Greater than 2 minutes
New Translator and Low Rates
Recently, a translators asked me if he should lower his rates being that he is new to the industry and long to get into the workforce for both financial reason and to gain experience as a translator. The advice I gave him, without any intentions to invade in his decision making aspect was; “No, I really don’t think you should.”. The reasons? Let me explain.
When I first kick started as a translator, I dealt mostly with direct clients.
My method of getting myself into translation business, was to take all jobs without much of any terms to work by from my side. The result? Not at all good. I was once got hired by a client through Elance. I was pretty new on the site and yet to have any feedback or experience to show. The offer was that she has large volumn, on-going project, supposedly a scope of up to 200K source words. Precisely using that reason, this particular client is only happy to pay 0.02 USD per source word. My rate was higher, but I considered the work seriously and finally take up the offer. In this way, I have cut my own price by half and this means I have to work double in volume to meet up with the rate I usually work for. To make matters worse, I started work without any definite payment terms as in when exactly I would get paid and whatnot.
Having done up to 45K source words, it was about the time the client said she will make payment. She now asked me if I could be the one responsible for Elance fee, since she can only pay 0.02 USD per source word regardless of whether there were any charge incurred! Now that means the rate is no longer the already tiny amount of 0.02 USD but even lower having to deduct fee out of it!
This is very painful experience for me since I’ve done the work to the best of my ability and by far accepted as job well done. I couldn’t count how many sleepless nights I went through to ensure the quality of work.
All in all, I would say lowering your rate will not guarantee good pay, large volume or continuous workflow. More often than not, it spells out desperation, poor judgment and even lack of principle on your part. Sure, there are times with exception cases, all I am saying is; if you ever doubt, for even a split second, that it might not be a good idea, it might just not be a good idea.
Ronnie J Rigdon 
Jasmine Heesaker 
Mariann Makrai 
Hi Thitima. I fully agree.
Junior but professional translators should not work with or for Elance (or odesk/upwork or similar job brokers & freelance job sites). I do understand junior translators are less experienced and that their work needs to be reviewed and that a lower price may be justified, but these job brokers make everyone work at really ridiculous rates.
The rule I used when I was buying translations in a previous life: if my full word price for a senior translator was 12c, I put aside 1/3 for review. So I could pay a junior translator 2/3th (8c) and I still had a budget for review (4c). If you work for companies that only do transaµlation work and that also created added value (for instance by figuring out how to pre-process complex files, split projects in edible chunks…, who have human project managers that can explain their price policy) then you have found yourself a company to work for.
in any case: 2c (euro or usd) is WAY too little… Even if the best MT engine has pre-translated the file and the pre-translation was pretty good, it is still WAY too little.
It is very good you testify how bad customers and Elance are treating you. They don’t see you as a human, professional translator. You’re just a small part of a production chain, and they ignore the fact your are the most important part.
Hi Gert.
Thank you for your comment. You are absolutely right. 2c is way too little no matter how little you have to work. Hopefully my story will be useful to anyone seeking information relating to becoming a translator. Have a great day!
Hi Thitima! I completely agree with you and I’m sorry for what happened to you! Unfortunately, I’ve had a similar experience with another freelance website and I’m now fully convinced of what you said. Even if it didn’t caused me so many troubles as yours did, I’m now convinced there’s no point in working for such low rates…it gives no satisfaction and it doesn’t motivate you to do your best. Furthermore, it underestimates the great effort we put in our work as translators.
Good luck with future projects and have a nice day!
Cheers,
Francesca
Hello Francesca. Thank you for sharing your story and I’m sorry to hear you’ve had similar experience. You are absolutely right, accepting low rates is pointless no matter what the conditions might be. It was the only time I ever look down on myself so much.
Let’s celebrate lesson learnt and move forward even stronger!
Great hearing from you.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thitima