| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Are you planning to raise your rates in 2011? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Interlangue wrote:
Never for all clients at the same time...
I think it is sensible to be cautious with the rates of main customers who mean an important part of your business. With them, it might even make sense to fly to the place and discuss the matter in depth, instead of bluntly and unilaterally raising rates.
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Catherine you expressed exactly what I had in mind!
Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote: Hi, Yes, I'll raise my rates for the new ones I'll get in 2011- but I'll be the only one who will be aware of this fact  . For the oldest ones, it is more complicated. It will depend on the nature of both the relationship and the job types, and more specifically on their respective promptness in paying. The fastest they pay, the more stable my rates will stay for them (next year  ) Catherine
| | | | | Precisely :) | Dec 10, 2010 |
Interlangue wrote:
Never for all clients at the same time...
The new clients are always the first to pay higher rates. Those returning after a long time are second in the line, and so on...
And I also voted "Other".
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i just raised them, so in 2011 I will be mostly implementing my rates.
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m_temmer 
Local time: 09:16
English to Dutch
+ ...
I'm moving abroad and am not sure yet what I'll be doing ratewise.
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Living in Brazil means that I pay most (not all - e.g. Proz membership is in USD) of my bills in BRL. Looking back, my domestic rates in BRL have been stable since 1994.
That means the experience you gained isn't worth a penny to you...
So, setting rates is not such a simple process
I couldn't agree more.
However, one factor that many people tend to forget is pension. A lot of translators (working into Dutch) manage to make a living with pretty low rates. But what are they going to do when they are old and need special expensive medical care or even a retirement home? Decent retirement homes here in Belgium cost (a lot) more than the legal pension many people get and the situation won't get any better due to the high demand (ageing population) and the limited supply.
Many translators here seem to be willing to keep on translating until they drop, but that isn't always possible... and I really don't want to spend the last days of my life translating either!
Many translators endanger their own future by charging low rates and only looking at the present, in my opinion.
| | | | | An important correction!!! | Dec 11, 2010 |
Michaël Temmerman wrote: José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Living in Brazil means that I pay most (not all - e.g. Proz membership is in USD) of my bills in BRL. Looking back, my domestic rates in BRL have been stable since 1994.
That means the experience you gained isn't worth a penny to you...
Dead right! I stand corrected...
I should have said that my translation rates in BRL per word (or per minute of playing time, if it's audio/video) have been stable since 1994, however my productivity has continued mushrooming ever since.
Though I do have a per-hour rate to do anything ethically acceptable, I avoid charging by the hour, because I think it's most likely unfair. Taking the extreme cases, if it's some work I am unfamiliar with, the client will be overcharged by the extra time it takes me to learn the ropes. Conversely, if it's something I can do blindfolded, the client will be underpaying me for all the time I invested previously to master it.
Clarifying further, most translators describe their IT-leveraged productivity gains from CAT tools. Mine are small, as my typical job has less than 5% repetitions, and no fuzzy matches. SDL's own calculator says it would take Trados 13 years to pay for itself in my specific case (yet, if I didn't spend anything on yearly upgrades).
My most recent IT-leveraged big productivity gain came from a different way of handling PDF files. Some 20+ years' practice with PageMaker to rebuild complete publications led me to do it with a speed that dazzles any experienced MS Word user. Okay, it's still the way to go for scanned PDFs, or hardcopy originals. However for distilled PDFs now I have a different workflow. I use InFix Pro to export the text to XML, translate it, and then import it - formatted and laid out - back into the PDF, do minor adjustments for text swelling/shrinkage in translation, and it's done!
Meanwhile I see countless colleagues eschewing PDF translation work, or painstakingly converting such files into a zillion textboxes in Word to translate, and then struggling to fix formatting and text reflow, searching for and swapping weird fonts, etc.
Digital video for dubbing/subtitling translation is another breakthrough in this meantime. Now there is no need to convert the VHS audio track - always in real playing time - into something that works as a dictaphone.
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