Rejected 30% discount request for MTPE Thread poster: S. D.
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S. D.
United States
Local time: 09:29
English to Japanese
Hi to everyone here. I hope you all are enjoying summer! I just want to share what happened today with my translation agency, which I have been working for about 9 years.
The projects that I receive from this agency are for this big e-commerce company that everyone knows. We are required to strictly follow their detailed 30+pages of Style Guide that I also helped them to finalize. Term Base is available, but some terms have multiple translations, so we are required to ‘think’ w... See more Hi to everyone here. I hope you all are enjoying summer! I just want to share what happened today with my translation agency, which I have been working for about 9 years.
The projects that I receive from this agency are for this big e-commerce company that everyone knows. We are required to strictly follow their detailed 30+pages of Style Guide that I also helped them to finalize. Term Base is available, but some terms have multiple translations, so we are required to ‘think’ which one to apply depending on context. Some terms are not appropriate to use in some context. To meet their high standards of quality, I have been trying very hard to pay attention to details all the time and became the lead linguist for my language pair, English to Japanese. I was also evaluating the new linguists’ test translation and attending the meeting with the client. I believe I became a great asset to this agency to keep this big e-commerce company’s business.
Yesterday the vendor manager for this agency asked for a 30% discount for my MTPE rate due to “the challenge of balancing cost-effectiveness” claiming that their” MTPE rates are slightly higher than the market average.” I charge $0.10/word for both New words and MTPE. Although the quality of MT is improving lately, it still needs lots of work to follow the Style Guide as well as correcting the grammar, syntax, etc. Sometimes there are totally different translations from source text and I need to translate those from scratch. It really needs the human brain to meet the client’s high standards, so I never accepted the discount. My rate of $0.10/word is already at the lower end for English-Japanese pair anyway (the range in the industry seems to be $0.15 -$0.09/word, according to Proz). However, they want me to change my MTPE rate to $0.07/word. I explained the reasons mentioned above and declined to accept the discount.
Today I received a reply stating how much they appreciate all the hard work that I have put into this client’s projects for many years and the high-quality work that I have been consistently delivering. However, they were disappointed that I could not accept $0.07/word. Then, I was let go.
I had been a freelance translator for over 15 years, but I started working for a full-time regular job (not translation) a year ago. Since then, I have been continuing the translation job as a side job only during the weekend. Losing extra income is not nice, but what hurts me more is that this agency did not care about all the work that I put in for many years to keep this client. I think that they will learn a lesson when the quality of the translation becomes poor and then there is a chance that this agency could lose this client. I am not sure if all of you will agree with what I did, and some might think I was stupid not agreeing with the discount or I should have offered at least like $0.08 or $0.09? But... I am actually happy with what I stood for. I did not want the agency to take advantage of us. Agreeing to my lower rates will lead to the lower rate in this industry, I think. I have one more agency for my weekend side job and I am working on my MBA, so I rather focus on these instead of working for 30% discounted work I hope you all have good agencies that value your hard work! Thank you for reading this long post.
[Edited at 2024-07-26 21:08 GMT]
[Edited at 2024-07-26 21:10 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 15:29
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
S. D. wrote:
Today I received a reply stating how much they appreciate all the hard work that I have put into this client’s projects for many years and the high-quality work that I have been consistently delivering. However, they were disappointed that I could not accept $0.07/word. Then, I was let go.
I think that when an agency that you haven't worked with for long or at all asks for a discount, they're actually still flexible since they're just trying to see how far they can push you, but if a regular client asks for a discount, it means that they are more serious and that they truly need the discount in order to continue working with you.
I understand your position, thought. They're essentially asking you to drop your rate by 30%.
[Edited at 2024-07-26 05:50 GMT]
| | | | | MT and AI needs a surcharge, not a discount | Jul 26 |
You need to charge at least 150% of your regular rate, because your translation will be used to further enhance the MT model and make you lose even more work. Why accept pennies now to improve AI? In order to lose even those pennies tomorrow?
Any investment comes with upfront costs. Machine translation and other artificial intelligence technologies are an investment, but corporations seem unwilling to pay those costs, trying instead to further exploit their hard-working freelancers,... See more You need to charge at least 150% of your regular rate, because your translation will be used to further enhance the MT model and make you lose even more work. Why accept pennies now to improve AI? In order to lose even those pennies tomorrow?
