How much the translation of your documents costs? How is the cost of translation calculated and what can be done to save on translation services?For most people who have never worked in the field of translation, it is difficult to understand why translations that at first glance seem similar are priced differently. Many factors influence the cost of translation: language, terms, subject, volume, level of translation quality, difficulties with layout formatting.
That is why there is no generally accepted pricing in the field of translations. However, there are the most common ones: rate per word, price per page, cost of translator services per hour. In addition, companies have adopted fixed salaries, minimum salaries plus a percentage of the volume of transfers.
By words
This is the most common pricing model in the translation industry abroad. In Russia, this model began to take root about ten years ago with the emergence of a large number of foreign translation customers. The price per word is very convenient for clients and translation agencies because it is quite easy to calculate the number of words. It is sometimes difficult to explain this model to clients, but most accept it normally. Only a few have a "psychological barrier". There is a similar problem with the translation of spaces, punctuation marks in the by page calculation of the translation cost.
Some translation agencies calculate the cost depending on the number of pages contained in the document. In fact, this calculation practice takes into account the full amount of the source text, including spaces, punctuation marks, numbers that are not directly subject to translation, but must be present in it. Price per page is well suited for documents where electronic word counts cannot be obtained. A good example of this would be any documents that have been scanned into a PDF file such as medical records, court documents. If the document contains tables, graphs and diagrams, the translator will need time and effort to create the layout, and this affects the cost.
A minimum order is assigned for translations containing up to 250 words, which is less than one page. This is because the costs can often exceed the actual translation costs. To reduce translation costs, group documents with small word counts to avoid extra costs by paying the minimum order multiple times.
