How much to charge for a translation?

Hi everyone!

Someone want me to translate two articles from English to French.
The subject is about money making and contains around 800 to 1000 words each article.
I don't know how much i should charge him, i was thinking about 5$ for each article... Is it too low?

Regards.
Sushie

part-time translators here in canada make about 20$ per hour

cheers,

How long would it take you roughly to translate that one article? If we are talking several hours then I suggest you charge hourly rate.

My employee don't calculate price per hour but want a fixed price.
I just calculate: 1 article = 1446 words and the other: 507 words. It will take me around 3 hours to translate all that i think.
I read that some people charge to two cents to 0.25$ per word so my price may be from 40$ to 488$ but 488$ is a too munch i find! o_O
So maybe i will charge him 40$.

Charge your hourly rate, base your estimates off of that. There will always be someone cheaper, but it does not mean that they are any good.

It is typical among translators to charge per word, with a minimum charge equal to at least 1 page. (1 page is, typically, 250 words). I've seen rates that vary from US$0.02/word up to US$4 or 5/word. Or more.

The amount charged per word depends on
*your experience as a translator.
*the level of technical detail or specialized vocabulary needed to do a good job. A standard business letter is worth less than, for example, translating a book for children.
*how quickly your client needs the work.
*whether you are responsible for the translation only, or will provide editing services as well.

There may be other factors, too.

How do you rate your own work?

If you charge $5/article, it means you are downgrading your own credibility. This gives off a very bad reputation. You might want to keep your client but selling your services at such a low price is an insult to yourself.

I would suggest to charge at least $50 / article - at least for the article with more than 1000 words and maybe $30 for the article around 500 words.

The client want cheap prices because i posted a gig on Fiverr for translating a mini article for 5$, all the gig there are 5$ but finally, i decided to make him an offer and charge him only 15$ for the two articles.
Because it is my first experience as a translator and the articles was really easy to translate but the next time, i said i will charge him at least 0.02$ per word.

did you check google translator for it. I think it will work for you. ^_^

Originally Posted by deziner.web did you check google translator for it. I think it will work for you. ^_^

It's an article, Google translator translates the words very literally and usually isn't correct grammatically and even the literal translation isn't the intended meaning at times. So that is why people pay for translation services.