Any investment comes with upfront costs. Machine translation and other artificial intelligence technologies are an investment, but corporations seem unwilling to pay those costs, trying instead to further exploit their hard-working freelancers, just because they think they can bully us.
So far, when I suggest 150% of my regular rate, most companies are willing to leave out the MT nonsense and opt for good, old-fashioned, human translation of high quality, at my regular rate.
Corporations are driven by greed. So, you need use that to your benefit. You need to get used to saying no when they're trying to make you work like a slave—despite having elaborate anti-slavery statements on their website, because Legal and Marketing told them it would be good for ESG and other fancy concepts devoid of substance. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 15:29
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Epameinondas Soufleros wrote:
So far, when I suggest 150% of my regular rate, most companies are willing to leave out the MT nonsense and opt for good, old-fashioned, human translation of high quality, at my regular rate.
You say "companies", so I suppose you are talking about direct clients? If you would be talking about translation agencies, I'm 100% sure that the large majority of them, if not all of them, would be laughing terribly hard about your 150% suggestion before moving on to the next translator.
Epameinondas Soufleros wrote:
You need to get used to saying no when they're trying to make you work like a slave—despite having elaborate anti-slavery statements on their website, because Legal and Marketing told them it would be good for ESG and other fancy concepts devoid of substance.
But the thing is that, at least in my language pairs, working at a 30% MPTE discount doesn't equal working like a slave, but working at the same profitability (so the same amount of working hours) as conventional translation (provided you get enough job offers, which is the case for me until now).
Of course things are different when you are talking about direct clients. But I believe a lot of them wouldn't even mention machine translation (heck, I even still have agency clients who ignore the existence of machine translation). And if they would mention it, then I would give a discount, simply because it wouldn't hurt me and it would provide me with a competitive advantage compared to translators who refuse to do that.
I know several colleagues consider that attitude as "shooting oneself in the foot", but as far as I'm concerned people are shooting oneself professionally in the foot by stubbornly refusing to go along with the technology. To me it's straight mind-boggling that some people seem to believe that it's an achievable goal as a global translators' community to set standard rates or a standard attitude towards the (non-)use of machine translation.
[Bijgewerkt op 2024-07-26 09:34 GMT]
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Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 15:29
English to German
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S. D. wrote:
Although the quality of MT is improving lately, it still needs lots of work to follow the Style Guide as well as correcting the grammar, syntax, etc. Sometimes there are totally different translations from source text and I need to translate those from scratch. It really needs the human brain to meet the client’s high standards, so I never accepted the discount. My rate of $0.10/word is already at the lower end for Japanese-English pair anyway (the range in the industry seems to be $0.15 -$0.09/word, according to Proz). However, they want me to change my MTPE rate to $0.07/word. I explained the reasons mentioned above and declined to accept the discount.
(...) I am not sure if all of you will agree with what I did, and some might think I was stupid not agreeing with the discount or I should have offered at least like $0.08 or $0.09?
As you are working in a language combination where MT is unlikely to have reached the level of other combinations, I think the standard 30% discount might actually turn out to be unfair. A compromise might be to offer a rate that reflects the amount of editing required.
It also depends on which engines they use. If they use neural MT engines, they will get better over time, which means your productivity would be higher, with the potential to earn more than translating from scratch (excluding creative content and transcreation here, of course).
| | | | S. D.
United States
Local time: 09:29
English to Japanese
TOPIC STARTER | Not sure if my agency has any ideas like this... | Jul 26 |
Epameinondas Soufleros wrote:
You need to charge at least 150% of your regular rate, because your translation will be used to further enhance the MT model and make you lose even more work. Why accept pennies now to improve AI? In order to lose even those pennies tomorrow?
Any investment comes with upfront costs. Machine translation and other artificial intelligence technologies are an investment, but corporations seem unwilling to pay those costs, trying instead to further exploit their hard-working freelancers, just because they think they can bully us.
For the projects that I have been working, I am sure that MT (or the investment in MT) comes from the end client, not this translation agecy, as the client was asking me how much of improvement I see in MT during the meeting. So, I am not sure if this translation agency cares if our translation will be used to help their MT improve or not.
I read the original email requesting for the 30% discount again, he said "Your willingness to adjust your rate will play a pivotal role in our continued success and our ability to provide you with consistent and rewarding work opportunities." I wonder why he thinks it would be "rewarding" for me with 30% discount....
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S. D. wrote:
...what hurts me more is that this agency did not care about all the work that I put in for many years to keep this client...
