never get off work and you meet zero people all day (you turned your home into an office and you have no home).





I know the pain only too well. Having translated three books in a row in two years, I have become quite an interesting case, circulation-wise, etc. to my GP. 12 hours is an unbridled optimism. I would love sitting on a chair in my home, in front of a computer, 12 hours per day only and have the other 12 hours to practice living. And your words about money and time are very wise too. Been there, done that. In the long gone years of plenty I used to tell my (now ex) wife, earning (pretty impressive) money takes me so much time, I have no time to enjoy spending it.


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 02:07
French to English
several rates Jul 3, 2017

I have one agency I work for at a pretty low rate. They give me interesting stuff that doesn't require too much research, that I can produce a fit-for-purpose text. It's enough for my bread and butter.

Then I have direct clients who I bill much more too, but for whom I will go the distance to produce the absolute best possible text, for whom I will work while on holiday, for whom I will check everything again and again and scour the thesaurus and research endlessly to make sure of
... See more
I have one agency I work for at a pretty low rate. They give me interesting stuff that doesn't require too much research, that I can produce a fit-for-purpose text. It's enough for my bread and butter.

Then I have direct clients who I bill much more too, but for whom I will go the distance to produce the absolute best possible text, for whom I will work while on holiday, for whom I will check everything again and again and scour the thesaurus and research endlessly to make sure of understanding everything correctly and expressing it as clearly as possible.

And there's another direct client who gets a special rate because she was my first ever direct client, a friend who gave me the confidence to go freelance, a lovely person who pays up very quickly and who wrote the most beautiful testimonial for me ever.

Everyone else falls somewhere in between the bread-and-butter agency and the high-end clients. The rates mostly depend on how confident I was feeling the first time I negotiated with them. The idea is to gently whittle out the low-payers either by upping their rate or telling them I no longer have the time to work with them because I'm getting far more work from better-paying customers.


As for getting your first jobs from whichever agency, I'm afraid I can't really help you except to suggest working as a PM in an agency for a while which is what I did. This helped me get to know some great translators, other agencies and clients. When I started free-lancing, I simply contacted everyone to let them know I was now freelancing. A couple of fellow translators recommended me when they couldn't help a client themselves, former colleagues or interns now working at other agencies were happy to send me work, and a client even contacted me to see whether she could start working with me once I had left. (That was rather tricky because of the non-compete clause in my contract, however it turned out it was null and void because it failed to stipulate the compensation I was to receive).

I worked for too long as a PM (because my family took priority over my career) but it gave me great insight into how things work and definitely helped me launch my freelancer career.
(Just don't tell the interviewer that you intend to use the experience that way: they won't hire you in case you poach their clients!)
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Translation rates (UK): working directly with clients, and working with agencies.







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