| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Advice requested on rates for larger projects Thread poster: NvPoe
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Balasubramaniam L. 
India
Local time: 00:16
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | It will depend on your work flow | Dec 1, 2014 |
If you are fully booked and winning this large project or not wouldn't make any difference to you financially, then there is no sense in giving any discount.
But if you are underemployed, and not landing this project would mean sitting idle, it would make a lot of sense to offer a small discount to become competitive visavis other translators and land this project. In this case the choice is between not earning anything and earning a slightly less amount than possible. I would opt f... See more If you are fully booked and winning this large project or not wouldn't make any difference to you financially, then there is no sense in giving any discount.
But if you are underemployed, and not landing this project would mean sitting idle, it would make a lot of sense to offer a small discount to become competitive visavis other translators and land this project. In this case the choice is between not earning anything and earning a slightly less amount than possible. I would opt for the second under these circumstances.
However, you will have to make it clear (and also be clear to yourself) that this does not in way set a precedent for this client so that all future projects don't also get pegged to this discounted rate.
Ultimately, what you should aim at is to maximize your earning. Often, paradoxically, charging a slightly lower rate, can help you achieve this (by enabling you to land a project). But these are always delicate decisions and you should give a lot of thought before taking these price-related decisions. And that is the beauty of running your own business. There is no compulsion to be rigid on anything and you can take nuanced and informed decisions aimed at benefiting you to the maximum.
There are certain other situations too where you might consider offering a slightly lower rate:
- the client is really good and pays on time.
- the project is interesting and would give you great pleasure in doing it.
- the subject area is new and lucrative and you want to break into this new area. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jacques DP
Switzerland
Local time: 20:46
English to French
| Volume discounts come from commerce | Dec 2, 2014 |
When your business is to buy something at some price, and to sell it at a higher price, then volume discounts make sense. If your margin on some product is 10 euros, then if someone offers you to buy 1000 pieces but for 2 euro less per item, you will still earn 8000 euros, that's great, and you can reorder 1000 pieces to sell them one by one.
Agencies do exactly that. They buy our service, which they resell at a higher price to a client they have to find. If the client wants to entr... See more When your business is to buy something at some price, and to sell it at a higher price, then volume discounts make sense. If your margin on some product is 10 euros, then if someone offers you to buy 1000 pieces but for 2 euro less per item, you will still earn 8000 euros, that's great, and you can reorder 1000 pieces to sell them one by one.
Agencies do exactly that. They buy our service, which they resell at a higher price to a client they have to find. If the client wants to entrust the agency with 100K words, but asks for a 20% discount, that may make sense for the agency exactly in the same way as the example above.
But our situation is different. We produce the service ourselves by spending our finite time. Therefore generally there is no sense in doing volume discounts, and translators doing them just reveal that their "official" rate is a dummy figure they use to start negotiation, or that they are under-employed and relieved when they get a large job (both things amount to the same: their rate is not their real rate). ▲ Collapse
| | | | Olga Koepping
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:46
German to English
+ ...
| Wish we had a "like" button | Dec 2, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote:
Are you running a fruit and vegetable stall, or are you a translator?
| | | | | Large projects take more "time per word" | Dec 3, 2014 |
Suppose you have a 10k word project. I usually:
1. Read the entire document to understand the context.
2. Read the entire document again, but now start compiling a bilingual glossary of the key terms.
3. Start translating
4. Adjust the glossary accordingly
5. Edit the translation
6. Proofread the translation for typos, etc (preferably, next day)
If you are dealing with a small document, the steps 2 and 4 are, at least, not that intense. ... See more Suppose you have a 10k word project. I usually:
1. Read the entire document to understand the context.
2. Read the entire document again, but now start compiling a bilingual glossary of the key terms.
3. Start translating
4. Adjust the glossary accordingly
5. Edit the translation
6. Proofread the translation for typos, etc (preferably, next day)
If you are dealing with a small document, the steps 2 and 4 are, at least, not that intense.
The major risk in large documents is to keep termonological consistency across the entire document. Even one small deviation will be flaged by the editor (if they are good).
