Will Pricing Models for Language Services Change?

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John Stroman

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Jan 3, 2025, 7:01:53 AMJan 3
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Fellow 'Yakkers

From Slator newsletter 1/3/2025

Slow-Changing Pricing Models
Despite the rise of machine translation post-editing (MTPE) and increasingly automated translation workflows, the Association of Language Companies (ALC) 2024 survey revealed that 87% of language service providers still rely on the traditional per-word model.

Alternative pricing methods based on edit distance or actual post-editing time have been discussed at industry events, but the subscription pricing model, with service levels tied to different degrees of editing (typically human) and automation, is only now starting to inch ahead.

The move towards subscription revenue in some corners has not gone unnoticed by investors and shareholders at companies like Australia’s AI Media, which has seen its shares soar by 250% since adopting a similar approach in April.

We asked readers how they charge or pay for translation, and consistent with the ALC survey results, most (68.0%) are still charging or paying by the word. A small cohort (15.0%) has begun going by edit distance, while two identical groups are using a per hour, or another metric (7.0% each) and the rest (3.0%) are using the subscription mode
How do you charge or pay for translation?
Poll on December 6, 2024. Vote Count: 100

Per-word (68.0%)Subscription (3.0%)Other (7.0%)Per hour (7.0%)Edit distance (15.0%)

Full article with graphic available at: https://slator.com/will-language-service-providers-finally-change-pricing-models-in-2025/?mc_cid=b1d664ae51&mc_eid=fb7469eae2

John Stroman (cross posted to JAT Forums)
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Tom Gally

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Jan 3, 2025, 10:23:22 PMJan 3
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John,

Thanks for posting that.

My freelance translation career, from 1986 to 2005, was almost entirely per-word (very occasionally per-hour), while for my current part-time postretirement work I am being paid a fixed salary. For me, there have been advantages and disadvantages to both. Being paid by the word motivated me to work harder and faster, resulting in a good income for many years, while receiving a salary means I feel a bit less driven to work hard minute by minute but also experience less stress and anxiety. The former was fine for me when I was younger, especially given the market conditions at the time, while the latter is okay for me at my current age.

Perhaps because I have not been freelancing lately, the term "edit distance" was new to me. Here are three AI-generated explanations of its meaning:




Tom Gally

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Bill Lise

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Jan 4, 2025, 2:34:04 AMJan 4
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I don't know much about edit distance, since I don't work with agencies, but regarding billing by volume or billing by hours, I can say from experience that, while the latter sounds like it could be fairer, it runs into some problems if it is done honestly without padding hours.
The problem is that, with hourly billing, getting as much as you would make billing by words would, unless you pad hours, often runs the risk of having the client go postal when they compare your hourly earnings to their salary.
In general, I believe it is very often a good strategy not to allow your client to know your hourly earnings. 
Back around 1985, I was billing (by the word) a good client (manufacturer of measruring products) about 1M/month. The word got out within the company beyond the kacho I was dealing with, and people were terribly upset that someone who puts his trousers on one leg at a time could bill that much and directed their anger at the kacho (which I learned from a number of sources). They were so distressed that they offered me an in-house job at around 500,000 plus benefits. It still didn't come up to what I was billing them, and what they didn't know was that I had another client similar to them that I will billing about the same amount per month.
I declined the in-house job and continued to get work from them, until the bubble burst, that is.
Billing is sometimes a difficult aspect of dealing with clients, and I think that would apply to both direct clients and agencies.
Speaking of which, although I don't deal with agencies, some agency job notices I have seen recently for MTPE dictate the number of hours that will be spent on the job, and probably are also assuming some low level of hourly fee. That system assures the agency of being able to quote a job to their client at an amount that will reliably make them a profit, while appearing to allow the post-editor to set an hourly rate, but only for an allowed number of hours.
I have never encountered this requirement with a direct client, but then the only time I bill by the hour is when I do interpreting, and they are there watching me, so there is no opportunity to pad hours.

Geoffrey Trousselot

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Jan 5, 2025, 7:35:02 PMJan 5
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I’d just like to say “editing distance” is the most ridiculous concept. If a sophisticated translation system doesn’t get the right translation nowadays, there is a far higher chance of it requiring a lot of thought and possibly consideration of multiple options. 
Geoffrey Trousselot 

cpta...@ozemail.com.au

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Jan 5, 2025, 8:13:08 PMJan 5
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What I see in all of this is large numbers of people earnestly discussing their occupation, but having that discussion unwittingly constrained and distorted to the point of meaninglessness by a conceptual framework developed for entirely different reasons by people who know nothing.

As an example (forgive me if you have heard me bang on about this before) I recoil in disgust when I see the expression “Post-editing”.

Exactly what is it following? The conventional answer is “machine translation”. This outrages me. “Translation” is what I do for a living and a text it is only “translated” when it is fit for purpose. When I can invoice for it. Why is someone using that word “translation” which is dear to me, and critical to my living, to describe something clearly not fit for purpose? It is an insult.

Is a person with a Band-Aid a doctor? Is a packet of flour a loaf of bread? Why on earth do translators sit staring dumbly while IT nerds rush around labelling all the things that WE should be owning and defending like Vienna??

And don’t start me on bullshit words like “localisation” and “transcreation”.

When will translators stand up as professionals and own their future? Of all people you’d think they would understand that it begins by getting the terminology right.

SMH

 

Chris

Bill Lise

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Jan 5, 2025, 8:20:23 PMJan 5
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Post-editing is being rammed down the throats of docile and unknowing clients by translation-brokering agencies.
The problem for translators is not the word but the fact that the clients are buying into it.
The answer is to go to clients who don’t want Band-Aids on wounds caused by machine translation. That means going to direct clients. It doesn’t make any sense to hope that there will be any number of agencies able to provide substantial numbers of translators with translation work going forward.
I am equally annoyed with the words transcreation and localization.
Arguably anything translated well is localized.
And transcreation is a desperate attempt by some translators to differentiate themselves from people who do “merely“ translation.
Bill Lise @ high-functioning curmugeonism

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cpta...@ozemail.com.au

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Jan 5, 2025, 8:24:12 PMJan 5
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Exactly right Bill…what the hell were people charging money for before the boxheads invented “localisation” and those failing to grasp role boundaries reinvented themselves with “transcreation”?

 

Chris

Bill Lise

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Jan 6, 2025, 3:58:12 AMJan 6
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I think numerous translators who started saying they were doing transcreation were hoping to get a better outcome by saying different words to the same people.
What they needed to do was to say the same words that they had been using to _different people_.
It's rather like the task of raising your rates; the most promising strategy is getting new clients.
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