| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8] > | Different rates for the domestic+foreign markets? Thread poster: S_G_C
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| Different rates for different clients | Nov 3, 2015 |
For several years when I started out I regularly had trouble staying busy and earning the money I needed, and I certainly made offers at substantially lower rates for projects and clients that I thought were important for me or when I didn't have enough work or needed money. Geography wasn't relevant in my case, but the root question is the same.
Worrying about minimum rates seems like a very bad way to go about securing enough work yourself at adequate or good rates. Struggling to ... See more For several years when I started out I regularly had trouble staying busy and earning the money I needed, and I certainly made offers at substantially lower rates for projects and clients that I thought were important for me or when I didn't have enough work or needed money. Geography wasn't relevant in my case, but the root question is the same.
Worrying about minimum rates seems like a very bad way to go about securing enough work yourself at adequate or good rates. Struggling to keep busy and to make ends meet is normal for someone starting out, and working for low rates is one way to temporarily deal with these problems. However, if you are still working for low-paying Romanian clients several years down the road, then something is wrong. As freelancers, "going rates" and "the market" are irrelevant for us: the volumes of work that we handle are so small that, if we are good, there will always be more than enough clients somewhere who are happy to pay us more. The global economy cuts both ways.
It is important to get ourselves in a position where we are earning money 3 to 6 months in advance of when we will need to be spending it and continually replacing lower-paying clients with better-paying clients or raising rates with existing clients (in my experience, it is a myth that this is particularly difficult). Just see to it that the demand for your services exceeds the supply of time (and interest) that you have available to provide them and keep raising your rate to put things back into balance. If that means no longer working for any Romanian clients at some point, who cares? ▲ Collapse
| | | | S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
TOPIC STARTER | Disappointment | Nov 3, 2015 |
I have just been disappointed by the local agency with whom I had passed the tests. It does have a Blue Board record, but there are several domestic opinions against working for them.
They offered me the same peanuts as usual, but they also asked for one thing which made me step back and search for feedback. And then they also mentioned a huge number of collaborators - meaning translators, in their explanatory message. This made me raise my eyebrows even higher. Oh, well.
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Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
working for USD .05/word is a joke!
In what context is this a joke?
Highly qualified specialists in all kinds of fields and professions earn totally different wages all around the world.
This is no joke but a factual reality.
| | | | | It's actually tragic | Nov 4, 2015 |
Marius Reika wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
working for USD .05/word is a joke!
In what context is this a joke? Highly qualified specialists in all kinds of fields and professions earn totally different wages all around the world. This is no joke but a factual reality.
In the context of the global professional translation industry.
I don't wish USD .05/word on any serious translator anywhere.
If you don't perceive it as a joke, I am sorry. To me it is. Although I am not laughing.
[Edited at 2015-11-04 04:45 GMT]
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S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
TOPIC STARTER
Bernhard, some languages might be valued higher than others... Or some fields of expertise...
And perhaps our location matters as well...
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 10:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| The problem with using Proz.com's average rates | Nov 4, 2015 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Minimum and standard rates in the context of the quote above refer to the rates published by Proz.com. So, no, anything less is not what I consider a "professional" rate.
If half of freelancers in a given language combination live in a country where they can live comfortably on 6c per word, a quarter come from a country where they can scrape by on 15c a word, and a quarter are highly trained, highly specialised translators who command 20c per word, then the ProZ.com average (and what you would consider a "professional" rate) would be... 11c per word.
The problem with asking 11c per word, then, is that freelancers in the cheap country will price themselves out of their market, which means that they will have to learn how to deal with international clients who have different types of text and requirements. The problem with accepting that 11c is a professional rate for clients to pay, is that freelancers in the expensive country will have to work a lot harder to make enough money to survive.
So it's very dodgy to base an ideal rate on published averages that do not take into account where people live, for how long they've been translators, whether they have qualifications, or in what markets their clients are.
