How much can you earn on freelance
Being a freelance translator is not easy, especially when it comes to setting up and charging your own tariffs. Let’s try to calculate how much you can earn on freelance. While you need to set bids at a level that suits you, you should also set them at the price at which it is comfortable to pay in the market.
On the one hand, you want to earn a decent life, but on the other hand, you do not know what indicator per word will allow you to do this.
We understand this, and even if calculating your bet may seem a little complicated, you will soon become comfortable with this useful guide.
Determine how much you want to earn on freelance
The first thing you need to do is determine how much you want to earn. Keep in mind that factors such as cost per word and the speed of your translation are important when calculating your fees.
For example, if you take $ 0.1 per word, and a 2000-word translation takes five hours, then you will earn $ 200 a day (unless, of course, you work longer than hours). However, if you speed up your translation work (and maintain quality) and translate 3,000 words in five hours, then you will increase your income by $ 100 at the same time.
A good way to determine your earnings is to work in the opposite direction from how much you need to earn per week or month. We can break up the weekly example:
Suppose you want to earn $ 1,000 a week (excluding weekends), and you can comfortably translate 200 words per hour. If you charge $ 0.1 per word, you will need to translate 10,000 words per week and spend 50 hours translating to achieve this.
This can be crucial when you are planning to work with a very large project that can take three months of full-time work (for example, a technical website). When you set your bids for these types of projects, make sure that you consider how much you need to earn in three months, and whether you can take on other projects.
Factors to consider when deciding on a bid
Setting a minimum bid can be a very reasonable strategy, as you can use it as an influence tool, taking into account factors such as your experience, your language pair, your potential customers, as well as the subject and duration of the project, to finally accept the decision regarding assessment.
Your experience
If you recently graduated or are looking for your first job in the translation industry, then you may be tempted to charge less than with more experienced colleagues. This is a common misconception. Your years of study and your knowledge are valuable, and you should not offer them cheaply, as customers will continue to demand refined and professional translations from you. If you lower the minimum bid, then you are working hard to make high-quality translations almost for free.
For your first assignments, if you are not sure about the quality of your translations, it is better to ask the client about an acceptable minimum rate and check the text with a trusted experienced reviewer. Thus, the client will receive a quality translation, and you will earn enough to pay the reviewer and get useful tips to improve your skills.
Your experience
If you recently graduated or are looking for your first job in the translation industry, then you may be tempted to charge less than with more experienced colleagues. This is a common misconception. Your years of study and your knowledge are valuable, and you should not offer them cheaply, as customers will continue to demand refined and professional translations from you. If you lower the minimum bid, then you are working hard to make high-quality translations almost for free.
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For your first assignments, if you are not sure about the quality of your translations, it is better to ask the client about an acceptable minimum rate and check the text with a trusted experienced reviewer. Thus, the client will receive a quality translation, and you will earn enough to pay the reviewer and get useful tips to improve your skills.
Your language pair
Simply put, high demand (a popular language combination) and high supply (a large number of translators) mean lower translation rates, while high demand and low supply mean higher translation rates.
For example, English> French or English> Spanish – these are language pairs with high demand and large supply. This means that they will have more competition, and therefore, they do not have much room for negotiations before the client chooses a cheaper option. In contrast, rare language pairs, such as Hungarian> English or Norwegian> English, can lead to higher rates because the competition is lower.
The Proz translator average betting table is a good starting point for setting a minimum bid.
Client
When you quote a company located in a low-income country, it is best to offer a lower limit to your tariff range in order to get a better chance at work (you can also always refuse to work). On the other hand, if you are quoting your old customer, it’s always useful to show them that you value their loyalty by lowering your bid slightly (never dropping below the minimum).
Deadline
Will this project make you work out of work to meet deadlines? If so, feel free to include an extra charge. A 20% -25% increase in your bets is good for reflecting this. Obviously, you will need to indicate your day-to-day translation capabilities and how this deadline will affect your work routine as soon as possible before embarking on a project.
Subject
Translators can usually work on different subjects and areas, but specialization in one or two areas can bring many benefits.
You can increase your rating if you prove yourself as a translation expert in a specific field. At the expert level, you can translate faster, because you will be familiar with this topic and will spend less time learning technical terms, which will eventually turn into time savings, which will allow you to take on more projects and get more income.
However, you decide to calculate your rates, it is very important that you work diligently and responsibly to get regular customers. Remember that translators who are confident in their skills and abilities will always find great customers willing to pay as much as their work costs.