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Is a ProZ.com membership worth it? Some thoughts on the added value of ProZ.com
This week ProZ.com activated the ProZ.com Plus membership the website recently announced. This new membership of the biggest translation community should add extra value to dedicated members, but it can also be a sign that ProZ.com is struggling to bind its members or to tap into new groups. Indeed, the added value of ProZ.com for translators has been contested for many years now. Hence this article on the question that is heard around the internet: is a ProZ.com membership worth it?
About ProZ.com
For translators looking for work, ProZ.com is beyond far the biggest marketplace out there. Although there are other alternatives, the website has established a position as the leading marketplace with many additional features and options. Therefore ProZ.com is first and foremost known as the translation marketplace with the same domain. The website, founded in 1999, now counts 839,683 members and 17 employees according to these statistics.
However, ProZ.com is much more than that. The website is, in fact, run by a company founded by Henry Dotterer, the CEO of ProZ.com. The website offers training courses to members, keeps a massive database where translators can find more about the payment behaviour of potential clients (the ‘Blue Board’), and even hosts a system where translators can invoice their clients and generate service agreements.
In addition, it organizes group buying activities every now and then where members can buy discounted CAT tools and other business software for translators.
Complaints about ProZ.com
Until recently ProZ.com offered two memberships: a free membership with limited access to jobs and functionalities, and a paid membership with fast access to jobs and many tools for translators. For $120 USD, or $10 per month, translators can quickly quote on new translation jobs and gain new clients.
There were some things however that paying members did not like. Some of them did not generate a real return on investment while others disputed business choices by the leading translators’ community. Dmitry Kornyukhov writes in his post ‘Is Proz Dead or Alive?’ about his experiences with ProZ.com: how he loved the website until he came to realize that there was much more to win in terms of money outside the website because rates for translators are low in that specific marketplace. Loek van Kooten, another translator, writes on his website that ProZ.com is corrupt after he lost his ProZ.com badge for having not complied with the website’s terms. And Kevin Lossner recounts on his website a story from a colleague who stumbled upon ProZ.com’s bureaucracy in a way that was not to be expected from a professional website.
When looking at the internet, there are several blog posts with complaints about rude behaviour by ProZ.com employees and translation agencies, and about experiences in which the website does not offer any added value to certain translators. The most important of them seems to be the fact that the demand and offerings on the website seem to contribute to ever lower rates for translators.
Earlier this year a new complaint was added when ProZ.com acquired TM-Town, a website where translators can buy and sell glossaries; it had also invented a technology to link the right translator to each job. Translators asked what the acquisition would bring and why ProZ.com had joined forces with TM-Town. Others feared that this acquisition would allow their valuable TMs into the hands of ProZ.com, which could use them for its own interests.
My experiences with ProZ.com
I started with ProZ.com myself back in 2011. Until then I had never heard of the website and found my clients via a local website for freelancers, but when a client asked me for my ProZ.com profile I became curious and signed up for a free membership. Because of the delay in quoting on interesting jobs and seeing suitable jobs being closed before I was able to offer my services, I soon signed up for the paid membership. That paid off: within three months I had made more revenue from a single client than I had barely made in the full year before. ProZ.com gave me value, both in subsequent jobs from clients with whom I have built a sustainable relationship since, and in offering insights into potential customers that have enabled me to make informed choices about whether to quote on a job. Last year, I was finally able to find a client for book translations – something I did already but never to this extent.
Apart from that I started to contribute to ProZ.com by creating my own courses and I also published some articles on the website. In December last year ProZ.com and I even jointly hosted the ProZ.com Drive, a fundraising campaign for charities.
Since that fortunate choice in 2011, I have been able to find many interesting clients, participate in dazzling projects for great companies worldwide, and connect with many great colleagues. Sometimes I made a mistake, was confronted with agencies that did their utmost best to urge me to lower rates, and went to sea with customers I should never have trusted, but those are the ordinary problems translators face. In short, I have never felt any pain in paying for another year at ProZ.com because I experienced the many rewards that it brought me from a business and professional perspective.
It is interesting to see that during my first years as a ProZ.com member I mainly came to know clients through the default job postings. Now that I am five years underway, more and more potential clients are finding me by the directory service: I am approached directly by far more companies with translation jobs than before. On the other hand, there are many of them who do not invest in approaching each individual translator personally but simply send out a mass email to see what fish they can catch, which doesn’t contribute to a feeling of being honoured by the profession.
The new ProZ.com Plus membership package
On International Translation Day ProZ.com founder Henry Dotterer announced the new ProZ.com Plus membership package. An added benefit of this introduction for existing members is that the normal membership fee is lowered to $109. The new ProZ.com Plus membership costs $159 a year and offers all standard membership features and some more. They can be seen below.
The Plus membership package is clearly new in that some features are to be determined in the future. The identity and security profile fields do not seem to add much value above the standard membership, while the related TM-Town account is not of value for each and every translator. ProZ.com promises to offer ‘advantages in external client channels’, but that is too vague to see any looming benefits.