[Edited at 2015-11-04 09:18 GMT]
| | | | | I agree that it's that simple: location matters | Nov 4, 2015 |
According to Wikipedia, Eurostat lists the average after-tax wages for Romania in 2014 at just under 350 EUR/ month. There is also a pre-tax figure of 575 EUR from Romania, which is based on the month of December 2014 only.
The site http://www.tradingeconomics.com lists an unemployment rate for 2015 of 6-7% based on the Romanian government's official statistics.
Now obviously freelancer... See more According to Wikipedia, Eurostat lists the average after-tax wages for Romania in 2014 at just under 350 EUR/ month. There is also a pre-tax figure of 575 EUR from Romania, which is based on the month of December 2014 only.
The site http://www.tradingeconomics.com lists an unemployment rate for 2015 of 6-7% based on the Romanian government's official statistics.
Now obviously freelancers tend to have a heavier tax burden, particularly in terms of retirement and medical insurance, and they have business expenses that come out of their earnings before any other taxes and fees. That means they have to bring in more money to end up with the same earnings, but they would still be earning a very solid income with a fraction of what someone would need to earn just to get by in the US or Germany, not to mention Switzerland or Luxembourg.
That means that sales of 850 EUR/ month by translating 250 words/ paid hour x 6 paid hours/ workday x 19 workdays/ month (incl. public holidays, vacation, sick days etc. over the course of the year) at a rate of 0.03 EUR/ word would place them solidly in the middle class in terms of income after expenses (incl. tax and insurance disadvantages) while working roughly the equivalent of a full-time job.
That means that working as a freelance translator for .03 EUR/ word is a financially attractive opportunity in Romania. If we start talking about someone struggling to get by, then substantially lower rates might still represent an alternative that a significant number of potential translators would find acceptable.
What is my immediate point? The economic conditions in the countries involved in a given translation pair are obviously directly relevant to what prices translators will (reasonably) be willing to work for.
What conclusion would I draw from this (my real point)? Working with any agency that regularly deals with translations into and out of Romanian is a bad business strategy. They will know about this situation and have an economic incentive to invest time and money in exploiting it to their advantage. Getting your name out to hundreds of agencies and outsourcing or referring colleagues who only occasionally work with Romanian and would be happy to pay much more or to foreign direct clients active in Romania, most of whom would probably be shocked to get an offer under 0.15 EUR/ word (and probably under 0.20 EUR/ word), is how you can use the global economy to your advantage.
The scale is entirely different, but the principle is the same when I live in Berlin, but most of my clients come from Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We couldn't afford a condo one third the size of ours or half our quality of life in Munich, not to mention in genuinely expensive cities like Paris, London or New York. ▲ Collapse
| | | | S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
TOPIC STARTER | Agencies again | Nov 4, 2015 |
I have another question.
Romania is filled with translation agencies or bureaus. Many of them advertise themselves as being capable of providing translation services in multiple language pairs, including the ones considered rare. What they do is sort languages out into groups, according to the frequency with which these languages are chosen by translators, as their working combinations, and with which clients request them. Group 1 certainly includes English and French, as these two... See more I have another question.
Romania is filled with translation agencies or bureaus. Many of them advertise themselves as being capable of providing translation services in multiple language pairs, including the ones considered rare. What they do is sort languages out into groups, according to the frequency with which these languages are chosen by translators, as their working combinations, and with which clients request them. Group 1 certainly includes English and French, as these two languages are extremely frequent. Translators working in the pairs included in Group 1 will be paid the lowest rates. And lowest starts, as I said, at 9 RON (2 EUR) for 2,000 characters with spaces - approx. 300 words.
I have not met any local agency who should say "I offer you rate A for English or French to Romanian" (Romanian being my mother tongue) "and rate B for Romanian to English or French".
