Poll: How do you handle a long-term client who refuses to adjust your rates for inflation? Initiator des Themas: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How do you handle a long-term client who refuses to adjust your rates for inflation?".
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My clients have always accepted my rate increases perhaps because the increases have been spaced far apart. Anyway, the day one of my long-term client doesn’t accept my new rates, I’ll negotiate.
| | | | | Point out that my rates have in fact increased | Jun 4 |
If a client refuses to update their system, this does not mean that my rates have not increased.
I have one client who makes it exceedingly hard to update the rates in their system.
As a translator, I cannot update the rates in the system myself: the client has to approve. They refused to approve for a long time.
I pointed out that my rates had in fact increased, which just meant that the rates in their system were no longer accurate. This in turn meant that their PMs di... See more If a client refuses to update their system, this does not mean that my rates have not increased.
I have one client who makes it exceedingly hard to update the rates in their system.
As a translator, I cannot update the rates in the system myself: the client has to approve. They refused to approve for a long time.
I pointed out that my rates had in fact increased, which just meant that the rates in their system were no longer accurate. This in turn meant that their PMs did not see my real rates. Every time a PM contacted me for a job, I pointed out that the system did not list my real rates. Sometimes they manually updated the rates in the PO; other times they informed me that they could not pay this rate for this project, and would look for someone else.
This did not help the company in any way - it just wasted everyone's time until they finally agreed that it would be useful to update the system with my actual rates.
[Edited at 2026-06-04 11:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sebastian Witte 
Deutschland
Local time: 07:57
Mitglied (2004)
Englisch > Deutsch
+ ...
| I do not really get it | Jun 4 |
Marjolein Snippe wrote:
If a client refuses to update their system, this does not mean that my rates have not increased.
I have one client who makes it exceedingly hard to update the rates in their system.
As a translator, I cannot update the rates in the system myself: the client has to approve. They refused to approve for a long time.
I pointed out that my rates had in fact increased, which just meant that the rates in their system were no longer accurate. This in turn meant that their PMs did not see my real rates. Every time a PM contacted me for a job, I pointed out that the system did not list my real rates. Sometimes they manually updated the rates in the PO; other times they informed me that they could not pay this rate for this project, and would look for someone else.
This did not help the company in any way - it just wasted everyone's time until they finally agreed that it would be useful to update the system with my actual rates.
[Edited at 2026-06-04 11:21 GMT]
I don't really get your point. In what way is it useful to talk customers into accepting rate increases formally by incorporating them in their system/"database" if they can't manage to pay the higher rates anyway? What are you hoping to gain that way? Just wondering ...
Best,
Sebastian
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For most projects, the increased rates turned out to be perfectly feasible.
The PM just had to manually update the PO.
For some projects the increased rates were not accepted and we just wasted each other's time.
| | | | Sebastian Witte
Deutschland
Local time: 07:57
Mitglied (2004)
Englisch > Deutsch
+ ...
Marjolein Snippe wrote:
For most projects, the increased rates turned out to be perfectly feasible.
The PM just had to manually update the PO.
For some projects the increased rates were not accepted and we just wasted each other's time.
Thank you for clarifying, Marjolein.
| | | | | Whose business is this? | Jun 4 |
I've never had to deal with clients - long or short-term - who haven't recognised that the party who fixes my rates is me, the service provider, and never the client.
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Clients come and go. Generally, I have increased my rates by charging more when new clients appeared, and telling the lowest payers that I did not have time for them.
That meant that the oldest clients paid the lowest rates, but if I had good TMS and streamlined routines, I could often work fast and effectively for them, so I was still happy to work for them. Sooner or later, they would disappear, and I would move on with clients who paid higher rates.
I have succeeded... See more Clients come and go. Generally, I have increased my rates by charging more when new clients appeared, and telling the lowest payers that I did not have time for them.
That meant that the oldest clients paid the lowest rates, but if I had good TMS and streamlined routines, I could often work fast and effectively for them, so I was still happy to work for them. Sooner or later, they would disappear, and I would move on with clients who paid higher rates.
I have succeeded once or twice in raising my rates, and I still work occasionally for one of these clients. However, I have also found that clients agreed to a higher rate, but then simply stopped sending work. I do not remember ever having a client who actually refused to pay a higher rate after I had worked with them for some time, but there have been many over the years who have refused to accept my rates from the start. ▲ Collapse
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Luis M. Sosa
Ecuador
Local time: 00:57
Englisch > Spanisch
+ ...
| I had a client in the EU | Jun 4 |
for whom I completed nearly 700 projects (of various sizes) over 4 years. Every project was subject to LQA, and I got very good feedback and ratings. Since quality was there (and the ghost of inflation is always there), I thought it was fair to raise my rates in about 10%. I went ahead with such rate raise. They agreed to the raise, but no longer sent jobs...
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