| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | To bill per hour or per word. 投稿者: Teresa Cuervo
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I understand that the norm in the translation industry is on a per word basis. Yet, I have has a few potential clients that want to pay by the hour. What is best? I generally charge by the word (it is easier) and you already know in advance what you will owe.
My question: What exactly does charging by the hour involve?( research, revision ). How can that be billable on an hourly rate?
Thanks in advance,
Teresa
| | | | ATIL KAYHAN 
トルコ
Local time: 14:47
2007に入会
トルコ語 から 英語
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"What exactly does charging by the hour involve?( research, revision )"
I think you should start the clock as soon as you start working on that particular translation, and stop the clock as soon as you stop working on it. Any time you spend on the translation counts, whether it is translating, checking your work, reading the text in advance, etc. Of course, the customer has no way of checking that process. The whole thing is just based upon goodwill. That is why counting the wor... See more "What exactly does charging by the hour involve?( research, revision )"
I think you should start the clock as soon as you start working on that particular translation, and stop the clock as soon as you stop working on it. Any time you spend on the translation counts, whether it is translating, checking your work, reading the text in advance, etc. Of course, the customer has no way of checking that process. The whole thing is just based upon goodwill. That is why counting the words is so common, and almost the industry standard. You can take a look at the ProZ rates information in order to determine your hourly rate. Good luck! ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
スペイン
Local time: 13:47
スペイン語 から 英語
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| Swings and roundabouts | Dec 7, 2012 |
For me, the good thing about charging per word is that sometimes you can do 1000 words in an hour and other times it might take you three, whereas with an hourly rate you should have a more or less steady income. I'd say that you really need to decide how much you want to earn per hour in terms of the number of hours you are going to work per day week, month etc. for this particular client.
In my case, if one of my clients wanted to pay me by the hour rather than per word, I would n... See more For me, the good thing about charging per word is that sometimes you can do 1000 words in an hour and other times it might take you three, whereas with an hourly rate you should have a more or less steady income. I'd say that you really need to decide how much you want to earn per hour in terms of the number of hours you are going to work per day week, month etc. for this particular client.
In my case, if one of my clients wanted to pay me by the hour rather than per word, I would need to take a careful look at what services they were expecting to get from me, during how many hours, etc., because as a freelancer I prefer not to be tied down to a limited number of clients and working options. I would also question their motives initially, because in my experience they are rarely charitable, if you get my drift. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Doesn't really (need to) matter | Dec 7, 2012 |
Hi Teresa,
I have a very good client who pays me by the hour. I get the materials for review, and the client proposes a number of hours which we then can discuss. That number of hours is based on the nature of the text, and essentially on how fast I think I can work.
In essence, the question is semantic to an extent. The hourly rate is set, and the number of words is known. The only variable is how many words I think I can translate in an hour, and how that relates to ... See more Hi Teresa,
I have a very good client who pays me by the hour. I get the materials for review, and the client proposes a number of hours which we then can discuss. That number of hours is based on the nature of the text, and essentially on how fast I think I can work.
In essence, the question is semantic to an extent. The hourly rate is set, and the number of words is known. The only variable is how many words I think I can translate in an hour, and how that relates to my rate per word.
Let's say you agree on 30 euro per hour, and you get a 600 word text. If your normal rate would be 0.1 per word, then your starting point would be that an hour represents 300 words. For this job, you would then agree 2 hours of work. You can increase or decrease that number based on the characteristics of the project, just like you would with your rate per word (for example by only charging for an hour if the text is very easy).
In any case, I think it is a good idea to agree beforehand on the number of hours, or at least to agree on a certain minimum or maximum. ▲ Collapse
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Steven Segaert wrote:
Let's say you agree on 30 euro per hour, and you get a 600 word text. If your normal rate would be 0.1 per word, then your starting point would be that an hour represents 300 words. For this job, you would then agree 2 hours of work. You can increase or decrease that number based on the characteristics of the project, just like you would with your rate per word (for example by only charging for an hour if the text is very easy).
That's exactly how I see it for translation by the hour.
In any case, I think it is a good idea to agree beforehand on the number of hours, or at least to agree on a certain minimum or maximum.
