Let's talk about how prices are set. Twenty years ago, a client needing translation services would go to the yellow pages, find translators and translation firms listed there, call them, and enter the laborious process of finding out how much they would charge to do the work. The exchange (repeated several times, to get the best price) would go something like this:
- Client: I have a document I want translated. How much will you charge?
- Translator: How big is the document?
- Client: 3 pages. Do you charge by the page?
- Translator: No. By the word. Is the document continuous text, like a book or letter, or is it more like a certificate?
- Client: It's more like a book. By the word? I don't know how many words there are.
- Translator: That's OK. I'll approximate. [Note: that means "round up".] Would you say the subject of the document is technical? Or maybe highly literary, like poetry?
- Client: Why do you need to know that? Can't I just count the words?
- Translator: No, because we charge more for technical and literary texts than we do for general texts.
- Client: All right. It's general.
- Translator: Good. For general text, I charge 10 cents per word. Your 3 pages are probably about 500 words each. [Note: 10 words per line, 50-60 lines per page, with the third page probably being less than full.] That's 1500 total words, times 10 cents, equals $150. Do you need it urgently?
- Client: I need it by Monday. Is that urgent?
- Translator: Yes, and that'll be 20 percent extra, so we're now at $180. Can you pick it up? [Note: No email.]
- Client: Uh, can you deliver it?
- Translator: Where do you live?
- Client: Downtown.
- Translator: Yes, for another $10.
- Client: I'll pick it up, and I'll deliver the document to you today.
And that's not even the end of the conversation, necessarily. But I'll consider that in the next post.
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