I am a beginner, a newbie in translation, how should I set my rate?

Rachel Waddington wrote:

7.50 USD per hour is well below the minimum wage in the UK (where I am). You would earn more washing up in a pub or stacking shelves in a supermarket, jobs which you don't need to spend years of your life studying to do.

I was earning more than twice the rates you mention as a complete beginner in 1998 (with no Master's degree).

Don't accept these rates. You will never learn to do good work under those conditions. If you can't get translation work at a fair rate you would be a lot better off doing something else.

Peter Shortall wrote:



Yes, and the episodes of "Wanted Down Under" I've seen lead me to believe that salaries and the cost of living are higher in Australia than in the UK, which makes these rates even more absurd.

Yinan, I'm afraid the translation business is *teeming* with companies that will try to persuade you to work for derisory rates. Many of them are run by people who have no interest whatsoever in providing high-quality translation services and simply want to make a nice fat profit off the back of other people's work, without caring one bit whether you can survive. So I'm afraid you'll have to get used to offers like these. If you're to make a living from translating, you need to ignore them and insist on working only for a rate you can survive on. Emanuele has given you good advice about how to work that out. Be prepared for the fact that a lot of companies will turn you down if you insist on a living wage - but anyone who won't pay it isn't worth working for.

Also remember that by working for very low rates, you'll make it harder for not just yourself to survive financially, but also for the rest of us in the profession. If translation is to be sustainable as a business, we all need to earn an amount that makes our investment (education, business costs, etc.) worthwhile. If you're providing services that ought to be professionally acceptable, then you should earn as much as anyone else, regardless of experience, so please don't feel that you deserve less.

As a rule of thumb, the bigger a translation company is, the worse it is to work for. Multinationals tend to be aggressive, cut-throat businesses that treat both translators and their clients badly. So just because a company is well known or has a big online presence, that doesn't mean it can be trusted. We tend to earn more from smaller agencies or direct clients. Some beginners find it very surprising that well-known companies behave unscrupulously, but I'm afraid that's the norm.

To answer your question about our rates, I'm afraid you'll find that we translators tend to be shy about discussing what we charge, it's a bit of a taboo subject. What I will say is that I was charging more than USD 0.05 when I started nearly 20 years ago, when the cost of living was lower.

I recommend that you search the forums for other discussions about this subject, it's come up a lot over the years. A lot of people have given good advice about it, particularly a lady called Sheila Wilson, who sadly no longer posts here (I think she's retired). You can search the forums by key word, poster name, etc. The "Getting established" and "Money matters" sections are perhaps the best ones to look at.

Sorry if this picture sounds a bit depressing! But if you're going to survive in this business, you need to learn about the realities as soon as possible.

Emanuele Vacca wrote:

- Newbies shouldn't undercharge because they are newbies. Experienced translators usually charge more because they raise their rates gradually over their careers. However, you should still be able to make a living out of your job AND produce high-quality work even if you are at the beginning of your career.
- Focus on reaching a minimum daily productivity standard in terms of words. 2000 words/day is usually mentioned as a standard value but it can depend on many factors.
- Then calculate what you need to live off your profession (including everything: rent/mortgage, bills, accountant, platforms and any other regular expense) on a yearly basis and make your calculations to understand how much you need to charge per word or per hour to reach that amount based on the abovementioned productivity standard. If you charge less, you won't mathematically be able to make a living out of translation. I am not saying that you should charge that rate, though. I am saying that that's the bare minimum. You should charge more to factor in savings, extraordinary expenses, holidays etc.

Rachel Waddington wrote:

7.50 USD per hour is well below the minimum wage in the UK (where I am). You would earn more washing up in a pub or stacking shelves in a supermarket, jobs which you don't need to spend years of your life studying to do.

I was earning more than twice the rates you mention as a complete beginner in 1998 (with no Master's degree).

Don't accept these rates. You will never learn to do good work under those conditions. If you can't get translation work at a fair rate you would be a lot better off doing something else.

Peter Shortall wrote:

As a rule of thumb, the bigger a translation company is, the worse it is to work for. Multinationals tend to be aggressive, cut-throat businesses that treat both translators and their clients badly. So just because a company is well known or has a big online presence, that doesn't mean it can be trusted. We tend to earn more from smaller agencies or direct clients. Some beginners find it very surprising that well-known companies behave unscrupulously, but I'm afraid that's the norm.

Lieven Malaise wrote:

Could it be that your location is a disadvantage? I suppose most of your competitors will be living in China, where they can accept lower rates because of a lower cost of living?

Christopher Schröder wrote:

Rather than simply turning work down, give them a price and/or deadline you could do it for. Sometimes they will then accept your offer.