I nevertheless decided to give the Plus membership a go, simply to see what comes from it. In the past, a standard membership brought me so many clients that I have stopped searching for them, but the Plus membership package, including the video library that was announced yesterday, could help in terms of resources and training.
Why ProZ.com should improve
I am not sure why ProZ.com is introducing its Plus membership, but the company is clearly on the move. That is a great thing as the company should move on with changing practices and habits among translators. The introduction of The Open Mic with its article platform, knowledge sharing, translators directory and plans for forums – all free at the moment – makes clear that translators do not rely only on a single or established website anymore. At the same time ProZ.com has grown so big that it is attracting critiques from disappointed and sometimes perhaps poorly treated members.
Now it should be time to renew the design a bit so the website is more accessible on newer platforms, and bigger and smaller screens. The introduction of the new ProZ.com mobile app is a first great step in that direction, so translators can find new jobs, ask questions and participate in discussions on the go.
ProZ.com also introduced the ‘What I’m working on’ feature that enables translators to share projects they are currently working on. It is a tiny – but to some extent popular – step to transform the website into a platform with more social networking features. Without the introduction of features like these, the website will certainly lose contact with the community, which is already looking for other ways of sharing knowledge and experiences, like via The Open Mic, special Twitter hashtags and dedicated Facebook groups.
The @ProZcom app looks great compared to the beta version. pic.twitter.com/VimLYzIkjC
— Pieter Beens (@vertaaltnu) June 21, 2016
Is a ProZ.com membership worth the investment?
Let’s go back to the main question of this blog post: is a ProZ.com membership worth it? In the last years I have heard many different replies most of which were not so positive. The recent developments of ProZ.com make clear that the website is trying to secure its position as the main website for translation and interpreting jobs. A massive giveaway campaign in which even a car can be won should attract as many subscribers as possible. To me the ProZ.com membership has proven its worth in the past years and downgrading to a free membership would certainly be a drawback.
While money is often a difficult thing for translators, that $110 would certainly be worth a try as it can be returned with two small jobs from potentially ongoing customers. And if it does not even have that return on investment, then there are always the possibilities of connecting with colleagues, proving your value as a translator by answering KudoZ questions, or benefiting from free and inexpensive courses (or creating them yourself).
Nixie Adams 
Gert Van Assche 
Yuliya Kinash 
100% echo the call to renew the website design – it’s painfully outdated. I honestly think that putting their resources into design updates would be a better idea than this new tiered membership feature.
Laura, I agree it has looked the same for 12 years.
I’d love to see a re-design too, Laura, but I’m afraid this will never happen. And it’s not because Proz is lazy or don’t care, they do care, but the problem is they need to think of the experience of theirexisting members too.
Ever since I’ve started building The Open Mic I’ve learned a great deal about UI, UX, workflows, design and user behavior. After analyzing everything I’ve learned I’ve come to conclusion that design and aesthetics are secondary. The main thing is functionality.
People use Proz because it offers a host of features that cannot be found elsewhere and they’re so used to the way Proz looks that they don’t care anymore. They continue to use it because it’s helpful to them.
Maybe a few people would like to have a better, more modern look for Proz, but the majority of members use it because of its functionality.
To make things worse, I’ve learned that people are very reluctant to change (even if it’s for their own good). If Proz decides to change it’s design they’re risking to outrage a great number of their paying members who’re got used the way everything looks and works and won’t be willing to learn everything from scratch. Which in turn could lead to paying customers leaving Proz.
Quick example: I remember Proz added a small update in their profiles to add a link to TM-Town. This has resulted into a massive panic in forums. People were extremely annoyed and demanded to turn that off. Now imagine what will happen if they made drastic changes to design?
It’s a good old “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” rule and it works for them because they have and they’ll continue to have zero competition in their niche for many more years to come.
P.S.: Re-designing something as massive as Proz could easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes, hundreds of thousands because they’ll need to hire developers, graphic designers, ux designers, branding experts, programmers, testers, copywriters. It’s a massive task.
I paid for proz membership twice and can’t really say it would make my clientelle grow significantly. I don’t see any point in paying for opportunity to bid on “submit your best rate” projects.
I am sure there are a few paying members in prozcom that are very successfull and wealthy thanks to that, and specially when they dance to the tune prozcom plays. But to infer from that and suggest that being a paying member is the door to that same paradise is, at least, unrealistic.
Those few who make a good living in prozcom do so thanks to the efforts and money of the many that are not so lucky, are not willing to lick someone’s boots, or are so highly qualified that prozcom’s market is far below their level. In fact, considering the behaviour of prozcom’s staff and paying members in prozcom’s forums and kudoz, being a member of prozcom is bad for a translator’s reputation.