As businesses, being "grateful" for services rendered by a provider or paid work assigned by a customer, besides courtesy and politeness dictated by social norms, would mean added costs. A business doesn't need a pat on the back, it needs sound ledgers. And compensation precisely exists to strip any feeling from a well designed commercial agreement. I do the work as agreed, you pay me as agreed, and I pay you as agreed, you do the work as agreed. Punto. Full stop. End of story. Don't believe that having two birds in the bush is as good as one in a pan either. We're all in this to prosper, and therefore negociate mutually acceptable conditions to do so. As long as everybody prospers, the relationship holds. When one party think they don't, we negociate again.
So no, none of your clients care, unless they're family. Or lovers. If they can find a provider as easy to deal with, as thorough, as accountable, as excellent and as proactive as yourself for 30% cheaper, you're out the next day. And I suppose that when graphics, dashboards and fancy charts tell management that this or that is too expensive during their cost control meeting, your proverbial "soft skills" that saved a PM's day many a time don't weigh much.
You can come to like PMs and even HR people (who would believe that?) as persons, but such feelings are completely separate from the companies they operate in.
... I think that they will learn a lesson when the quality of the translation becomes poor and then there is a chance that this agency could lose this client.
Through agencies, I have lost several end customer accounts in my career, most likely - hopefully - due to economics and "streamlining" than to professional issues. None of it is spoken openly by either party, I just realise that I don't get that manufacturer's content any longer, although new content keeps being added to their website (with the obviously biased opinion that I would have written much more flowing and legible pieces). And the agency still caters for the brand, because I still get a trickle of content during holiday periods and else. Or I do reviews.
And voilà, here is how I regress to choice no2 without being complimented for the astonishingly consistent and aesthetically impeccable translation memories I left to new choice no1 - or to internal MT systems - after many years of "go-to-translatoring" status. That's the rule of the game. New choice no1 or MTPE is valued "good enough" by the end client and that's fine by me. I won't buy 300-euro running shoes if I'm ultra-comfy in shoes half the price, and I don't want to know/don't care if/that they're made by children inhaling toxic fumes or translators slaving away at weekends for a pittance.
If the end client comes back swiftly saying that quality has decreased, the agency might revert to the previous setup, but I wouldn't count too much on it. I can't remember any brand/manufacturer end client getting back fully into my scope after my moving to choice no2 or completely out.
I am not sure if all of you will agree with what I did, and some might think I was stupid not agreeing with the discount or I should have offered at least like $0.08 or $0.09?...
"Work 3 hours and get paid 2" is a excellent slogan.
If you undercharge (according to you OWN criteria) to please a customer, thinking it will nurture the business relationship in the long term, think again. Undercharging can be a strategy to secure a customer, but often not a long-term one: either your business is not sustainable, or you cut corners, with the added burden of dissatisfaction and declining motivation.
You thought a 30% decrease in earnings made no sense to your business, and you said so. Well done.
Ubiquitous juggernauts have enough weight to dictate their conditions, and when agencies are no longer able to find translators and generate profit margin, enough multingual material will be available to feed the matrix and save themselves whatever sort of human input. Good for them.
Philippe
| | | | S. D.
United States
Local time: 09:29
English to Japanese
TOPIC STARTER
Philippe Etienne wrote:
And I suppose that when graphics, dashboards and fancy charts tell management that this or that is too expensive during their cost control meeting, your proverbial "soft skills" that saved a PM's day many a time don't weigh much.
Thank you for reminding me that it is strictly business, and I totally understand your point. I did not mean to be sentimental about it. Just wanted to share what happened... Regarding "soft skills", I am not sure the things that I listed are so called "soft skills" in our profession. Paying attention to details is, for example, considered to be a part of so-called "soft skills" in many industries, but... we cannot deliver the quality work if we do not pay attention to details, so I am not sure if these things are really treated as "soft skills" in this translation industry. Creativity is considered to be one of soft skills as well, but we do need to have some creativity instead of providing literal translation, so creativity does not belong to be a part of soft skills in our industry. This is just my opinion, though... And I was not saying I deserved the same rate due to my regular "soft skills" such as good communication, timeliness, adaptablity.
If the end client comes back swiftly saying that quality has decreased, the agency might revert to the previous setup, but I wouldn't count too much on it. I can't remember any brand/manufacturer end client getting back fully into my scope after my moving to choice no2 or completely out.