My conclusion, based on my own experience, is that large documents demand greater care and therefore more time per word than a small document.
Let us not:
1. Discount on large projects
2. Accept too tight a deadline
And in the long run, all parties will be happy(er). ▲ Collapse
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Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 20:46
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| Per word rate | Dec 3, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote:
You should not give discounts for large projects. More work does not equal less effort, or less money. I can't see any reason why you should not charge your normal rate. Tina is 100% correct.
[Edited at 2014-11-28 16:11 GMT]
Exactly. A translated word is a translated word. And larger projects do require closer attention than a small one that can be done in a couple of hours rather than being spread over several days.
Supermarkets might offer a reduced price if you buy more than one or two items of the same kind. But translators don't run supermarkets.
| | | | | Greedy translators do as much harm to the industry as undercutters | Dec 3, 2014 |
OK!!! I understand now...
- I understand why some people say ProZ members always side with translators, against agencies and clients, no matter what...
- I understand why some agency owners/directors consider translators like fat cats and want to punish them using predatory rates...
- I understand, too, why so many politicians are corrupt.... yes, this is same sin: greediness, i.e. never enough. Alright, realities are myriad and there is not one way of doing... See more OK!!! I understand now...
- I understand why some people say ProZ members always side with translators, against agencies and clients, no matter what...
- I understand why some agency owners/directors consider translators like fat cats and want to punish them using predatory rates...
- I understand, too, why so many politicians are corrupt.... yes, this is same sin: greediness, i.e. never enough. Alright, realities are myriad and there is not one way of doing business, but, at least regarding the specific case of translators who reject CAT discounts on 100% matches, those are perfectly akin to corrupt politicians...
▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 19:46
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| taking sides, punishment, corruption, greed, sin? | Dec 4, 2014 |
Increasingly emotive words that to me seem oddly out of place here, where posters have provided logical, considered and defensible arguments.
Frankie JB wrote:
- I understand why some people say ProZ members always side with translators, against agencies and clients, no matter what...
- I understand why some agency owners/directors consider translators like fat cats and want to punish them using predatory rates...
- I understand, too, why so many politicians are corrupt.... yes, this is same sin: greediness, i.e. never enough. Alright, realities are myriad and there is not one way of doing business, but, at least regarding the specific case of translators who reject CAT discounts on 100% matches, those are perfectly akin to corrupt politicians...
We aren't talking of subjective areas such as quality, but of measurable gains and losses. I know I'm not alone in believing I have the right to earn the same amount for each hour I spend on my clients' work. If one client is not prepared to pay for that hour, then I should spend the hour servicing a client who is. If I take on a large volume of work at my normal rate, I'm not contemplating earning a fat chunk more than usual per hour. Maybe that would constitute greed. The best I can hope for is a healthy month's income in a period that might otherwise have been a bit short of work. On the other hand, the disadvantages include the prospect of saying "no" to valued clients and interesting projects; the missed opportunity of new clients; the boredom factor; the business risk of relying too much on one client...
As for CAT discounts, how many of them are truly valid? I'm sure any translator would accept that if a text has entire paragraphs duplicated, or tables where very many lines contain exactly the same text, then a discount is appropriate. But a discount for each and every repetition or 100% match, concerning just a few words? Even a repetition can have different context and need a different translation. 100% matches are notorious - nowadays they are often TUs that have been put produced by an MT program, not from our own TMs of identical context. Translators who work with client TMs must end up spending at least the normal amount of time on each match, particularly when you factor in (as you should) the additional complexity in quoting and invoicing, and the often overlooked fact that we not only spend (unpaid) time learning how to use these tools, but we also PAY for them!
I have never given CAT discounts per se, and I don't ever intend to. Yet I don't consider myself to be in the slightest bit corrupt. And I know I'm not alone. There are even very many agencies out there who agree entirely with my stand, and are appreciative when I find myself in a position to offer them a discount.
| | | | AndersonT (X)
United States
Local time: 14:46
German to English
| Logic fail... | Dec 4, 2014 |
I believe there is a profound logic fail in the pro-discount faction here.
