rates of Mt and post editing.... Thread poster: edward o loughlin
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have been asked by agency what my rates wd. be per hour , speed, and volume i process ( i presume per 8 hour day ) for
MT post editing .. having never done this work before, what should i reply ...?
ps . my work is on the slow side.
what would be similar rates for proof reading , volume etc..?
thanks
ed.
| | | | Abba Storgen (X)
United States
Local time: 06:43
Greek to English
+ ...
| Half heard in the stillness... | Nov 9, 2021 |
You feel like a voice in the desert, right? Others won't tell you this vital business information (popular here are "what color is your dog" etc), so here it goes:
-- Good agencies:
4-5 cents per word for full PMTE. For new projects where the machine is not trained yet, you may get full translation price. They do respect minimum charges for small projects. A very few of them are managed only by the PMs themselves and happen to be very understanding and decent people, and they ... See more You feel like a voice in the desert, right? Others won't tell you this vital business information (popular here are "what color is your dog" etc), so here it goes:
-- Good agencies:
4-5 cents per word for full PMTE. For new projects where the machine is not trained yet, you may get full translation price. They do respect minimum charges for small projects. A very few of them are managed only by the PMs themselves and happen to be very understanding and decent people, and they may pay even 6-7 cents full MPTE.
They have low volumes though. If they contact you only during Christmas/Easter and August, you are not cheap enough.
-- Sweatshops:
Around 2.5-3 cents per word for full machine editing on their "good clients". Sometimes this can jump to 3.5 cents for critical end-clients who pay them 28 cents per word. Forget the partial matches, they want them practically for free.
Around 1-1.5 cents per word for "light PMTE", 2.5 in some specialized texts. But Light PMTE requires 95% of what you do with normal PMTE, because the text has to be "comprehensive, understood". One large agency makes the determination between Light/Full PMTE after you're finished (how many words you changed). The more words you change the more you are paid, but this way you are also training the machine much more. They usually don't respect minimum charges unless they have a good budget (single page docs paid $100-$150 by the end client, you get $25-$30, lucky you!).
They have large volumes.
If an agency asks you about "speed per hour" etc., run away, they don't know what they're talking about, they're just playing on their computers and you're the toy. Large agencies have that already pre-determined, and the small ones ask you only when they send you an actual project to work on. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 13:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Edward O'Loughlin wrote:
I have been asked by an agency what my rates would be per hour, my speed, and the volume I process for MT post editing.
When a translator translates a text, the "translation" portion is but one aspect of the process. The translator also proofreads his own work, and this can take up 1/3 to 1/2 as much time as translating it. So the "translation" portion of your work accounts for only about 70% of the time that it takes, and the speed savings that you would get from MTPE would apply to that 70% only. Indeed, proofreading one's own MTPE may take a bit longer than usual, because there are certain types of errors that would not normally occur if you translate normally.
Now, the answers to your question depend on your language combination, subject field, quality of the client's MT system, and what kind of translation quality the client expects in the end. Typically, MTPE would not speed up your translation initially. After you start getting used to it, you could expect a speed increase of 30-40%. If you are quite fortunate, with the most appropriate subject type, language combination and quality of the machine translation itself, you could see this increase to 60-70%, but don't count on it.
So, in practical terms: your per-word rate for MTPE should be no less than 70% of your usual translation rate (and you should expect to take a bit of a loss initially). Your hourly rate should be your usual hourly rate (unless your current usual hourly rate is very low, which is often the case in our industry). As for speed, MTPE should increase your usual speed by about 20% (unless you don't proofread your own translations, in which case it could increase your speed by about 40%).
Of course, we tend to adapt to market forces in addition to mathematics and statistics, so don't be surprised if agencies expect bigger time savings and bigger discounts for MTPE.
| | | | Adieu
Ukrainian to English
+ ...
You're getting low-balled, hard.
Try at least MTPE $0.07 w/$50 minimum. I get more offers at this rate than I know what to do with (and a good share of those paying the full $50 for 200-400 word Dear Sir or Madam cover letters), suggesting that it is about time to test the waters and raise the rates on somebody by a couple cents.
Abba Storgen (X) wrote:
You feel like a voice in the desert, right? Others won't tell you this vital business information (popular here are "what color is your dog" etc), so here it goes:
-- Good agencies:
4-5 cents per word for full PMTE. For new projects where the machine is not trained yet, you may get full translation price. They do respect minimum charges for small projects. A very few of them are managed only by the PMs themselves and happen to be very understanding and decent people, and they may pay even 6-7 cents full MPTE.
They have low volumes though. If they contact you only during Christmas/Easter and August, you are not cheap enough.
-- Sweatshops:
Around 2.5-3 cents per word for full machine editing on their "good clients". Sometimes this can jump to 3.5 cents for critical end-clients who pay them 28 cents per word. Forget the partial matches, they want them practically for free.
Around 1-1.5 cents per word for "light PMTE", 2.5 in some specialized texts. But Light PMTE requires 95% of what you do with normal PMTE, because the text has to be "comprehensive, understood". One large agency makes the determination between Light/Full PMTE after you're finished (how many words you changed). The more words you change the more you are paid, but this way you are also training the machine much more. They usually don't respect minimum charges unless they have a good budget (single page docs paid $100-$150 by the end client, you get $25-$30, lucky you!).
They have large volumes.
If an agency asks you about "speed per hour" etc., run away, they don't know what they're talking about, they're just playing on their computers and you're the toy. Large agencies have that already pre-determined, and the small ones ask you only when they send you an actual project to work on.
[Edited at 2021-11-27 12:18 GMT]
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