Does this system exist in your countries? ▲ Collapse
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S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
TOPIC STARTER | Thanks, Michael | Nov 4, 2015 |
Michael Wetzel wrote:
According to Wikipedia, Eurostat lists the average after-tax wages for Romania in 2014 at just under 350 EUR/ month.
My monthly rent is just a bit under one third of that amount. For a two-room apartment, modestly looking, no refurbishments, located in a small and not-so-fortunate, economically speaking, city.
I liked your explanation, it matches what I had in mind.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 10:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Yes, cost of living must also be remembered | Nov 4, 2015 |
Michael Wetzel wrote:
That means that sales of 850 EUR/ month by translating 250 words/ paid hour x 6 paid hours/ workday x 19 workdays/ month (incl. public holidays, vacation, sick days etc. over the course of the year) at a rate of 0.03 EUR/ word would place them solidly in the middle class in terms of income after expenses (incl. tax and insurance disadvantages) while working roughly the equivalent of a full-time job.
Numbeo.com's comparator states that one can do three times as much with $1 in Romania as one can do in the USA. Imagine being a US translator earning a comfortable living, and then being told that you're rate is "unprofessional" and that you should be charging three times as much, at least.
Sorana_M. wrote:
And lowest starts, as I said, at [USD 0.007 per word].
That's the equivalent of a US translator earning USD 0.02 per word, which seems extremely low.
Can a freelance translator in Romania truly survive on RON 0.03 per word? Well... Sorana should tell us, but it seems to me that if one would want the same income as a teacher, for example (RON 1500 per month, if I'm not mistaken), you'd only have to translate 2500 words per day to reach that goal.
As to your question:
What they do is sort languages out into groups, according to the frequency with which these languages are chosen by translators, as their working combinations, and with which clients request them. ... Translators working in those pairs ... will be paid the lowest rates.
There must be many ways to determine rates, but having an oversupply of translators in a language combination will certainly lower the rates. It does not make sense to me, however, to lower rates due to an oversupply of clients, unless there is an oversupply of agencies.
| | | | S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
TOPIC STARTER | Salaries and survival | Nov 4, 2015 |
Samuel, 1,500 RON for a teacher is not a universal standard, because there are several degrees of "teachership". A teacher just entering the profession barely earns 830 RON/month. The government promised to increase the amount to 871 RON/month this autumn.
Seniority in the trade makes a difference, working in the rural area also makes a small difference, but there have been numberless complaints from the teachers because of their salaries. And from the parents, many teachers are or ... See more Samuel, 1,500 RON for a teacher is not a universal standard, because there are several degrees of "teachership". A teacher just entering the profession barely earns 830 RON/month. The government promised to increase the amount to 871 RON/month this autumn.
Seniority in the trade makes a difference, working in the rural area also makes a small difference, but there have been numberless complaints from the teachers because of their salaries. And from the parents, many teachers are or have become unprofessional.
If I translated 1,500 words/day, at 0.03 USD, for 19 days a month, I would fit into the middle class income range (I deduced the taxes when I computed). However, as I have rent to pay, as I have a 7-year old daughter, as I am almost a single mom now, I would have to cross my fingers and strongly hope nothing unexpected comes up. Such as getting sick or having to cover some urgent expenses. You may call it survival, if you want, but it would surely be extremely stressful. The quality of my life would severely deteriorate.
And yes, there may actually be an oversupply of agencies. I have just discovered a site where lots of translators complain about this and that agency, including about some I know.
[Edited at 2015-11-04 16:56 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Edit: Sorana, your previous post was blocked for some reason and it was completely invisible on my computer. I think you were saying that the 800+ EUR would be too little money and not that the working hours would be too long ... at any rate, the only (in my opinion) important thing that I've said anywhere here is that there are lots of situations where Romanian translations are worth far more than 0.03 EUR per word (particularly French > Romanian would probably be considered an exotic combinati... See more Edit: Sorana, your previous post was blocked for some reason and it was completely invisible on my computer. I think you were saying that the 800+ EUR would be too little money and not that the working hours would be too long ... at any rate, the only (in my opinion) important thing that I've said anywhere here is that there are lots of situations where Romanian translations are worth far more than 0.03 EUR per word (particularly French > Romanian would probably be considered an exotic combination many places = agencies would charge substantially more for it).