The only real "overhead saving" I see in large projects is that I have to write one invoice instead of lets say ten. Since writing one invoice shouldn't really take more than five minutes, that "advantage" is negligible.
The logical failure I see is the assumption that large projects will cut down on prep and research time. In my experience there is nothing that would support such an assumption. ... See more I believe there is a profound logic fail in the pro-discount faction here.
The only real "overhead saving" I see in large projects is that I have to write one invoice instead of lets say ten. Since writing one invoice shouldn't really take more than five minutes, that "advantage" is negligible.
The logical failure I see is the assumption that large projects will cut down on prep and research time. In my experience there is nothing that would support such an assumption. And that for one simple reason, if we compare a 10k text and a 200k text, the 200k text will require more research, unless of course it is something highly repetitive like a parts catalogue (where discounts will obviously be CAT rate structures). As the word count of a descriptive text grows, so does the content/information it conveys.
More text = more information = more "topics" = more research.
Just because a large chunk of text happens to concern items/processes/information concerning one product instead of 2, 5 or 10 different ones, doesn't mean it will require less "getting-started-research".
I don't know if I'm conveying my thoughts here properly. What I am getting at is simply that if something needs 100, 200 or 300k words to deliver the information, you'll have to do as much research and prep work as if you were to prepare 10 x 10k words. Unless of course your text is so wordy that it manages to stay on the same topic on end without saying much.
Long story short, there isn't really any "economy of scales" if you provide a service. I have a fixed set of rates, and my time doesn't get any cheaper just because someone wants more of it. ▲ Collapse
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Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 00:16
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | The fallacy in this argument... | Dec 4, 2014 |
AndersonT wrote:
Long story short, there isn't really any "economy of scales" if you provide a service. I have a fixed set of rates, and my time doesn't get any cheaper just because someone wants more of it.
Time is money, has become such a cliche in our trade that many of us fail to see that this wisdom comes with a very relevant rider.
And that is, time is money only if you are fully employed all your time, and many of us are at many times not fully employed.
Time not spend in doing productive work earns you nothing. If you know you are going to be idle for a certain period of time and if a job comes your way which you can land if you agree to a slightly less payment than your normal rate, then doing that job at that reduced rate makes complete economic sense, as it will turn your idle time into productive time.
When running a business, one needs such critical reasoning power, otherwise maximizing your opportunities can become very difficult.
| | | | Jacques DP
Switzerland
Local time: 20:46
English to French
| Time not spent on translation work is not necessarily lost | Dec 4, 2014 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Time not spend in doing productive work earns you nothing.
If you decline a job, your time is not lost. It stays yours and you can do something else!
Money is just a means, it has no intrinsic value. The free time that freelancing offers you can be lived happily even if it "earns you nothing".
But I understand that some may do freelance work for other reasons than I do. It is a choice (and one I am very happy with) and I would not like to work as an employee, but some would probably prefer to do so.
Many different situations.
| | | | AndersonT (X)
United States
Local time: 14:46
German to English
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
Time not spend in doing productive work earns you nothing. If you know you are going to be idle for a certain period of time and if a job comes your way which you can land if you agree to a slightly less payment than your normal rate, then doing that job at that reduced rate makes complete economic sense, as it will turn your idle time into productive time.
I understand where you are coming from. However, the fact is, once you start lowering your rates it is very hard to bring them back up. I know plenty of colleagues that tell me day in day out something like "if only I hadn't started doing that".
See, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as idle time. There is a plethora of things translators can do to improve themselves: learn, get certified, market yourself, do your taxes, take care of that TM maintenance, what have you. These are all activities one can pursue on that odd day where no one places an order, and in doing so, become well-rounded enough to command proper rates. And funny enough, these are the types of activities that will, in the long run, keep the orders coming. Good translators are a hot commodity.
I hate the cliché of the "slippery slope", but I do really think that's what the mentality of work for cheap because nothing else is available just now is. It's something that can eagerly spiral out of control.