That's what I do for proofreading by the hour (though it's charged by 'real time' rather than a minimum).
| | | | | Which side takes the risk? | Dec 7, 2012 |
If you charge per word, the risk is yours. The material may be more difficult than you thought, there might be some tricky issues (e.g file conversion, formatting, etc.)
If you charge per hour, the risk is the client's. They have no way to know how long it will take you to do it, if you'll be working on your own.
I reserve charging by the hour for activities where I must be "there", available for a specific period of time. A typical example is interpreting. If the inter... See more If you charge per word, the risk is yours. The material may be more difficult than you thought, there might be some tricky issues (e.g file conversion, formatting, etc.)
If you charge per hour, the risk is the client's. They have no way to know how long it will take you to do it, if you'll be working on your own.
I reserve charging by the hour for activities where I must be "there", available for a specific period of time. A typical example is interpreting. If the interpretee falls asleep or passes out, and everybody else speaks the same language, I'll get paid just for being there.
My pet example on the unfairness of charging by the hour involves DTP. If the client wants it done with PageMaker, I have 20+ years' experience using it, I'll do anything in a snap. Bottom line is that I will be grossly underpaid for all my investment in mastering it. If the client wants it done with Quark, they'll grossly overcharged for the time I'll be reading manuals and help screens. Either way, it's unfair. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | maximum time limit | Dec 7, 2012 |
How I deal with the point about charging by the hour being the client's risk:
I look at the file and determine how much time I ought to need for it, then add an hour or more (according to project size) on top of that just in case I come across some terminology issues or whatever. So I'll tell the client "it very probably won't exceed four hours" and then 9 times out of 10 I'll bill three hours, which comes as a pleasant surprise to the customer.
Although there was one... See more How I deal with the point about charging by the hour being the client's risk:
I look at the file and determine how much time I ought to need for it, then add an hour or more (according to project size) on top of that just in case I come across some terminology issues or whatever. So I'll tell the client "it very probably won't exceed four hours" and then 9 times out of 10 I'll bill three hours, which comes as a pleasant surprise to the customer.
Although there was one who complained because she had got the go-ahead for the amount corresponding to four hours and didn't want any hassle with the new billing system which apparently couldn't understand that in fact the invoice was less than the estimate. So I tend not to add so much extra time for this client and if ever I do take longer, well it's just swings and roundabouts and I know I can estimate a bit more time for the next job because she sends me stuff on a very regular basis.
I don't stop the stopwatch for quick breaks involving kettles and smaller rooms, since I'm invariably still casting around my brain for ideas while I do so, and anyway, short breaks are necessary to keep your mind sharp. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | By the word for translation | Dec 7, 2012 |
If I translate a 5,000 word document for .14 a word, I can charge $700.00 and that sounds normal.
However, if I am able to translate that document in an 8-hour day, $87.50 per hour sounds expensive.
Instead of people working for $40 or $50 an hour, you would have "translators" bidding at $10-$15 an hour because that is more than they could earn elsewhere.
[Edited at 2012-12-07 13:46 GMT]
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apk12
ドイツ
Local time: 13:47
英語 から ドイツ語
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It is the norm and in my case, I would see no advantage in swinging away from it. It makes the overall quote process much more easier - in one of my source languages, I have sometimes clients expecting a per page or per line quote - in all such cases all I can do is to repeat why the only quote I give is the per word rate.
You need time to assess a source material - to see which of your per word rates applies here [general, medium complex, highly complex material] - assessment of t... See more It is the norm and in my case, I would see no advantage in swinging away from it. It makes the overall quote process much more easier - in one of my source languages, I have sometimes clients expecting a per page or per line quote - in all such cases all I can do is to repeat why the only quote I give is the per word rate.
You need time to assess a source material - to see which of your per word rates applies here [general, medium complex, highly complex material] - assessment of the source material and giving a quote on basis of the norm is simply something that since being a daily typical process is at least not consuming any additional time.
