EU tender rates -valid offer? Thread poster: Levente Borzsák
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Dear all,
I have been working as a lawyer-linguist for years for the EU institutions, but today I am on the other side and was offerred a job for an EU institution tender.
The agency asks me to name a price for EN-HU-EN translation and proofreading.
Does anybody have experience with such rates and/or could advise me a price range to make a valid offer?
I read several arguments on Proz (from "EU inst/s offerring 3-4 times the price" to "0.02 EUR per word"), but a co... See more Dear all,
I have been working as a lawyer-linguist for years for the EU institutions, but today I am on the other side and was offerred a job for an EU institution tender.
The agency asks me to name a price for EN-HU-EN translation and proofreading.
Does anybody have experience with such rates and/or could advise me a price range to make a valid offer?
I read several arguments on Proz (from "EU inst/s offerring 3-4 times the price" to "0.02 EUR per word"), but a concrete range would be more than welcome - even in pm.
Thanks in advance,
Levente ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 18:08
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Levente Borzsák wrote:
Does anybody have experience with such rates and/or could advise me a price range to make a valid offer?
This is the type of question that I think your colleagues at SZOFT would be more suited to answer -- though I'm not sure if they have a forum where you can ask such questions.
| | | | Tony Keily
Local time: 18:08
Italian to English
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| Things have changed drastically | Jan 10, 2023 |
Back in about 2008 I was being offered about EUR 28 per 'page' (c. 250 words in this case) for institutional translations by agencies with tenders. Not sure what their price was, but I think about EUR 40.
Then in or around 2015 this dropped drastically to EUR 20, because the institutions were concerned about keeping things 'competitive'. This meant that the work really wasn't worthwhile, given the standards demanded. I still did some, partly because because I just liked the people ... See more Back in about 2008 I was being offered about EUR 28 per 'page' (c. 250 words in this case) for institutional translations by agencies with tenders. Not sure what their price was, but I think about EUR 40.
Then in or around 2015 this dropped drastically to EUR 20, because the institutions were concerned about keeping things 'competitive'. This meant that the work really wasn't worthwhile, given the standards demanded. I still did some, partly because because I just liked the people I was working with.
I think the agencies were getting paid around EUR 30 per page at that stage. And since 2015 nothing has changed - still EUR 8 less than in 2008.
That's just my experience. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Levente Borzsák
Hungary
Local time: 18:08
English to Hungarian
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TOPIC STARTER
Samuel Murray wrote: This is the type of question that I think your colleagues at SZOFT would be more suited to answer -- though I'm not sure if they have a forum where you can ask such questions.
Thank you, and sorry if it's a taboo question, thought that asking a price range was still acceptable in the forum. BTW, this would be a 60 EUR-question at SZOFT, as that is their membership fee. I was hoping that Proz.com could have replaced it .
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| | Levente Borzsák
Hungary
Local time: 18:08
English to Hungarian
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TOPIC STARTER | RE: EU tender rates -valid offer? | Jan 10, 2023 |
Thank you, that is more than handy! Is there a way to know which tenders are involved in such an "omnibus" proposal? Google also gives hits, but does not specify the tenders.
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Levente Borzsák wrote: Thank you, that is more than handy! Is there a way to know which tenders are involved in such an "omnibus" proposal? Google also gives hits, but does not specify the tenders.
... this one:
https://commission.europa.eu/calls-tenders/trad19_en
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Try googling the name of your agency in site:europa.eu. You’ll probably get more useful hits…
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| Holy cow! And these people kept chewing me out for picking my nose in public when I was a child ... | Jan 10, 2023 |
HU>EN - €13.70 per page
EN>HU - €14.95 per page
Conventionally, a standard A4 page contains 250 words in English (don't know about an estimated word count on a page in Hungarian). My multiple attempts to come up with the number of English words equal to 1,800 characters with spaces (A4 page as understood by Russian translation agencies, i.e. 30 lines, 60 chrs with spaces each) have always produced ~270 words.
OK, let's assume an A4 page is 250 words. It means that bidders are ready to translate EU materials from Hungarian into English for €0.06 per word (€13.70 / 250). I understand they quote on a TEP basis. Then, after the agency has taken their cut, at least 20%, €0.044 remains to be split between the translator (€0.03 per word) and editor (€0.015 per word).
If the agency is greedy, they can offer €0.02 and €0.01 to their translators and editors, respectively.
This joke of a price grid has certainly made my day for today!
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This is a range! A standard page corresponds to 1 500 characters of translatable text excluding spaces (roughly 250 words). I don’t know what happens with other language combinations but the agencies I work with for the EU (mainly EN-PT) pay me from 0.085 €/word (a long-standing and regular customer) to 0.11 €/word. I suppose they are paid around 40 €…
| | | | | The difference between Russian and European definitions of a standard page | Jan 10, 2023 |
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
A standard page corresponds to 1 500 characters of translatable text excluding spaces (roughly 250 words).
Russia: 1800 chrs, incl. spaces (roughly 270 words)
Europe: 1500 chrs, excl. spaces (roughly 250 words)
Now I understand why Europeans mention 250 words while discussing standard pages.
| | | | | Public bidding | Jan 10, 2023 |
Agencies seem to win public contracts by bidding super low but then charge various supplements in practice to take the price high enough to afford a translator and make a profit.
Such as a rush fee to deliver a page within a week.
Somehow a Swedish agency routinely pays me more than twice the rate they quoted to win the framework contract from the government. Get your head around that!
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| Public competitive bidding processes | Jan 10, 2023 |
Ice Scream wrote:
Somehow a Swedish agency routinely pays me more than twice the rate they quoted to win the framework contract from the government. Get your head around that!
I know how it works. In the last three years, I won two competitive bidding processes staged by two different UN agencies (two-year LTAs with an option to extend them for another two-year period, subject to satisfactory performance).
| | | | Levente Borzsák
Hungary
Local time: 18:08
English to Hungarian
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TOPIC STARTER | RE: EU tender rates -valid offer? | Jan 10, 2023 |
Dear all,
Thank you for your valuable comments, I have now a much better understanding of the rates.
Wish you all a very happy new year and even happier rates!
Levente
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