Someone a few posts up mentioned a 30% discount. I almost spat a mouthful of coffee over my keyboard when I saw that. I would rather spend a day doing unbillable work than throw out my work like that, because the only thing you communicate to your client(s) with discounts in that neighborhood is that you don't value your work yourself.
Have you ever seen lawyers give a discount for trials that last longer? Or surgeons give a discount for extra-long surgery? Or architects give a discount for additional levels of a building? I appreciate your perspective may be different, but I really can't see how discount for volume would make sense for a fulltime freelance service provider.
In our field, it is bad enough that we get paid by words instead of by hours. But I guess that's our own fault because we haven't self-policed our profession enough to keep clients from getting overcharged. Lets not make it even worse...
[Edited at 2014-12-04 15:16 GMT]
| | | | | Professionals are providing quality translations. They're not selling lemonade. | Dec 4, 2014 |
AndersonT wrote:
... the fact is, once you start lowering your rates it is very hard to bring them back up. I know plenty of colleagues that tell me day in day out something like "if only I hadn't started doing that".
See, in my humble opinion, there is no such thing as idle time. There is a plethora of things translators can do to improve themselves: learn, get certified, market yourself, do your taxes, take care of that TM maintenance, what have you. These are all activities one can pursue on that odd day where no one places an order, and in doing so, become well-rounded enough to command proper rates. And funny enough, these are the types of activities that will, in the long run, keep the orders coming. Good translators are a hot commodity.
I agree. Plus:
Idle time shouldn't be an excuse for taking on work at sub-rates. Are you going to charge that again next time when that client comes calling?
Also, it's really bad for the industry if there is constant undercutting going on - that's why all these fly-by-night agencies cropped up and continue to poison the well.
AndersonT wrote:
I hate the cliché of the "slippery slope", but I do really think that's what the mentality of work for cheap because nothing else is available just now is. It's something that can eagerly spiral out of control.
How about taking on a 5000-word or so post-editing MT job for EUR .025/word when you're idle?
The mindset that compels someone to do that is mind-boggling. Yes, there are certainly a lot of different mindsets out there. But professionals who do excellent work and have put considerable time and effort (incl. education and various work experiences in various countries) into becoming translators should have no reason to stoop to running a rate roller coaster.
AndersonT wrote:
Someone a few posts up mentioned a 30% discount. I almost spat a mouthful of coffee over my keyboard when I saw that. I would rather spend a day doing unbillable work than throw out my work like that, because the only thing you communicate to your client(s) with discounts in that neighborhood is that you don't value your work yourself.
No kidding. Whatever happened to self-respect and the conviction that you're worth every single cent you charge for your work?! I can't see any real professional doing that anyway. But lots of people might give discounts just to get that job offered by a cheap outsourcer. That's feeding the beast, nothing else. You're going to make peanuts while others laugh their a..es off. Not a healthy business attitude. You're being exploited by unscrupulous people. If one is so desperate to give a 30% discount just to get a translation (from an outsourcer who probably pays a low rate already and pays sometime next year), maybe this isn't the right profession for that person. If you think I am exaggerating, think again. That's the reality; you can see it in the jobs placed on this portal. People calling themselves translators swarming around cheap jobs like moths to the flame that instinctively know there's no tomorrow, job posters driving down prices by proposing horrible rates and payment terms because they can count on droves of "translating people" accepting such ludicrous "offers."
AndersonT wrote:
Have you ever seen lawyers give a discount for trials that last longer? Or surgeons give a discount for extra-long surgery? Or architects give a discount for additional levels of a building? I appreciate your perspective may be different, but I really can't see how discount for volume would make sense for a fulltime freelance service provider.
Excellent point; we need to understand ourselves as professionals who have great skills and great experience in the use of at least two languages, and our work is indeed comparable to that in those professions, no matter if we are a regulated profession or not. Don't tell me that that's not real and that we have to follow the market. That's a load of ... A professional translator is not an unskilled worker. That's just it. Nothing against unskilled workers. But when people sell themselves as if they were unskilled workers, they only fill the pockets of tricksters and unprofessional people who are simply out to make a buck as long as they can. And those translators destroy their own career prospects with every such job they take on by either providing sub-quality work or giving away their knowledge like kids do at a lemonade stand. The trickster-outsourcers try to reinvent themselves again and again under a new name after they have destroyed their reputation.
