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Translation pricing made easy

Dozens of languages, but one pricing policy

We publish a plain and simple price list, and invoice for the number of words in your final translation. The minimum charge (for 100 words) in the major language combinations from and to English ranges from £11.95 to £21.45. If you find a cheaper minimum charge, please contact us immediately to claim your free gift.

There are no extras for urgency or complexity. Every language combination has a fixed rate.

Work into Asian languages may require typesetting or studio time at modest additional cost (which we tell you about, beforehand).

For larger projects or long-term work, there will be significant discounts.

But how much will my job cost?

The question we’re most often asked is: “Can you tell us how many words our document contains, and how much it will cost to translate?”

Microsoft Word documents provide an automatic word count. To estimate how many words your final translation will contain, here’s a rough guide:

Ready reckoner for languages into EnglishWhat's the probable word count when it's translated?
French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian to EnglishThe word count reduces by around 10%
German to EnglishIt can increase by between 10 and 20% - and sometimes even more
Dutch to EnglishThere is usually little difference
Chinese to English1000 Chinese characters = about 700 words
Russian to EnglishUsually between 5 to 10% less
Greek to EnglishAn increase of up to 20%
Polish to EnglishDown by 10%
Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian and Hungarian to EnglishIt could be down by up to 30%
Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Thai, TurkishImpossible to assess without examination. Send the work to us for an estimate
Swedish, Danish and NorwegianAdd about 10%

Or use the Cost Estimator. Just select your language combination and key in the approximate number of words in your original. You’ll get an instant indication of the likely number of words to expect in the finished translation, plus an estimated cost in Sterling (or almost any other currency, at today’s prevailing rate).

If you only have a hard copy, images or PDFs, an A4 page of 12pt Courier or Times with normal line spacing generally contains between 250 and 300 words, but smaller type sizes are common. For ‘smaller than usual’ text, count the words in five lines. Divide the total by five, and note the average number. Count the number of lines on the page and multiply by the average word count and the number of pages. It’s surprisingly accurate.

Arabic basically equates to English. The problem for a non-Arabic-speaking person is how to spot the word breaks. Chinese and Japanese are more difficult to estimate. There is an easy solution. Send the file to us, and we will calculate the word count – as well as the estimated cost.

Trans@ction.co

 Cost Estimator

Language combination
Word count
in original document?
Estimated final word count
Estimated cost
(approximate conversion)