By Perry Zamek

Also in this series:

“I’m reviewing the situation…” (Fagin, in Oliver) – Part 1

“I’m reviewing the situation…” (Fagin, in Oliver) – Part 2

In this series of articles, we are looking at some of the questions that we – as professional translators – should ask ourselves every so often.

As I wrote previously, the answers to these questions may or may not lead you to make some changes. But whichever the case, it’s worth taking the time to think about these issues.

This week we will look at the following questions:

When was the last time I reviewed my rates or prices for my work? Do I need to change my approach to pricing?

Let me start with a disclaimer. It’s not my intention to tell anyone how much they should charge for different types of work, or how much to increase their rates under different circumstances. (Indeed, one of the heads of the restauranteur association was recently fined heavily for suggesting that his members should “prepare the public” for a round of price rises, and for suggesting a percentage that would be appropriate.)

But let me make a couple of observations on the issue of pricing, and reviewing pricing strategies.

First, all businesses need to ensure that they earn enough to cover their costs and provide an appropriate income level for those involved. This is what you learn in Business 101. The Talmud has a nice comment (paraphrased): “One who buys at a price and sells at the same price, is such a one a businessman?”

There are plenty of resources online that can help newcomers to our profession work out what they might charge in order to earn an appropriate income. I will mention a few in general terms.

One formula starts from how much you want to earn (i.e. your desired profit, or the return for your labor), plus how much you need to spend on the business (your expenses – both fixed and variable). This number is divided by the number of hours you want to work each week/month, to give an hourly rate. From there you can calculate the price per 250 words or whatever, based on how much you can translate (finished, polished product) in an hour.

Note that this calculation is very much individualized. It depends on your needs, your commitment of time, your expenses. It does not require some central organization or professional association to tell you how much to charge.

Another approach, one that has been suggested by highly experienced translators in various social media forums and workshops, says that an important element of pricing is the value of the translation to the client – what is it worth to them to obtain a good translation that communicates their ideas successfully? So the pricing may take into account more than just the number of words in the source text, or the time involved in producing the end product.

Still other translators may decide on a flat fee for certain types of work, e.g. $X for a birth or marriage certificate, $Y for a pay slip, etc. How one gets to the actual numbers (represented by X and Y) may be based on an estimate of the number of words, the time involved, the complexity of the layout, the time needed to verify the spellings of names etc., and so on, but the price becomes a fixed price, one that is clear to the client.

And sometimes a combination of all three approaches makes sense.

When it comes time to review prices, there are additional factors that we may take into account. Some of them are: increased costs (inflation), the added experience that we have gained over time, our investment in continuing professional development, our specialized knowledge domains, and the efficiencies offered by the use of software tools, and a reassessment of the effort involved in certain types of work.

Final Comments

The kind of review that we have been discussing in these articles is not something that needs to be done constantly. Some aspects may require consideration only rarely – every two or three years. Other aspects may require more frequent consideration (or reconsideration), possibly every six months or so, while the frequency of pricing review may depend on external factors.

We should not assume that as long as things are going reasonably well we don’t need to change anything. The important thing is to undertake this type of regular review as part of our professional lives, and not be afraid to explain this to clients who express surprise at changes in the pricing that they are given.