Translation Quote per Word
In this highly competitive global environment, Trusted Translations understands your need to have projects stay within budget. Thus, we have implemented a quote process that is designed to provide you with the greatest amount of accuracy and detail regarding pricing prior to starting any translation project.
Translation Rates Related Content
Quotes per Source Word Count
Nearly all translation projects start with a set of source documents (i.e., the original documents) that need to be translated into another language (target). As only the source documents are available at the start of a project, we firmly believe the most transparent and fair way to price a document is using a source-based word count. Our sophisticated tools are equipped to determine exact word counts of source documents, providing you with the most accurate quote prior to starting a project.
Using a source word count will avoid the hassle and confusion of having only an estimated word count of a final translation (target) and eliminate any unpleasant surprises at the time of invoicing. Furthermore, our experience has shown that clients save money when using our pricing methodology as the source documents often have fewer words than the final (target) translated documents. Clients can save between 20-30% under our pricing methodology.
Free Quote
Trusted Translations will provide you with a free quote at the budgeting stage to provide you with clear numbers prior to commencing a project and thus help you assess whether a given translation project is right for you at this time.
Free Translation Quote per Word
Advantages of a Quote per Source Word
The following are some of the advantages of using a source-word-count pricing methodology:
- Since pricing is based on the source documents (which are available at the beginning of the project), it is firm and will not change based on the number of words of the translated text, as long as you don’t change the input for the translation process.
- You will save money. Given the natural text expansion of translated text, you will save up to 30% depending on the language pair.
- No surprises. As the source word count does not change, you will be sure to stay within budget.
Drawbacks of a Quote per Target Word
The following are some of the drawbacks of using a target-word-count pricing methodology:
- Target-based quotes are only estimates as no translation company can accurately predict the word count of a translated document.
- You pay more. Target word counts tend to be up to 30% higher due to text expansion of translated materials.
- The actual price to be invoiced is not known until the end of the process. You will need to wait until all the work is complete to get a final price for your project. This can lead to unpleasant surprises at the time of getting invoiced.
Quotes per Target Word Count
There are some notable exceptions to the criteria of using the source word count when pricing a translation. There are some cases where the better choice is to set the prices according to the word count of the target language:
- Translation of an audio file without a word count
- When the source material is not available in an editable electronic format (paper format)
- Translation from a non-Latin script language, where word counts get complicated as some of these languages don’t use alphabets or don’t separate words
- Proofreading services
In these instances, we have found that pricing is more accurate when using the target language word count versus the source word count.
Text Contraction and Expansion for Different Language Pairs
Based on statistical industry-wide evidence and our own experience from translating millions of words annually, translating to and from certain languages will result in either text expansion or text contraction. This can have an impact on costs as well as on the formatting of the translated document. Translated documents with text expansion may need to be modified to accommodate more text. In the case of legal documents or documents regulated by a government agency, desktop publishing or recreation services may be necessary to ensure that the final document complies with the legal text size and page number requirement.
The following are industry-wide benchmarks with respect to text expansion or contraction:
- English to Spanish: 20% expansion
- English to Portuguese: 20 to 30% expansion
- Portuguese to English: 10 to 15% contraction
- Spanish to English: 15% contraction
- English to French: 15 to 20% expansion
- English to German: 5 to 20% contraction
- English to Italian: 15% expansion
- French to English: 10 to 15% contraction
- German to English: 5 to 40% expansion
- Italian to English: 15% contraction
- Spanish to English: 15% contraction
Translation Price per Word
At Trusted Translations, we provide our clients with the most competitive pricing and the highest quality in the industry. We are proud of our ability to provide high-quality translations while saving your organization money on every project. To take advantage of our free quote tools, please send us the documents you plan to translate. If the project involves a large number of words and is format-sensitive, we will provide you with a free translation test to determine the impact that any potential contraction or expansion may have on the final output.