Samuel, our earlier posts overlapped and while I assumed that you were writing something similar to me, all I could see in your post was "edited" when I wrote mine.
My 850 EUR math was designed to show that the rational average rate à la Bernhard is clearly not more than 0.03 per word for a language pair where a giant chunk of the available translators are living in the context of the Romanian economy.
By changing the numbers, e. g. working 6 days a week minus a few extra days off per month (25 days/ month), working substantially more than 8-hour days to average 8 paid hours/ day and translating more words per hour (say 350 words), you can still come up with earnings at 0.01 EUR/ word that are clearly acceptable relative to the economic situation in Romania.
Working conditions in various countries are just as different as average incomes. The average white-collar American probably works an entire month more per year than the average white-collar German (2-3 weeks of paid vacation vs. 5-6 weeks, ca. 5 days of paid public holidays vs. ca. 10 days and significantly less paid sick days taken). I wouldn't want to work under the conditions I outlined for Romania, but I wouldn't want to work under American conditions either (particularly in terms of the costs of raising children there and the lack of a social safety net if things ever go very wrong in my life).
Sorana, regarding your new question:
I think most German agencies pretty strictly apply the native-speaker rule, so I think the issue of varying fees according to the translator's native language doesn't really come up here. Personally, I only translate into German a handful of times per year (if that) and those are short texts linked with extenuating circumstances, so it wouldn't make any sense to worry about adjusting my rates, because it's just a service to regular clients in a pinch and is not financially relevant.
But I do think it is safe to assume that at least tens of millions of words of Romanian translations are being purchased at rates of over (often well over) 0.10 EUR/ word every year. Find a text and have a friend send requests for offers to several large Western European translation agencies and you'll see what I mean. There is a lot of money to be made by moving up the food chain.
[Edited at 2015-11-05 07:20 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Moving up - not down | Nov 4, 2015 |
Michael Wetzel wrote:
But I do think it is safe to assume that at least tens of millions of words of Romanian translations are being purchased at rates of over (often well over) 0.10 EUR/ word every year. Find a text and have a friend send requests for offers to several large Western European translation agencies and you'll see what I mean. There is a lot of money to be made by moving up the food chain.
So, if the majority of Romanian translators worked for Western agencies where they can charge higher fees, the the Romanian low paying agencies would struggle sourcing translators and would have to follow suit?
| | | | | WE need to stick to acceptable standards everywhere | Nov 4, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
If half of freelancers in a given language combination live in a country where they can live comfortably on 6c per word, a quarter come from a country where they can scrape by on 15c a word, and a quarter are highly trained, highly specialised translators who command 20c per word, then the ProZ.com average (and what you would consider a "professional" rate) would be... 11c per word.
I said I consider the standard average rate as published on Proz.com as a minimum professional rate in the global marketplace. I never said I always charge 11 cents and not charge higher rates. Those rates are calculated per language pair. I don't see anything wrong with that. If it's possible for an English-Hindi translator to make USD .20/word (wherever he lives), no Indian translator (no matter where he/she lives) should give in to working for USD .02/word. Even USD .05/word is unacceptable - those are the rock bottom rates demanded from agencies on job portals which (the agencies) often are middlemen and submit the translator's work to other agencies, and eventually, the end-client will get it. Or the end-client isn't serious to begin with.
There must be standards in our industry and professionals will stick to these standards. Lowering your standards just enables the bad guys.
[Edited at 2015-11-05 03:03 GMT]
| | | | S_G_C
Romania
Local time: 11:44
English to Romanian
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