You need to know how quickly you work, and the only way to know this is to time yourself while you’re translating.

How to Calculate Your Desired Hourly Rate

The next step is to add the following together to calculate how much you need (or want) to earn –

Your salary goal;

Taxes (between 15% and 50% of your salary);

Business running expenses such as web hosting, Internet, cell phone, business phone, and so on;

Continuing education costs and professional memberships;

Advertising and marketing material;

Office stationery and supplies;

Technical support; including computer software and hardware;

Travel and car expenses;

Any other costs relating to your freelance business, such as office rent, work-related child care, website development, and so on;

Add the above items together and the result will be your Total Cost of Business Operation.

The final step is to divide your Total Cost of Business Operation by your first calculation, which is your Billable Hours, and this will give you your Required Hourly Rate

Completing this hourly rate worksheet is the first major step in working out how to price your translation services. Now you have to work out how you’re going to get to that hourly rate!

Let’s say you want, or need, to earn $60 per hour:

At 0.10c per word, your goal can be achieved by translating 600 words/ hour,

At 0.15c per word, you need to translate 400 words/hour, and

At 0.20c per word, you need to translate 300 words/ hour.

Next, you need to know how quickly you work, and the only way to know this is to time yourself while you’re translating. You also need to know the range of rates for your specialization and your language pair. Have a look at translators’ websites who work in your language pair to see if they publish their rates, or look at rates surveys on online translation marketplaces. You’ll also find that some translators will be willing to discuss their rates with you – but not all!

When you know how much you need to charge, it also tells you what type of client you should be looking for. If you have a very high hourly rate goal it means you’ll need to market your translation services to direct clients, and possibly sidestep translation agencies altogether. At the very least, you’ll need to market yourself to high-end translation agencies.

The Disadvantages of Being a Beginner Translator

It seems that with most translators just starting out, work speed is their major issue, and it impacts their work in various ways. A translator who’s actually a good translator but only translating 250 words per hour will struggle to make a good living when working for translation agencies. The other issue is that agencies prefer working with translators who are capable of completing large documents in a short amount of time, and most won’t accept that it might take them twice as long as an experienced translator to complete a project.