Do you know what is the average translation rate in America? As per a research, most of the translation companies in America offer translation at an approximate rate of USD 0.22 per word. Although different companies charge different translation rates, as per different pricing models – per character, per hour or subscription – yet the ‘per word’ translation rates remain as the basic pricing standard in the language industry.
But, no one actually knows the cost of translating a word in different languages. Vendors and clients in the private sector do not openly speak about the rates, as they are bound by NDAs. Hence, one can never expect pricing information from the private sector. However, the US Federal Government provides rich source of information regarding translation pricing.
The General Services Administration is one key source that fosters provision of services and products. It breaks down its procurement in different categories, for example, translation is categorized under language services. All the language service providers submit proposals to GSA, which in turn, publishes all the proposals, so as to ensure transparency. These proposals consist of a variety of information, ranging from pricing to location of the service providers. Hence, the agency is undoubtedly, the major source of information related to pricing.
The Research
Using the data from the agency, a survey was conducted to analyze the translation pricing from English to top languages, viz. French, Arabic, German, Italian, Polish, Chinese (Simplified), Russian, Korean, Portuguese, Japanese and Spanish.
The research showed 584 data price points individually. It was found that some vendors quote the rate as per technical or non-technical texts. Hence, for such companies, the per word rate was considered to be the average rate, so as to fulfill the purpose of the survey.
Further, the average rate of translation (per word) was found to be USD 0.215. English to Spanish came out to be the cheapest language pair at an average rate of USD 0.179 per word. However, the maximum rate goes up till USD 0.32 per word.
In comparison to 2016, the maximum and minimum translation rates have escalated by USD 0.02 and 0.01 respectively.
The most expensive language came out to be Japanese (USD 0.251 per word), followed by Korean (USD 0.239 per word).
Language Service Providers
The research also revealed the names of the companies that quote the most expensive translate rate or the most affordable one. International Language Services, Inc.; ManpowerGroup Public Sector; Metropolitan Interpreters & Translators, Inc.; Global Language Translation, Inc. were found to provide the most expensive average translation rate per word.
On the other hand, Schreiber Translations Inc.; Worldwide Language Resources Inc.; Taikatranslations LLC; Dictyon LLC and In What Language LLC were found to offer the most affordable average translation rate per word.
Then comes the giants of the industry – Lionbridge at an average rate of USD 0.222 per word, Language Line at an average rate of USD 0.257 per word and TransPerfect at an average rate of USD 0.248 per word.
A Rough Estimate On Translation Rate
The information mentioned above does not give an exact picture of the translation rates in the Private sector. Further, it should also be noted that the global translation rates have witnessed an all-time low these days. There are some vendors in the market, who deliberately quote the lowest translation price, just to entice the customers. As a result, the average translation rate in the market is witnessing a down trend, and the genuine translation vendors who focused on quality are suffering.
Coming back to the survey, the research is not inclusive of important factors, such as translation memory discounts, post-editing offerings or volume discounts. However, it does serve as a useful measure to get a rough idea or estimate of the translation cost.
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