These things are going on but I don't have to participate in it. And no one should. And I don't. If you're giving something away like kids do at a lemonade stand, it better be cheap lemonade, not quality translations.
[Edited at 2014-12-04 16:14 GMT]
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Sheila Wilson wrote:
Increasingly emotive words that to me seem oddly out of place here, where posters have provided logical, considered and defensible arguments.
Completely disagree. Most posters against discounts in this thread have provided mostly fallacious and superficial arguments, and I'm not only referring to those who are used to dropping their (often uneducated) opinion in a blur with no serious evidence to back the words, with no regard to what was said before by others... Too emotive? Maybe. I'm very passionate indeed and when I read arguments that don't hold water by people surpassingly self-confident it's hard to stay composed...
I know I'm not alone in believing I have the right to earn the same amount for each hour I spend on my clients' work. If one client is not prepared to pay for that hour, then I should spend the hour servicing a client who is.
This reasoning is flawed and probably one of a short-sighted person. Not only because each project involves fixed costs, as shown before, but also because it doesn't take into account what you could call "a cost of availability": when you take on smaller projects, it seldom happens that all of them come one right after the other, which means that at some point, inevitably, there will be gaps in your schedule, UNPAID gaps! I don't say that those unpaid gaps are a bad thing - as Jacques pointed out, it can be considered a positive for various reasons - but if you want to reason only in terms of money, then your argument is not valid. Unless, of course, you receive offers every so often that there are never unwanted gaps in your schedule? If so, it probably means you are a miserable pieceworker! Those unpaid gaps are part and parcel of fixed costs, and this is why the argument given by Michal earlier in this thread is inane.
Incidentally, being in a majority ("I'm not alone in...") doesn't make your smarter  (often the contrary actually, but I'm sure your know it).
If I take on a large volume of work at my normal rate, I'm not contemplating earning a fat chunk more than usual per hour. Maybe that would constitute greed. The best I can hope for is a healthy month's income in a period that might otherwise have been a bit short of work. On the other hand, the disadvantages include the prospect of saying "no" to valued clients and interesting projects; the missed opportunity of new clients; the boredom factor; the business risk of relying too much on one client...
THANK YOU!! At least some tenable arguments against discounts in this thread! HOWEVER, tenable doesn't mean 100% valid:
- "Saying "no" to valued clients and interesting projects": unless the deadline for a larger project is really very tight (more or less full capacity day in day out until delivery, which should never happen anyway), you won't necessarily have to say noes. Indeed, those nasty larger projects often allow you to handle your schedule with more flexiblity and probably won't hinder you from helping out your other clients now and then on smaller projects... And if you can't, well, it doesn't mean the client will say farewell to you (at least with agencies, this is why they have many vendors on file...).
- Missed opportunity of new clients: as above: unless the deadline is very tight, you still should be able to welcome them when they knock at your door... (as an aside: hoarding is no good and if you're really so afraid of saying no to clients trying to expand your client base is not necessarily a good idea either!).
- Boredom: at best preferential (the correlation is not clear).
- Dependency: partly true, but same case as 1) and 2) above.
As for CAT discounts, how many of them are truly valid? I'm sure any translator would accept that if a text has entire paragraphs duplicated, or tables where very many lines contain exactly the same text, then a discount is appropriate.
Unfortunately, not "any"!, those fora are testimony to that (the reason often given being: "I have paid 1000s for this software, clients will have to absorb my investment! - which is pure nonsense, as CAT tools are just a door-opener, or, if you like, an entry fee, or a licence, to work with midsize or larger agencies...) Plus, it's not "entire paragraphs" that should be discounted, but just any full sentence already translated requiring no effort from you.
