Proofreading rates
Thread poster: Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:36
French to English
+ ...
Apr 11, 2018

I have received a request for proofreading an article translation from ES_EN, but I have not done a proofreading job for some time so I'm not sure what current rates are. The article is 1300 words.
Could you help?


 
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 17:36
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
+ ...
By the hour Apr 11, 2018

Karen Vincent-Jones wrote:

I have received a request for proofreading an article translation from ES_EN, but I have not done a proofreading job for some time so I'm not sure what current rates are. The article is 1300 words.
Could you help?


Ask your hourly rate. Some proofreadings can take you a lot of time due to the 'marvellous' quality of the translation.


Chris Foster
Aldana Agustin (X)
Davide Zambianchi
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 16:36
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Proofreading rate Apr 11, 2018

I always charge by the hour: 40 EUR/h

Rebecca Reynolds
Aldana Agustin (X)
 
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:36
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
How many hours? Apr 11, 2018

The trouble is, I am so out of practice with proofreading I don't know how many hours it will take me! A preview of the text suggests that substantial re-writing will be involved.

 
Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 09:36
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Hours Apr 11, 2018

Karen Vincent-Jones wrote:

The trouble is, I am so out of practice with proofreading I don't know how many hours it will take me! A preview of the text suggests that substantial re-writing will be involved.


You'll only know how many hours after you've completed the job.


 
Tony M
Tony M
France
Local time: 17:36
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Per word / hourly rate Apr 11, 2018

For jobs only requiring a little bit of work, which will go through quite quickly, I usually charge per word, on the basis of about 40% of my full translation rate for the same sort of volume of text. This correlates pretty well with my comparative productivity for the two activities.

However, if it is evident that the job is going to require almost complete retranslation, then I charge on the basis of actual hours worked — but it's a nuisance having to keep track of those! Obviou
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For jobs only requiring a little bit of work, which will go through quite quickly, I usually charge per word, on the basis of about 40% of my full translation rate for the same sort of volume of text. This correlates pretty well with my comparative productivity for the two activities.

However, if it is evident that the job is going to require almost complete retranslation, then I charge on the basis of actual hours worked — but it's a nuisance having to keep track of those! Obviously the customer will want a rough idea of the cost, so I offer a price capped at what would be my normal full translation rate for that volume of text — but converted back to an equivalent hourly rate. This way, the customer knows roughly where they stand, and you have a safety-net. My actual productivity levels are none of my customer's business.

I have just been doing this exercise across a series of some 20 files, of slightly varying quality and in varying formats; overall, I found that my "per word" proofing rate correlated well with the actual time spent, albeit with some savings on certain documents and others taking slightly longer than predicted.

Here is a little calculation, based on purely fictitious figures, I hasten to add!

Let's say my normal translation rate is €0.10 / word, and I can comfortably translate around 500 words / hour; so I can consider that my target hourly rate is (say) €50.

If a customer comes to me to proof 2,000 words, I can offer them a rate of €0.04 / word — knowing that if the original translation is good, I should be able to do this in approximately 1.8 hours. BUT if the original translation is poor, I will quote them a capped price of "not more than 4 hours" = €200 max. — i.e. the same as my normal translation rate. If I then carefully note the actual time taken, and find it has taken more than 1.8 hrs, but less than 4 hours, then I can calculate the price on an hourly basis — but the customer is happy, since it has still come out lower than the worst-case capped price I quoted.





[Edited at 2018-04-11 18:54 GMT]
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Andrea Romero
 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 13:36
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
My policy Apr 11, 2018

My stated proofreading rate is one-third of my per-word translation rate, for competent human translation.

They might ask what I consider "competent", and I'd reply that it's "about as good as mine". (If I were deemed not competent, what would be the point in hiring me for proofreading?)

If they want, I can refer them - and have done so many times - to a number of colleagues that I
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My stated proofreading rate is one-third of my per-word translation rate, for competent human translation.

They might ask what I consider "competent", and I'd reply that it's "about as good as mine". (If I were deemed not competent, what would be the point in hiring me for proofreading?)

If they want, I can refer them - and have done so many times - to a number of colleagues that I know and consider competent in my language pair.

If I fail to consider the translation provided as "competent and human", my proofreading rate may rise up to my full translation rate, the latter case being when re-translating from scratch is justified.

As simple as that.
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Daryo
Andrea Romero
 
Mair A-W (PhD)
Mair A-W (PhD)
Germany
Local time: 17:36
German to English
+ ...
"proofreading" Apr 12, 2018

Karen Vincent-Jones wrote:

The trouble is, I am so out of practice with proofreading I don't know how many hours it will take me! A preview of the text suggests that substantial re-writing will be involved.


"Dear customer, A preview of this text suggests that substantial re-writing will be involved: it is in no way ready for proofreading. I would be happy to re-translate it for you at [my usual translation rate]. kthx."


