New Service Offering - How much should I charge? - Virtual Assistant Forums

Monique · #1 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008

Hi Everybody,
I am adding a new service and I really need your feedback on what and how I should charge. The service is "English to Spanish Translation" I will be offering to translate documentation and copy from English to Spanish.

Now my question is what should I charge and how? Should it be by the hour, the # of words, or by document?

I was thinking about charging $XX per hour for this premium service. What do you think?

Tess · #2 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008

Hi Monique, sorry, we can't post hourly rates directly on the site so your post has been edited.

I would suggest running a search for other service providers who offer translation and take notes on what their various rates and methods of determining cost of a project are.

Sounds like a great service to add to your practice

Monique · #3 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008

Sorry about that Tess thanks for the correction.

walkerva · #4 (**permalink**) 08-21-2008

This is a little late, but here goes.
My brother is a Japanese to English translator. He charges by the word. (He also lives in Japan, where translators are more respected and paid better.) He has his computer set-up to do most of the hard work and he tweaks the translation, but it's taken him a lot of years to get to that point with his software. Apparently this is a very profitable business plan.

KiwiVA · #5 (**permalink**) 08-21-2008

Wow, must be a great programme. When someone uses these normal translation programmes, it's more funny than anything and usually you can't use the translation at all.

NewVA08 · #6 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008

Hi,

I've done the comparison because I too do translation (English-French) and by far it is always better to charge per word. Another advantage is that it cuts downs on the stress of timing yourself.

Good luck!

Rebecka Melson · #7 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008

Monique, When you set your prices let me know. I have a client that translates employee forms using Word, and I swear they can't read those things. I've seen them being filled out and they have just as hard a time filling out the Spanish forms as they do the English forms. Who knows what the things actually even say.

CASbyMari · #8 (**permalink**) 09-10-2008

Rebecka, Word? Seriously? Oh Boy, that cannot be good. I can almost warranty that those forms make no sense. Many of us do Spanish/English translations. You should have that client sub her translations.