| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How do you set your rates per word/hour? Thread poster: Ine Spee
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Tina Vonhof (X)
Canada
Local time: 12:10
Dutch to English
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Ine Spee wrote:
Thanks in advance for any tips you might have!
Start by completing your profile with credentials, expertise, past projects, bio, wwa, etc. to show that you have good reason to charge decent rates. Then start marketing yourself to appropriate agencies and direct clients, just a few will get you on your way. It's time consuming, I know, but it will be worth it.
Alle begin is moeilijk, good luck.
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 20:10
French to English
Ine Spee wrote:
But I am working a silly amount simply to earn enough to pay the bills, working weekends, evenings etc.
OK, now you have a great command of English and I presume your Dutch is every bit as good. To get both to your high level, you had to work hard, right? I haven't looked at your profile, but the average translator has a Master's degree either in translation or in one of their specialist subjects. And even if you don't have that level of education officially, you have to have informally acquired knowledge to that level in order to produce good translations.
As my former boss at the agency once found out, the Ministry for Work in France considers that a starting salary for a person with a master's should be at least 1½ times the minimum wage. That may well be an EU thing, I'm not sure. He found it out when he wanted to hire a translator from outside the EU at any rate.
I think 1½ times the minimum wage sounds pretty low, but then again the rates you are billing are probably even lower.
So I suggest you look at how many words you can translate in a typical working week (here the official working week is 35 hours for example), and then work out a rate that would then yield 1½ times the minimum wage as your earnings. And then round it up generously because as a freelancer, you won't be getting all the perks that employees get.
That way, you know that your rate is fair on you and will enable you to earn a decent amount. Then any time you're working at the weekend or in the evening, it's either because you're billing a much higher emergency rate, or because you spent some week days doing leisure stuff.
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If you start working with a client at such a low rate the only option you’ll have is to raise your rates a little bit, then raise them again another little bit and it will take for ages to get to a decent rate… So, I would start looking for more serious clients who pay more and step by step decline jobs at your actual price. I can assure you that there are clients out there who are willing to pay more, you just need to find the right clients. Good luck!
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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| I try to stick to $50+ per active hour | Nov 1, 2022 |
There are a variety of methods to achieve this, with the most effective one for me being a $50 minimum fee.
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roeland
Netherlands
Local time: 20:10
Member (2008)
German to Dutch
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| This is an ongoing discusion | Nov 1, 2022 |
This conversation pops-up a few times per year and never seems to come to an agreeable solution. As for my situation, I have not changed my rates DE>NL & EN>NL for almost 20 years,I still keep € 0.10/word and € 40/hour with a minimum of € 15 per job. My regular clients have no problem with this and never ask for discounts. I do however give a discount on the total when the monthly volume reaches a certain limit but this is not on request of the clients. A rate of 3 to 4 cents per word seem... See more This conversation pops-up a few times per year and never seems to come to an agreeable solution. As for my situation, I have not changed my rates DE>NL & EN>NL for almost 20 years,I still keep € 0.10/word and € 40/hour with a minimum of € 15 per job. My regular clients have no problem with this and never ask for discounts. I do however give a discount on the total when the monthly volume reaches a certain limit but this is not on request of the clients. A rate of 3 to 4 cents per word seems extremely low. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 20:10
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
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Ine Spee wrote: I imagine this topic has been posted many times before, but I would love some advice on this! I have been doing jobs as a freelance translator (Dutch-English and English-Dutch) for a few years, but only recently started working as a full-time freelance translator. I currently do some work for agencies where they set the rate per word (which I feel is very very low at €0.03-0.04 per word). I would like to start looking for other opportunities, but when I am asked for my rate per hour or per word, I am unsure of what to quote. Obviously I don't want to list a rate that's too low (unless those rates above are the industry standard?), but I also don't want to list something that's too high, which will make me miss out on being considered for a job. Is there any way I can find out what the average rate is for a language pair per word and per hour?  Thanks in advance for any tips you might have!
Hello Ine,
Being one of your competitors (English to Dutch) I can tell you that my translation rate for my clients varies from 0.08 to 0.09 euros (I have to add that any new clients would be charged automatically the higher rate of 0.09 euro since the current inflation). I can make a very good living out of that rate, but I would recommend you not to accept work below it. I've gained a certain speed after 22 years of translation and I really can't imagine that you can earn a decent living with rates around 0.04, 0.05 of 0.06 euros while maintaining the necessary quality standards. You will be working extremely hard for a (very) moderate income.
One last piece of advice: don't focus too much on the jobs offered on this website. They are practically always offered by low cost agencies that are only on the lookout for (very) cheap translators. Decent(ly) (paying) agencies almost never offer jobs here, they have their own base of translators to whom they assign jobs. So contact agencies personally, negotiate a decent rate, take a test if required and, very important, deliver quality and you will be just fine.
[Edited at 2022-11-01 11:06 GMT]
| | | | Elizabeth Blood
United States
Local time: 14:10
Member (2022)
French to English
Ine Spee wrote:
I would like to start looking for other opportunities, but when I am asked for my rate per hour or per word, I am unsure of what to quote.
One agency I work with calculates the hourly rate assuming an average 500 words/hour. You can use that to estimate your hourly rate based on your rate per word (for example, a rate of $0.10/word would be $50 per hour).
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 20:10
French to English
Elizabeth Blood wrote:
One agency I work with calculates the hourly rate assuming an average 500 words/hour. You can use that to estimate your hourly rate based on your rate per word (for example, a rate of $0.10/word would be $50 per hour).
That's fine for those who can actually translate 500 words an hour. And of course, output can vary according to subject and style, so that also needs to be factored in.
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Kay Denney wrote: Elizabeth Blood wrote:
One agency I work with calculates the hourly rate assuming an average 500 words/hour. You can use that to estimate your hourly rate based on your rate per word (for example, a rate of $0.10/word would be $50 per hour).
That's fine for those who can actually translate 500 words an hour. And of course, output can vary according to subject and style, so that also needs to be factored in.
Actually it favours those who translate fewer than 500 words an hour.
The slower you are, the more you benefit from that hourly rate
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