Pricing
How a job is priced.
Everything on a quote resolves to four priced items, each precise enough to build a budget line against. The rate card comes with your quote, and on request.
The model
Four things are priced.
Each appears on the quote as its own line, with the unit and the count it was priced on.
- Translation
Priced on the word count of the document you send, settled before work starts and checkable in the file you already hold.
Rates are set per language pair; a smaller reviewer pool costs more to staff. Each target language is priced on its own line. The second linguist sits inside that rate. How review is priced.
- Review of a translation you already hold
Quoted after a linguist has read the file. A translation that is broadly sound with localized problems is quoted hourly. A text that needs sentence-by-sentence rework is quoted per word, and past a certain point we say retranslation is cheaper. How review is scoped.
- Formatting and layout
Included in the translation price when you send an editable file and want the same format back. It becomes its own line when the source is not editable (a scan, a PDF with no working file, a layout package), quoted against the actual file. What layout work covers.
- Certificate of accuracy
Signed, dated, and issued with every delivery at no additional charge, on every job at every tier. One certificate covers one source document in one language pair, so a notice issued in 3 languages carries 3 certificates. What the certificate states.
No separate project-management charge, no file-handling charge, no charge for the certificate. Anything outside these four is quoted before it starts.
Variables
What drives the price.
Five things, in roughly this order of weight. Nothing else on our side moves the number.
Word count
The largest single factor. We count the source and agree it in the quote before work starts.
Language pair
Rates differ by pair; a rare pair costs more than a common one. Ask for an agency schedule priced in full.
Source format
An editable document is cheaper to produce than a scan or a layout package, priced as its own work.
Turnaround
Standard is the base. Priority carries a premium, priced as its own line and agreed before the job starts.
Whether terminology already exists
The first document in a new program costs more to run than the tenth. Once a glossary is on file, approved terminology carries forward.
Turnaround
What a tier changes.
The tier decides the price. It does not decide the process.
- Standard
- Documents up to roughly 2,500 words, per language.
- Priority
- Documents up to roughly 1,200 words, per language. Same-day intake before 11 a.m. PT.
- Scheduled
- Handbooks, manuals, and multi-document programs, delivered on a milestone schedule.
- Standard is the base rate, with no expedite line. Priority carries a premium, shown as its own line, and buys schedule and staffing.
- Scheduled work is priced against the milestone schedule in the quote, and can be invoiced by milestone.
- A rush costs more because it displaces other scheduled work. The same steps run on every tier.
Small, repeat, and corrected work
Three cases where the word rate is the wrong answer.
No minimum order.
A one-page notice is a real job and we take it. No minimum order, no small-order surcharge. A small document is quoted at a floor, named on the quote like every other line.
Repeat and revision work.
Text we already translated for you, unchanged, is not billed again. A revision prices new and changed text separately from text that has not moved. Approved terminology carries into the next document for the same program.
Corrections.
If the translation is wrong, correcting it is not billable. A reviewer checks the passage against the source, we correct it, and the certificate is reissued at no charge. A change you want after approving the text is revision work, quoted before it is done.
The quote
What we need, and what comes back.
Send the file, the target languages, and the date you need it. A written quote comes back same business day.
- The unit and the count for each document, in the unit it is priced in.
- A price for each target language, separately.
- Layout as its own line where it applies, or stated as not applicable.
- The turnaround tier named, with any priority line shown on its own.
- The floor identified as the floor, where a document falls under it.
- A delivery date, not a range, and the date the quote expires.
- Every assumption priced on, written down, and anything not included stated as such.
We do not publish a rate table. A rate quoted without the document in front of us is a guess.
Ask at quotes@civictranslation.com and we send the current rate card for the pairs you need: the per-word rate for each pair, how review is charged, the basis for layout work, the floor, and the priority premium. It travels with every quote as well.
Purchase orders, net terms, and invoicing are set out under how agencies buy from us.
Related
- How agencies buy from usQuotes, purchase orders, terms, and invoicing.
- ProcessEvery step the price pays for.
- Review of existing translationsWhen review is cheaper than retranslating.
- LanguagesCoverage, and what does not change with the language.
- QuestionsMinimums, purchase orders, and confidentiality.
- Request a quoteSend a file and a deadline.
Send the document and we will price it.
Attach the file, name the languages, and give us the date. An itemized written quote comes back same business day, with the rate card behind it.