Our Translation Quotes - How Close Are They to the Real Cost?

The Translation Service Instant Quote Menu That's on Every Page in Our Site

I've often mentioned in various articles and in Recent Translations that our automated quote system is cooler than most other online translation services, for a few reasons.  Firstly, the factor that is most appreciated is the fact that you can stumble onto our site - or get here very much on purpose, whatever the case is - and plug in any language pair, translation type, and word count you feel like, and receive a translation quote immediately.  Just like that.  No "we'll email your quote shortly," no email address required to get a quote, no phone numbers or company names. Just plug in your details and get an estimate. Very few translation company websites allow this.  They want every opportunity to chase after every person who uses their site to get a rough idea of the cost of a particular translation, no matter how marginally interested they may be.  And who wants to be chased down and emailed just for a simple translation quote? 

There is also the fact that we not only provide an instant, no-obligations, no information-needed estimate of the cost, but we provide two separate prices: one for general, translation-only documents, and a separate quote for professional translation, which includes proofreading by an additional, separate translator(s).  Additionally, we also break it down to cost per word, so you get an idea of the general cost of that particular language pair.

Just so you know we aren't just blowing smoke up our own rear ends because we have the available web pages to do it, check out a few of our competitor translation company sites' quote menus below, after googling "professional translation" and browsing a few of the first page results.  The highlighted headings are required info in order to receive a quote.

Obtain a Free Quote                 

I won't be so tacky as to name the translation services these menus came from, but it doesn't take long to find out that most online translation companies use this same strategy with their translation quotes.  Personally, I find it extremely irritating when I want a car insurance quote, and every company site forces me to provide my email and phone number just for a lousy estimated figure that I will probably get from half a dozen other sites.  I can't imagine it's much different for visitors to these sites who just want a rough idea, and not a bunch of follow-up emails and solicitations.

Our Translation Quotes: How Accurate Are They?

Obviously I can't compare our translation company's quote accuracy to the accuracy of other translation services, because I do not have inside info about their client's prices (and getting such info would probably involve some shady  hacker).  However, I CAN compare our own translation quote figures to the actual translation costs of individual document translations or even subtitling translations we have provided to clients (obtaining that info is relatively hack-free).

The first comparison made was for a very lengthy, very technical legal translation.  The document was a 23 page, English to Greek translation of a legal court order between a claimant U.S. company and a defendant Greek company.  A Greek attorney provided the translation, and completed within 2 days, which is pretty impressive for as long and as technical as this document was.  The final cost of this particular legal translation was a mere $600 flat.  Pretty darn reasonable, if you ask me.

So to check the accuracy of our little translation quote tool so conveniently found on the left of each web page, almost like a company sticker or stamp - I input the details of this legal Greek translation: Greek to English, legal document, word count of less than 6500.  Here were my results:

• For the general translation without proofreading, the quote was $515, at .08/word.
• For the Professional Translation deal, the quote was $732.45, at .11/word.

The end result right in the middle of those two quotes, and I believe that legal document translation was also proofread.  Not too bad for an estimate - as long as you keep in mind that's what the translation quote is for - an estimate, not an exact figure.  So the final cost being within $80 of the quote is not bad at all, especially for such a large, technical document.

The next comparison test was for a much smaller translation.  This one was only 200 words, but it was a subtitling translation project in .xls format.  English to Russian translation was provided for a client who needed his new dry-cleaning product marketing video subtitled for the Russian target audience.  This project was completed within a matter of hours, and the final cost of the entire project was a measley fifty bucks.  $50 for subtitling an entire marketing video - not too shabby.  Moving on - when the proper correlated info was input into the translation quote menu, here were the results:

• For translation only, the quote was $39; .20/word.
• For subtitling services and proofreading, the quote was $52.26; or .26/word

Again - the figures are very much in line with one another.  This one was only off by a couple bucks.

So, basically, our point here is to say that we are not afraid to make our costs transparent, and even openly compare them to their original translation quotes.  We want both one-time visitors and our regular clients to feel secure about translation costs they can realistically anticipate, and trust in us to provide excellent translation services.