Daryo
marieta1989
Nils Johann
Marta Guerrero
 
Edward Vreeburg
Edward Vreeburg  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 17:36
Member (2008)
English to Dutch
+ ...
professional quality 0,04 - 0,06 euro / source word for proofing Apr 12, 2018

professional quality 0,04 - 0,06 euro / source word for proofing depending on the content (technical expert knowlegde required??)
1300 words should normally not take more than 1,5 - 2 hours.

take quick look at the start and the end to see if the quality degrades

run a spell check - -if you already find lots of errors this is not professional quality

also take a look at the source if that is already chinglish or spanglish ... the translation won't be m
... See more
professional quality 0,04 - 0,06 euro / source word for proofing depending on the content (technical expert knowlegde required??)
1300 words should normally not take more than 1,5 - 2 hours.

take quick look at the start and the end to see if the quality degrades

run a spell check - -if you already find lots of errors this is not professional quality

also take a look at the source if that is already chinglish or spanglish ... the translation won't be much better

if it is Machine Translation, or should you think this takes more than 1,5 hours - you need to charge full translation rate
just to retranslate it from scratch
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Karen Vincent-Jones (X)
Karen Vincent-Jones (X)  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:36
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thank you so much. Apr 12, 2018

Thank you to everyone who has replied for your detailed and helpful comments. I think the distinction Tony M and Jose Enriquez made between normal proofreading (paid per word) and complete rewrite (paid in hours) is a good one. I now have a good idea of the reasonable rate for both, thanks to Edward, Teresa and Tony M again.
The content was quite technical, on implementing an EU directive.
In the end I went with Mair's suggestion and told the client that the text provided was not of
... See more
Thank you to everyone who has replied for your detailed and helpful comments. I think the distinction Tony M and Jose Enriquez made between normal proofreading (paid per word) and complete rewrite (paid in hours) is a good one. I now have a good idea of the reasonable rate for both, thanks to Edward, Teresa and Tony M again.
The content was quite technical, on implementing an EU directive.
In the end I went with Mair's suggestion and told the client that the text provided was not of a standard for normal proofreading and needed extensive work, which I was not prepared to undertake. I could have been more helpful and offered to re-translate it at my normal translation rate, but the client's request stressed the importance of rapid turnaround and low cost, so I didn't.
The client did not get back to me. I was relieved!
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Carrie Kuehl
Carrie Kuehl  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 12:36
French to English
+ ...
A proofreading rate per hour. Oct 15, 2018

A translation company in the U.S. is recruitting freelancers for French-English translation. I initially gave them my $0.08 USD rate per source word and they asked if I would accept $0.05 instead. I accepted, because I have had no freelance work for 2 months. Now they want my proofreading rate per hour. I have absolutely no idea because I've only done 1 1-2 page proofreading ever, in 5 years. Should I just state that I don't offer proofreading, since I still have no idea what sorts of documen... See more
A translation company in the U.S. is recruitting freelancers for French-English translation. I initially gave them my $0.08 USD rate per source word and they asked if I would accept $0.05 instead. I accepted, because I have had no freelance work for 2 months. Now they want my proofreading rate per hour. I have absolutely no idea because I've only done 1 1-2 page proofreading ever, in 5 years. Should I just state that I don't offer proofreading, since I still have no idea what sorts of documents they will be?Thanks.Collapse


 
AngloConsultant
AngloConsultant
France
Local time: 17:36
French to English
Inquiry into a full price for a proofreading of English to French very technical document Oct 19, 2019

Hi All

I have been asked for a quote on a proofreading task from English into French. The document is seriously technical and the French document (a company catalogue) is roughly 52,200 words and the original English version is roughly 54 600 words. Could you give me your ideas on how much you would charge for such a task? No need to go into detail about how to go about pricing I'm just looking for an average of what
... See more
Hi All

I have been asked for a quote on a proofreading task from English into French. The document is seriously technical and the French document (a company catalogue) is roughly 52,200 words and the original English version is roughly 54 600 words. Could you give me your ideas on how much you would charge for such a task? No need to go into detail about how to go about pricing I'm just looking for an average of what would be decent and honest. Thanks for your help fellow languagers (I know but a nice word anyway)

Straw
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Tony Keily
Tony Keily
Local time: 17:36
Italian to English
+ ...
EU rates Oct 20, 2019

Please first of all note that under the applicable standards (here in Europe EN 15038) the word 'proofreading' has different meaning.

What you are asking about is 'revision' (i.e. bilingual checking and correction).

Monolingual checking is called 'reviewing'.

Proofreading is checking of galley proofs (or their digital equivalents) prior to publication.

Each of these services should have different work contents and rates.

If the t
... See more
Please first of all note that under the applicable standards (here in Europe EN 15038) the word 'proofreading' has different meaning.

What you are asking about is 'revision' (i.e. bilingual checking and correction).

Monolingual checking is called 'reviewing'.

Proofreading is checking of galley proofs (or their digital equivalents) prior to publication.

Each of these services should have different work contents and rates.

If the text you are working on doesn't meet the EN 15038 translation standards (i.e. a text that has been translated by a mother-tongue qualified translator who is a specialist in the subject area, who has applied the relevant translation requirements and who has checked their own work prior to delivery), then it can't be revised/reviewed and must be sent for retranslation.

My advice is never to accept a revision job until you have made this assessment and always insist of retranslation where there is any evidence that the text is substandard.

In the past I did extensive revision for EU bodies. They assumed a work rate of 7-10 standard pages (c.1500-2200) words per hour. although I often insisted on a slower rate (c. 1200-1300 per hour). Anything under this slower rate would have been unacceptable.
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Elena Kazan
 


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