Hi Richard, that sounds particularly negative. I am glad ProZ.com turned out positive to me (others didn’t that well) but I can’t say I lick ProZ’s boots or dance to their tune. I am not active on forums and besides two courses and some industrial articles I only submit my quotes every now and then. What are your personal experiences?
I do believe there are more chances to be found through a paid membership. However, that doesn’t mean the per-word rate a translation buyer is willing to pay will be fair or even close to what we normally charge. I feel that if I had a membership with proz.com I would feel obligated to accept offers I normally wouldn’t because I already paid the membership. I am glad it’s worked well for Peiter as far as finding on going clients, but that doesn’t mean they are paying him well, or does it, Peiter?
Hi Beverly,
My word rate is about average for EN-NL in Dutch. I have always thought that companies at ProZ.com are asking a lower rate or at least try to pinch translators – and a good deal of them does so. That’s partly to do with the countries they are from, but many of them simply try it to increase their margin or win big clients.
However, I also quoted on a great deal of projects for which I was rejected because companies preferred a translator with a higher word rate because according to them that reflected their quality more. I also increased my rate a couple of months ago and that brought me one of those companies.
In short, yes companies try to find the lowest price they can get (they don’t mind quality I bet) but there are also companies at the other side of the spectrum – who still respect us translators and are willing to pay for quality.
“However, I also quoted on a great deal of projects for which I was rejected because companies preferred a translator with a higher word rate because according to them that reflected their quality more. ”
Hey, Pieter, I’m just curious how do you know it was because your price was too low? Did you follow-up with the client after they rejected your quote or something?
It happened only a few times that a client told me frankly that I quoted too low and that they questioned my expertise.Sometimes I ask for it, but that’s rare.
On the other hand, in my language pair there are much worse scenarios like at upWork.com, where a colleague quoted $80 for an automotive project of 400,000 words!
Verzonden vanaf mijn Samsung-apparaat
Hi Pieter,
I have seen the benefits of being a member on Proz as well, but most of the work is naturally up to us. What I find really discouraging and sad is that they are not able to set minimum rates. I am facing a rather intense competition in my language pairs due to the way agencies exploit translators and of course because translators themselves accept to work in such conditions. And the problems go deeper. End clients who happen to learn about Proz, also become aware of the available bargain on the site. A while ago I was contacted by an end client who, after I provided the quote I would give to an end client, responded that my rates do not correspond to the rates of other translators. How disappointing….
Whether it’s Proz or translators themselves or the industry in general, brokering translation has its pros and cons. I am a member at Proz but I am not currently considering upgrading. I will see. I really hope that our profession will overcome its difficulties as more and more translators realise the true worth of translation.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Magda, I feel your pain. When I first started in the translation industry I was advised to stay away from proz.com. Argentinians have taken over the market for the English > <Spanish language pair, and considering their rates fall far below what I charge here in the U.S., it is impossible for me to compete with that kind of competition. It is unfortunate to not have a global minimum for a per-word rate. Someday–I still have hope it will happen.
“It is unfortunate to not have a global minimum for a per-word rate. Someday–I still have hope it will happen.”
For this to happen we need to move away from word-based pricing to value-based pricing. And for this to happen client’s (and translators) need to see value in this wonderful and very important service called “translation”.
Luckily, there are clients who see value in translation and happy to pay for it. But they tend to be very demanding too and a lot of translators are simply not ready for that. It’s much easier to work with brokers and at lower rates as it’s less hassle.
But I think it’ll change over time. Change should start from within. As soon as we start respecting ourselves and realize our value and potential we’ll see how our reality will start changing. We’ll be more satisfied with our work, will be happier working with clients who respect and understand our value.
But for this to happen, change should start from within. People need to realize that on their own and in their own time. And this doesn’t happen overnight
Great article, Pieter! I’m really happy you found value in Proz.com. I’ve stopped using it a while ago and almost haven’t visited thei website in the past year (maybe just to check blue board and that’s it).
But I’m really happy to see that they build new features and made some minor tweaks in design. I think it’s pretty awesome. I just wish they’ve added an integration for The Open Mic too, similar to what TM-Town did with their RSS integration. I asked them about after we won the community choice award, but sadly never heard from them even after following up a few times.
But I’m glad to see changes even if they’r small. Small changes also matter, that means that the team cares about the produce and it’s customers and users.
Looking forward to learning about your experience with their Plus subscription 🙂
I became a ProZ member today. I translate from Arabic/Urdu to English. I contemplated a lot before entering my CC details into the site. Well, fingers crossed, I am apprehensive indeed but well – after reading some very contrasting reviews about the membership, I know that either I could sail smoothly or my raft could capsize. In any case, remaining positive also yields positive results, especially for us translators, since we, or at least I, have very little to predict what is going to come next.
Hi Taha,
Welcome on board 🙂
Yeah, let’s see what it will bring you. If it doesn’t work, there’s nothing lost and you can safely step off next year 🙂
Best,
Pieter