Your financial translation specialist

In the field of translation, prices vary enormously from one provider to another... as does quality. Yet price is indisputably one of the main factors influencing the choice made by a translation consumer. How then can you strike the best balance between price and quality?

One piece of advice is key: do not fall into the trap of cheap translations! Anyone who has done so in the past will tell you that the quality will be a reflection of the price - and it is a well-known fact that the consequences of a poor translation continue to be felt long after the satisfaction of finding a "bargain" wears off.

Next, take the time to analyse the service provider's billing procedure. Don't just look at the basic price (per word or per line). Nowadays, the ability to "recycle" content using translation memories allows for economies of scale. However, not all service providers pass on these savings to their clients - far from it! A price per word or per line that is lower than the market average may seem tempting at first, but is it really that good a deal if the service provider only gives you a miniscule discount, if any, on recycled content? It is therefore important to analyse translation costs over the long term. To do so, you simply need to request a quote for the translation of several consecutive versions of a single, regularly-updated document (such as a fund prospectus) or several documents with similar content (e.g. a set of product factsheets).

The cost of a translation should always depend on the time it requires and a good translation obviously requires time...

Unfortunately, translators often find themselves under immense pressure to meet increasingly short deadlines. Furthermore, as translations are billed by source word or line, the more a translator translates, the more they earn. It is therefore extremely tempting to neglect the above steps in order to deliver a job within a very short deadline that satisfies the client. This, however, is to the detriment of quality, something that the client is not always able to assess...

Beware of service providers boasting very high productivity rates!

For a high-quality translation, you should allow an average of one day per translator for every 1,500-2,000 source words, depending on the type of document. In the case of very complex documents, however, productivity may fall to below 1,000 words per day if a significant amount of research is necessary.