Translation 101: The Basics

To start, I thought I would answer some basic questions for those who may be new to the translation world:

Q. How do you figure out the cost of a translation?

A. The unofficial standard is to bill translations based on the word count of the source document. For example, an English document with 1,000 words, at .20 per word, would cost $200.00 to have translated into Dutch.

“Back in the day” before most source documents were readily available in electronic format, the target word count was used to calculate the cost. So, customers were given a quote based on the estimated word count of the source document, plus any expansion that might occur depending on the language combination, multiplied by the per-word rate. (This practice is still used for documents that are in a format that prevents a reliable source word count such as low quality faxes or pdfs, pdfs of non-standard alphabets, etc.)

Personally I was never happy with using the target word count because, from a business planning standpoint, it was too vague. It’s like taking your car to the garage and having them do the work based on a “rough” estimate and having it come in $500.00 more than expected. If possible, it is always better to agree on a firm price upfront based on a reliable word count.