Kevin Gerry Dunn
  • Home
  • Museums
  • Academic writing
  • Recent literary translations
  • USCIS Forms
  • Contact
  • Inicio
  • Museos
  • Textos académicos
  • Traducciones literarias
  • Formularios USCIS
  • Contacto

Translation buyer's guide

As with many things, translation quality increases with price: translators who charge higher rates can dedicate more time to researching terminology, fine-tuning style, and learning about the client’s specific needs. Qualified translators with experience and training are able to command higher prices, while amateurs and scammers earn a living by churning out large volumes of a mediocre product. When all of the options look the same, it can be tempting to go with lowest bidder. This is a mistake. To help you figure out how much you should pay for translation services, I’ve put together this guide on average prices within the translation market.
Get a free quote
Standard pricing within the translation market
Price per 1,000 words (USD)
Google Translate: FREE
Quality: C-
Pros: Free and instant.
Cons: Many mistakes, poor style, data sharing with third-party vendors, sometimes incomprehensible results. Not suitable for publication.
Uses: Sending and reading non-technical emails in other languages, skimming foreign websites, etc. The results are often wrong or unpretty, but you can usually get the gist.
junk translation: $90-$110
Quality: F
Pros: Cheap.
Cons: Lots of mistakes, poor style, sloppiness with confidential information, slow, non-native translators, no revision.
Uses: None. Don’t waste your money. If these translators could charge more, they would.
Mid-Market: $110-$130
Quality: B-
Pros: Affordable, usually delivered on time.
Cons: There will be a few mistakes, and the reader will usually be able to tell it's a translation. No revision.
Uses: Blogs, internal communications.
High-end: $130-$180
​Quality: A+
Pros: No mistakes, on-time delivery, revision by a second professional. The translation will read as if it were written in the target language.
Cons: Expensive.
Uses: Books, legal texts, marketing documents,  widely distributed publications.

My standard prices fall within this bracket.
Specialized: $180+
Highly technical translations (such as medical or legal documents), rush jobs, and projects in rare language pairs.
​

Note that $210 per 1,000 words is the average rate for government contracts.

info@kgdtranslation.com
(+1) (520) 477-7507

Terms of service | Contact
  • Home
  • Museums
  • Academic writing
  • Recent literary translations
  • USCIS Forms
  • Contact
  • Inicio
  • Museos
  • Textos académicos
  • Traducciones literarias
  • Formularios USCIS
  • Contacto