But a discount for each and every repetition or 100% match, concerning just a few words? Even a repetition can have different context and need a different translation. 100% matches are notorious - nowadays they are often TUs that have been put produced by an MT program, not from our own TMs of identical context. Translators who work with client TMs must end up spending at least the normal amount of time on each match, particularly when you factor in (as you should) the additional complexity in quoting and invoicing, and the often overlooked fact that we not only spend (unpaid) time learning how to use these tools, but we also PAY for them!
I'm not unaware that one macrocontext contains microcontexts, and thus that it's not fair to discount any and all 100% matches or repeats, but if you're observant, you will surely have noticed that it's only those smallish, 1- to 4-word segments that need updating, are time-consuming and indeed must be paid. If your agencies refuse to pay them, then you don't spend any second on them, as simple as that! (More generally, if an agency tries and tricks you, you probably don't want to offer them discounts, that's true). As for the rest in this §, my opinion is right above (CAT tools = entry fee to get business).
I have never given CAT discounts per se, and I don't ever intend to. Yet I don't consider myself to be in the slightest bit corrupt. And I know I'm not alone. There are even very many agencies out there who agree entirely with my stand, and are appreciative when I find myself in a position to offer them a discount.
With all due respect dear Sheila, I've the feeling that you may not have the standard profile of a technical translator... Could it be that you are a semi-retired grandmother who can afford to be very picky and like to take on only fun jobs (possibly on the liberal/creative end of the technical translation spectrum), with, logically in this case, more interest in having fun than making money, enjoying topic variety, translating at a slower pace because unlike the rest of us your pension is fully financed? If I'm not too far from the truth, then I understand your stance: you don't grant discounts because anyway you are not interested in large projects, which is understandable...
(By the way, my own policy is no discount below 30,000 words, which is not a tiny amount...)
[Edited at 2014-12-04 17:08 GMT]
| | | | | Discounts and discounts | Dec 4, 2014 |
Now there's nothing wrong with giving a small discount for a good reason. If you decide to give a client let's say a 5% discount on a 5000 word project for paying you immediately, I can understand that.
If you decide to charge a somewhat lower rate for a 100 or 200 000 word project, I would call that the "rate" (not a discount) for that project which a professional translator arrives at after taking into account everything (text type, complexity, your own skill set, the research inv... See more Now there's nothing wrong with giving a small discount for a good reason. If you decide to give a client let's say a 5% discount on a 5000 word project for paying you immediately, I can understand that.
If you decide to charge a somewhat lower rate for a 100 or 200 000 word project, I would call that the "rate" (not a discount) for that project which a professional translator arrives at after taking into account everything (text type, complexity, your own skill set, the research involved, the deadline etc.); so that's not a simple discount. It's a rate and rates can be flexible to a certain degree. But it doesn't follow logically from the volume of a project that it will be done at a lower rate or with an automatic discount.
Automatic and/or arbitrary discounts or demands for such discounts simply for volume I consider wrong. That's not a wise thing to do.
[Edited at 2014-12-04 17:18 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | IrimiConsulting
Sweden
Local time: 20:46
Member (2010)
English to Swedish
+ ...
| Depends on your projects! | Dec 4, 2014 |
Were I a translator of literature, press releases, transcreation or the like, I would do my very best to charge by the hour or possibly per page. These types of documents require at least linear translation time, as many have already written.
But to my projects, economy of scale can sometimes be used. We translate technical texts, usually manuals which are fairly repetitive. Learning the terms and phrasing in a certain job could take a while, but once we know it we may be able to in... See more Were I a translator of literature, press releases, transcreation or the like, I would do my very best to charge by the hour or possibly per page. These types of documents require at least linear translation time, as many have already written.
But to my projects, economy of scale can sometimes be used. We translate technical texts, usually manuals which are fairly repetitive. Learning the terms and phrasing in a certain job could take a while, but once we know it we may be able to increase the translation rate (words per hour) twofold, sometimes more. I definitely take this into account when I try to compete for a large job, but I don't get silly about it. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » Advice requested on rates for larger projects | Trados Business Manager Lite | Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio
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