I am not counting on it, and I do not want to count on it
[Edited at 2024-07-28 22:11 GMT]
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Peter Motte
Belgium
Local time: 15:29
Member (2009)
English to Dutch
+ ...
| Is automation really making everything cheaper? | Jul 29 |
I often wonder whether things get cheaper when introduction automation because automation makes it possible to work faster, or automation makes it possible to put pressure on the workers to work cheaper.
It's not only S.D. who can tell stories like his.
[Edited at 2024-07-29 09:23 GMT]
| | | | | Gratitude is a word that PMs in our industry don't know in their job | Jul 30 |
They have always appreciated your work, your commitment and reliability, your good will and what else and praised and thanked you for this all the time. Then out of the blue you are ditched, maybe without any explanation. Especially if the relationship has got amicable over the years, we tend to think that it's friendship but it's business.
I have experienced this once with an agency I had worked for throughout many years and it certainly hurts.
I hope for you they come back even... See more They have always appreciated your work, your commitment and reliability, your good will and what else and praised and thanked you for this all the time. Then out of the blue you are ditched, maybe without any explanation. Especially if the relationship has got amicable over the years, we tend to think that it's friendship but it's business.
I have experienced this once with an agency I had worked for throughout many years and it certainly hurts.
I hope for you they come back eventually with a proposal you can agree to, but wouldn't count on it too much. ▲ Collapse
| | | | S. D.
United States
Local time: 09:29
English to Japanese
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you for sharing | Jul 31 |
Christel Zipfel wrote:
They have always appreciated your work, your commitment and reliability, your good will and what else and praised and thanked you for this all the time. Then out of the blue you are ditched, maybe without any explanation. Especially if the relationship has got amicable over the years, we tend to think that it's friendship but it's business.
I have experienced this once with an agency I had worked for throughout many years and it certainly hurts.
I hope for you they come back eventually with a proposal you can agree to, but wouldn't count on it too much.
I am very sorry that it happened to you as well. I understand how it hurt you ... I know that I am a 'freelancer' that can be thrown out anytime they want, but I felt very strange as this agency was depending on my service. I even feel I got tricked or have been just 'used' because I helped them to keep this end-client's business from the start of their projects by delivering the quality work constantly, making my availability all the time, and I even trained other linguists as well. I guess this agency just wants to move on with the well-established business for this huge end-client using the linguists I trained as they probably could accept lower rates. I must move on as well from this type of business ...
| | | | | At least some agencies are under a lot of pressure | Aug 6 |
AFAIK this yer has been difficult for many players on the market and at least some of the translation agencies are under a serious pressure from their clients, who in turn have difficulties of their own.
In situation like this, IMHO reasonable would be to at least try to use the new system of work and see what happens. Maybe the rate per hour would be quite OK, despite the lower rate per word?
Maybe the potential for time saving would be lower and amount to 10 or 20% Btw. I am convin... See more AFAIK this yer has been difficult for many players on the market and at least some of the translation agencies are under a serious pressure from their clients, who in turn have difficulties of their own.
In situation like this, IMHO reasonable would be to at least try to use the new system of work and see what happens. Maybe the rate per hour would be quite OK, despite the lower rate per word?
Maybe the potential for time saving would be lower and amount to 10 or 20% Btw. I am convinced that in my language pair MT saves approximately 20% of work.
Still maybe, after a reasonable attempt, if you could show that the savings do not amount to 30%, would be willing to renegotiate the rate.
What I really want to say is that as the industry changes, we may need to evolve along with it. Giving flat "no" to such offers may not lead to a long term success.
Anyway I wish you success, whichever route you take!
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Stanisław
[Edited at 2024-08-06 12:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| My edit has not been publishedTPET | Aug 6 |
And all I wrote got lost.
To make the long story short, I have reread your post and see that the discount is from the rate for MTPE, so it is a 30% cut in your earnings, plain and simple. It must be very tough.
What we should consider though is that some translation companies are under huge pressure from their clients, who on the one hand struggle with turbulent market and on the other feel compelled to take advantage of recent developments in AI, which are much better public... See more And all I wrote got lost.
To make the long story short, I have reread your post and see that the discount is from the rate for MTPE, so it is a 30% cut in your earnings, plain and simple. It must be very tough.
What we should consider though is that some translation companies are under huge pressure from their clients, who on the one hand struggle with turbulent market and on the other feel compelled to take advantage of recent developments in AI, which are much better publicised than the previous development of MT.
I know of a few clients of mine who lost clients or were at a risk of that.
It is something we need to consider as well. ▲ Collapse
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