How much do you charge for translating social media posts? Thread poster: Lisa Reutenauer
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I received an offer to translate instagram posts from French to English 3 times a week.
I have never received that type of offer and am not sure what to charge? The client would like a fixed price.
Any suggestions, advice, experience?
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What do they mean by a fixed price? By piece? By week? By month? I would charge a price based on my hourly rate. 3 times a week means how many hours, do you know?
| | | | Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 00:16
French to English
How long are the posts? If it's just stuff like "check out this video of a cute kitten" it would be worth just setting a *minimum* rate of say €20, then if ever it goes over the maximum number of words you'd translate for that minimum rate, you can charge more.
Do they want you to bill each thing separately or would you just add all the posts up and bill at the end of the month? I mean, just putting it all in a single bill is a good way of keeping admin costs to a minimum.
... See more How long are the posts? If it's just stuff like "check out this video of a cute kitten" it would be worth just setting a *minimum* rate of say €20, then if ever it goes over the maximum number of words you'd translate for that minimum rate, you can charge more.
Do they want you to bill each thing separately or would you just add all the posts up and bill at the end of the month? I mean, just putting it all in a single bill is a good way of keeping admin costs to a minimum.
I have a client who sends me regular work. The first job, I gave them an estimate based on the number of words then billed it once I'd finished. It came to about €180.
The second job was much bigger and the estimate worked out at something like €550. At this point the client told me that she had an envelope of €250 for each job, so could I bill that fixed rate each time. OK this time I'd be losing out but the jobs were often much smaller so it would even out in the end.
I asked this forum for advice and most people suggested that I should continue billing per word, after all the client knew that it would even out for them in the end. And that I should probably only translate €250 worth of text if they refused to pay more than that.
So I told them just that, they decided to pay me per word at least for the time being and they would review the system in a few months. If it turned out that it did even out over time, they would insist on the fixed price.
Then the third job didn't come along in the announced timeframe, nor did the payment for the second job. I was starting to worry that they'd decided to pretend to let me have my own way but not pay up, and find another translator to abuse.
Luckily, the person in charge of the translations left shortly afterwards. When the person who replaced her contacted me about a translation, he was horrified to hear that my second bill was still pending. It turned out that his translation was not in my language pair, but he still got on to the accounts department and made sure my bill was paid in full before the end of the week. At that point I referred him to a trusty colleague for his job.
We've been working together with me billing per word ever since. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lisa Reutenauer
France
Local time: 00:16
English to French
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TOPIC STARTER | @maria teresa | Mar 27, 2023 |
@maria
We need to give her a fixed rate per month. I'm still waiting to find out how long the posts are but I am assuming that instagram posts are fairly short.
She wants 12 posts per month.
I was thinking something like 180-200 euros a month (around 15 euros per post).
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The only short texts I translate regularly are juice labels and we agreed on 25€/each.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 00:16
French to English
Well until she gives you an idea of their length, you can't give her an estimate.
You need to also factor in that short texts are often harder when there's no context, and that these posts will arrive when you're busy with something else, and the client may well expect you to translate them immediately, because "it's only a few words". It's the type of thing that can drive you to distraction.
I would insist on a certain amount of leeway, even for just three words. Maybe half a work... See more Well until she gives you an idea of their length, you can't give her an estimate.
You need to also factor in that short texts are often harder when there's no context, and that these posts will arrive when you're busy with something else, and the client may well expect you to translate them immediately, because "it's only a few words". It's the type of thing that can drive you to distraction.
I would insist on a certain amount of leeway, even for just three words. Maybe half a working day: if she sends the post early in the morning, you'll deliver after lunch, if it only arrives at 5pm, you'll deliver the next morning etc. If she wants immediate turnaround, you slap on an emergency fee (for me that would be 25% extra if I can fit it in during working hours or 50% extra if it means working outside normal working hours).
I used to translate short texts for a client's website. Initially they always wanted it within a few hours, then when I realised that they were coming back a full day later with questions, I decided to systematically set later deadlines. It wasn't fair that I had to drop everything for them, then they would take their sweet time checking and coming back with questions. Had they insisted on shorter deadlines I would have upped the price. ▲ Collapse
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I find that quoting a stupidly high price focuses them on providing key details such as volume.
Alternatively, they may just say yes to the stupidly high price. Win win.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 01:16
Member
English to Turkish
| Are you sure about that? | Mar 28, 2023 |
Ice Scream wrote:
I find that quoting a stupidly high price focuses them on providing key details such as volume.
Alternatively, they may just say yes to the stupidly high price. Win win.
This reminds me of a genius business model I've heard recently, namely 'shopping centers without roofs'. But if it's working for you, then it's great!
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 00:16
French to English
Baran Keki wrote: Ice Scream wrote:
I find that quoting a stupidly high price focuses them on providing key details such as volume.
Alternatively, they may just say yes to the stupidly high price. Win win. This reminds me of a genius business model I've heard recently, namely 'shopping centers without roofs'. But if it's working for you, then it's great!
I would say that's a great strategy especially if you don't really mind whether or not the job comes through.
It's the same strategy as applying a pdf premium: when they see it'll hurt their wallet, suddenly they manage to locate that mysterious Word file the pdf was generated from.
I've found the same kind of strategy to work when clients don't seem bothered about answering your questions. Following the advice of someone here (I wish I could remember who so I could thank them), I now word all my questions so that what I feel is the most logical answer will be "yes". Then I specify that if I don't hear back before X o'clock (leaving enough time to implement whatever changes would be necessary in light of the answers), I will assume that the right answer is yes to all questions. Since I've started doing that, I've always had timely answers, or an extended deadline in writing.
And shopping centres without roofs are definitely the best! I get quite claustrophobic in most shopping centres, and huge stores like ikea where you have to go round the entire circuit even though you only want tea candles. I prefer to go without tea candles.
| | | | Jo Macdonald
Spain
Local time: 00:16
Italian to English
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| You need to see samples | Mar 30, 2023 |
The client will want a simple monthly price, or price per post, which is the same thing.
If there are 12 posts per month you need to see some samples to get an idea of how long they are (word count) but in particular to find exactly how much time it takes you to translate 3, 4, 6 or 12 sample posts.
When you've done the sample posts, multiply the time taken for that number of posts to get an approximate monthly "time required" figure for 12 posts at your hourly rate, then quote a bit... See more The client will want a simple monthly price, or price per post, which is the same thing.
If there are 12 posts per month you need to see some samples to get an idea of how long they are (word count) but in particular to find exactly how much time it takes you to translate 3, 4, 6 or 12 sample posts.
When you've done the sample posts, multiply the time taken for that number of posts to get an approximate monthly "time required" figure for 12 posts at your hourly rate, then quote a bit higher than that because the smaller the jobs are the more time they take. ▲ Collapse
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