If most (or all) of your clients (or potential clients) are happy to accept your rates without any negotiation it means that you should be charging more.

Logically, translators should base their rates on the following factors –

How much time they intend spend translating;

The translator’s lifestyle and financial needs: do you have children, ageing parents, student loans, a determination to retire early, the desire to be location-independent, a love of the good life, a preference for high-level clients, and so on;

Whether they intend working for direct clients, agencies – or both;

The supply and demand of the translator’s specialization or language pair;

First-hand knowledge of other translators’ charge-out rates.

Here are some further tips on how to decide on your charge-out rate. The ‘right’ rate means that –

Both you and your clients are happy and feel that you’re getting a good deal;

You’ll be living the live you both want and deserve to live;

You’re motived to do the best-possible job you can.

If most (or all) of your clients (or potential clients) are happy to accept your rates without any negotiation it means that you should be charging more. So how do you increase your rates? The answer to this question is to increase your rates when you’re very busy. Negotiate a higher rate with the next potential client who makes an enquiry: if the client should refuse your higher rate, then you still have enough work to carry on with.

How Do You Tell Your Clients about Your New Rates?

How do you tell your existing clients that you’re raising your rates significantly? The answer to this question is that you don’t! It’s okay to raise your rates marginally with your existing clients; you make the big jump with your new clients!

Expect to Earn a Good Living from Your Translation Skills

So, don’t settle for ‘less than’. There is so much good-quality high-paying translation work out there. It’s quite realistic for a translator to earn an income of six figures, and many do. And this applies to working with both direct clients and some agencies. Just believe that there are clients out there who are looking for someone specifically like you, someone with your knowledge and skills, but they just don’t know where to find you. It’s your job to go out and find them! Sadly, many translators won’t do this – they accept whatever meagre work lands in their inbox and continue complaining that some translators are just lucky. It’s not luck: if you want to be a part of this industry and earn good money then you must go out and find the calibre of clients that you need to make your freelance business work for you and your needs.