Leo Reads 13 Pages in 1/3 Hour What Is the Unit Rate for Hours Per Page

Setting the translation rate can exist tricky, especially for aspiring translators. On the one hand, you have to brand sure your price is adequate for the market. On the other hand, you lot want to secure a decent living and non undersell yourself.

The following cheatsheet will help you quickly map your capabilities and expectations to a rate you lot tin agree on.

1 — Starting time with yourself

New Smartcat users — especially those who are just starting their career every bit translators — often enquire us what rates they should set for their translation services. My communication is to forget nearly the market place for a while, and start with themselves.

That's why I decided to share a simple spreadsheet that I created a while agone (feel gratuitous to copy it for adjustments). Information technology will help you quickly determine what rate to set — or how good a given charge per unit is — based on your needs and abilities.

Here'southward a screenshot:

Then what do we have hither?

ii — Understand how hard yous can work

In the "large" rows, nosotros accept your predictable endeavor in hours per month:

• eighty hours per calendar month is a comfortable mean, corresponding to around 4 hours of pure work per day (restroom/smoking/having a dejeuner/procrastinating on Facebook excluded).
• sixty hours per calendar month is piece of cake and suitable for someone whose life-work balance tends to the former.
• Above 100 hours per month, things start getting messy, equally it'south actually hard to stay focused if you interpret for more than 5 hours a 24-hour interval, every day (call up, we are talking most pure work).
• 120 hours per month is, at least for me, the absolute maximum I can bear. This means either working 6 hours a day every twenty-four hours, or "binge working" for even longer on individual days. Either makes y'all physically exhausted and morally depleted, and I strongly suggest to avoid such overtimes at all costs.

3 — Detect out how fast yous tin can interpret

In the "minor" rows (repeated for each "big" row), you have your translation speed in words per hour:

• 500 words per hour is the boilerplate speed for a standard translation, with moderately difficult terminology and grammar.
• 250 words per hour is applicative for complex technical translations, literary translation, and transcreation assignments.
• 750 words per 60 minutes tin can be accomplished, if the client doesn't have strict quality requirements (say, they want to understand what's written in an article).
• 1250 words per hour is the accented maximum 1 tin can achieve if they mail-edit a machine translation, and the customer doesn't look for stylistic/terminological consistency.

(Note: you can use Toggl or a similar tool to measure your productivity — see our previous commodity for more data.)

4 — Think of how much you want to earn

In columns, y'all take your desired income level per month. Of course, these values will vary profoundly based on your location, social/marital/parental status and lifestyle. That'south why they should be adjusted (every bit described below) in line with the following general levels:

• Absolute minimum ($1000/month in this instance): a level at which you really lose money, but not and then fast as to become broke in a couple of months (you'll need this time to grow bigger).
• Minimum sustainable level (here $2000/month): a level at which yous can live for a while, covering just your basic living needs.
• Normal level (here $4000/month): a level when y'all can live according to your reasonable expectations of what "expert living" is.
• Maximum happiness level (here $6000/month): a level that makes you praise yourself for having go a translator, while drinking piña colada somewhere in the Caribbean.

v — Bring it all together

All the higher up data are editable in the Parameters tab of the spreadsheet:

Now, after we've divers our parameters, let's look at the cheatsheet once again:

Each cell represents the translation charge per unit that you lot need to seek if you want to earn a given corporeality by translating for a given time at a given speed. Rates are color-coded from grayness to white to yellow for a convenient visual representation of "where the golden mines are."

six — Place translation rate groups by awesomeness

At present, highlight — at your ain discretion — three "blocks", or sets of parameters (as circled in the screenshot):

• "Red" cake: something yous could bear for a short while to go into the market/win a customer/proceeds experience. (In my example, this means working 100 hours a calendar month while earning $2000.)
• "Orange" block: something that ensures your comfortable living (hither, working 80 hours and earning $3000.)
• "Green" cake: something that makes you really satisfied with your work ($4000 for eighty hours in this case).

At present you can easily come across (a) where you are with the current rates, and (b) where yous should be heading to make your work more comfy for you.

7 — Strike out what's irrelevant

The last thing to keep in mind is that non every rate you volition make it the spreadsheet is relevant. For me, for case:

• Any rate above $0.20 per word is irrelevant. Okay, this could be different if I were translating verse — but in such a case I would most likely accuse per hour anyway^*.
• Rates in a higher place $0.08 per word is irrelevant for loose translations. I merely don't have the gall to accuse customers a translation rate of $0.08 if I know that I would exist translating it in a "quick and muddy" fashion.
• Anything to a higher place $0.05 is irrelevant for post-editing assignments. The same here: you lot simply can't charge for mail service-editing something that high (and something that is an average charge per unit for "normal" translation for many other translators).

^* At that place definitely are translators who charge more, but I merely don't consider myself in that league. Striking this out helps me empathize the "zones" that I shouldn't even consider equally a goal (say, earning $8000 past working 60 hours per months and translating at 250 words per hour).

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Examples

Hither are a couple of examples to illustrate how you can use the spreadsheet:

1. Defining you rate. A client approaches you with a transcreation request. This is a very important customer, so you are willing to go into "flare-up style" to go this job. Y'all go to the "red" block of the cheatsheet and see that in this example you tin offer them a translation charge per unit of $0.08 per word. But you also tell them that if they like your work, further projects volition come at a price of (consulting with the "orange" block) $0.15 per source discussion. The client is happy because this is a very good price at present, and you in turn know exactly what you are going for.
2. Finding out if a proposed rate is practiced enough. A customer has a post-editing assignment with no strict quality requirements that he has an approved translation rate of $0.03/give-and-take for. You observe that information technology is exactly the value you have for such work in the "orange" block, meaning rather comfy atmospheric condition for you. You concur, but keep in mind that in time to come you would probably inquire them to increase the translation charge per unit to $0.04 (the "green" block).
3. Finding out if work already made had a good rate. You take completed an consignment at $0.08/word, and your speed was 750 words per hr. You observe that this value is even higher than that in the "green" cake, significant that it was a very good rate for that chore.

Of class, this cheatsheet has goose egg but very unproblematic arithmetical calculations in it — simply I found it very useful for quickly tackling the above tasks. It does not claim to be the i-size-fits-all solution for setting your translation charge per unit (at that place is none!) — but I believe it'due south a good starting point for those who are only starting to become the hang of information technology. What nigh you lot? Do you take your own tips and tricks for choosing your translation rate? — If you liked this commodity, feel free to subscribe to our blog or follow usa on LinkedIn and Facebook!

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Most the writer

Hello, I'm Vladimir "Vova" Zakharov, the Caput of Customs at Smartcat. Translation is my profession and my passion, and I'one thousand excited to be able to share this passion with the amazing Smartcat community!

mackerrasjustantrind.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.smartcat.com/blog/7-simple-steps-for-setting-your-translation-rate-2/

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