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Translation - art & business » Money matters »
Charging for Marketing translations
Thread poster: zeinacat
zeinacat
zeinacat
Arabic to English
Apr 25, 2008

What is the best way to charge for marketing translations? This is my first job as a freelance translator and I am to translate a highly specialised text. The word count is not high but it is terminology rich and I have been asked to quote per hour or day. My language pair is GB-ARA
 
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
Ivana Friis Søndergaard
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:23
Member (2008)
English to Danish
+ ...
Another beginner's thoughts ;) Apr 25, 2008

I'm fairy new at this as well, so maybe I am not the best to answer you. But I have just translated a large marketing project as well and I certainly underpriced the project - it took a lot longer than I thought.

Normally I charge per word, so I also did with this. With this project I was asked to do a copy writing / translation job with emphasis on good sales copy rather than translation. The project was an entire web site, so the source text was part marketing, part technical and... See more
I'm fairy new at this as well, so maybe I am not the best to answer you. But I have just translated a large marketing project as well and I certainly underpriced the project - it took a lot longer than I thought.

Normally I charge per word, so I also did with this. With this project I was asked to do a copy writing / translation job with emphasis on good sales copy rather than translation. The project was an entire web site, so the source text was part marketing, part technical and part legal. It was very interesting, I really enjoyed it, but the client got a very good deal, believe me

I think it sounds good if you can charge per hour. The only problem is that you and your client may both be surprised at how long it actually takes. When you charge per word, the price is the price. You should expect to be able to translate about 1500 words a day in the beginning (and that wil be a very long day!).

Do you use a CAT-tool? If not, try Metatexis. You can get a free trial and it's very simple, you can just go ahead.

When you set your price, remember that you are qualified (I assume that you have some sort of higher education background?) and you need to be paid properly. But also remember that you are new at this and that you don't work as fast as an experienced translator.

Maybe you could do a test translation first - ie translate the first say 500 words and time it. Then work out an estimate of the total hours you need for the entire project, multiply that with a decent hourly rate, give the client this figure and see what they say.

Good luck - please report back and let us know how you get on

Ivana ▲ Collapse
 
zeinacat
zeinacat
Arabic to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you for your sound advice Apr 26, 2008

Thank you Ivana, what you have suggested has proved very useful!
 


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Charging for Marketing translations


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