Especially when you try co concentrate on cooperation with direct clients, you usually have more quotes to write than invoices... - some clients search for quotes everywhere and sometimes, the very same client contacting you or the project posting you reply to ends up not much later on platforms like freelancer and similar - with the expectable outcome, people shouting "I cann do itt!" to basically everything that pops up in the project postings - clients tend to be overwhelmed by the possibility to get the "same" result for 1/10 and below of the offer of a professional in this field, smaller businesses fall for that. (I am not talking about projects being simply resold on such platforms, these are an additional issue, but just take the clients who take the time to register on several such places, in order to save expenses that they think they can save.) So - there are more quotes to write than invoices. Now if I would start to develop 10 diverse quoting systems for each such a project posting... - no way, not really 'doable'. I can live with the fact that the time I am actually working on a translation itself - and earning - is smaller than my overall office time, but to let the quoting time explode by adjusting to other quoting and billing expectations than the global norm is not within the range of the services I can offer.
Now, in addition to that, there seem to be even quotes on basis of the target... - I personally did not come across such an expectation yet, but from what I read on linkedin discussions occasionally, some translators do that - also something that does not work for me: in my main language pair [EN to DE], the text expansion rate is seriously significant - here, in my eyes just the per source word quote gives me the possibility to quickly and reliably react to quote requests.
Hourly payment can apply to certain other workflow steps than actual translation (deeper editing, for example - where you are indeed working on the improvement of the text style of an otherwise acceptable translation... so, not talking amout MT editing, in such cases all I offer is a retranslation with my per usual word rates).
Sure, the quoting options mentioned above by Sheila and Steven work also since this is talking about simply a mathematical calculation, a conversion of the price you would bill per word to a price if billed per hour - however in such cases I prefer to offer the calculation back -> explaining the client the quoted price would correspond to so-and-so many hours á as much per hour, however sticking to the quoting per word, just in order to assure that the client, in case this is a first translation request, say smaller business just got their webpage ready and have the funding to add other languages now -> in order to assure that the client, when coming with a second request or contacting a next translator for an other pair is already used to per word billing...
[Edited at 2012-12-07 14:48 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | To bill per hour or per word. | Dec 7, 2012 |
Thanks everyone. I do normally charge by the word. However this particular client wanted to pay me a rate of $20/hr for a 15,588 word document. (69 pages) and have it ready within a week. When I revised the text, it was not only extensive but very intricate. So in essence, there would be research and revision time involved to have an excellent translation. So clocking myself for only doing the translation would have cheated me from time spent researching (those are hours as well that could be... See more Thanks everyone. I do normally charge by the word. However this particular client wanted to pay me a rate of $20/hr for a 15,588 word document. (69 pages) and have it ready within a week. When I revised the text, it was not only extensive but very intricate. So in essence, there would be research and revision time involved to have an excellent translation. So clocking myself for only doing the translation would have cheated me from time spent researching (those are hours as well that could be billed for the outcome.
Generally 2,500 words a day is what you most can translate (5 hours) if you want a good product. Therefore that is the price I gave the client 5 hrs multiplied by the week I was given at the rate of $20. I did add a revision time ( a proofreader would have charged that too.) ▲ Collapse
| | | | Joy Mo
カナダ
Local time: 04:47
中国語 から 英語
+ ...
| per word or per hour | Dec 7, 2012 |
I think a per word rate is less likely open for dispute. Having said that I also work on a per hour basis for projects that have a mixture of interpreting and translating work.
| | | | | In my dreams.. | Dec 7, 2012 |
I'd love to be paid for every single hour and minute a translation takes me.. the emails, the research, the editing, formatting, proofreading, wrestling with the quirks of a certain brand of software which shall be nameless - not forgetting the time I spend dreaming about the terminology of a major project - the invoicing, accounting etc.. But I don't think the customer would stand it, somehow!
Per word it is.
Steve K.
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I don't work solid hours, so would find that very hard to calculate. Time working involves receiving and answering emails, talking on Skype, answering the phone, getting up for a break, getting something to drink/eat, talking to the cat etc. I even find this beneficial, as sometimes when I come back to something I'm stuck on five minutes later, I can make more sense of it.
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Jeff Whittaker wrote:
$20.00 per hour is WAY TOO LOW for translation.
| | | | | Pages in topic: [1 2] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » To bill per hour or per word. | Trados Business Manager Lite | Create customer quotes and invoices from within Trados Studio
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