Guidance on how to budget subtitling job.
Téma indítója: Joaquín López Torres
Joaquín López Torres
Joaquín López Torres  Identity Verified
Argentína
Local time: 10:01
angol - spanyol
+ ...
Mar 12

Hello.

I've offered subtitling services to a YouTuber from my country and they asked about how much I'd charge, but I'm not 100% sure on how to budget this type of work: it is my first potential direct client. I was planning on using the open captions from YouTube by handing in an SRT file they can then import onto the video. For this I thought of asking them for the video file, load it into a tool such as Subtitle Edit to create the transcription, then load the SRT file onto Trados
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Hello.

I've offered subtitling services to a YouTuber from my country and they asked about how much I'd charge, but I'm not 100% sure on how to budget this type of work: it is my first potential direct client. I was planning on using the open captions from YouTube by handing in an SRT file they can then import onto the video. For this I thought of asking them for the video file, load it into a tool such as Subtitle Edit to create the transcription, then load the SRT file onto Trados for translating, loading it into SE again to make sure timers are correct and whatnot, and then handing in the SRT file. Is there a more efficient way of doing this? What should I charge? per minute of video subtitled? Per word count of the SRT file? Just give him a more or less fixed budget for each video, taking into account most of their videos are the same length (~10 min)?

Thanks
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Keith Jackson
Keith Jackson  Identity Verified
Franciaország
Local time: 15:01
Tag (2017 óta)
francia - angol
per minute of video subtitled or part thereof! Mar 12

Charge per minute of video subtitled or part thereof! There's a minimum amount of time that you have to spend watching the video, and it's hard to cut down. Trados can help you translate, but the translation must then fit within a specific number of characters and lines, usually 42 characters per line and a maximum of 2 lines per subtitle (YouTube standard).

YouTube Studio has a built-in subtitles editor that helps you create and adjust subtitles while ensuring they fit withi
... See more
Charge per minute of video subtitled or part thereof! There's a minimum amount of time that you have to spend watching the video, and it's hard to cut down. Trados can help you translate, but the translation must then fit within a specific number of characters and lines, usually 42 characters per line and a maximum of 2 lines per subtitle (YouTube standard).

YouTube Studio has a built-in subtitles editor that helps you create and adjust subtitles while ensuring they fit within standard character limits.

YouTube automatically provides auto-sync and manual subtitle editing options where you can adjust line breaks and timing.
If you're working in Trados, you can also use Trados Studio’s Subtitling Plugin to check character limits before exporting (if it still exists!).

I just finished an SDH subtitling/annotation project, and invoiced for 10 hours. It took me over 20 hours in fact. Nearly worked at a loss, but not quite!

[Edited at 2025-03-12 18:18 GMT]
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Guidance on how to budget subtitling job.







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