Tag: rates
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates?
An Introduction to the Economics of Language Services* For millennia, humans have struggled with the concept of value. Why are some things more valuable than others? Who decides? Why, Plato pondered, are rare things so valuable, when others, like water, are not? Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, in his seminal work, Wealth of Nations, formalized this…
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An hourly rate for translation?
A few articles have recently been published on the possibility of changes to fee structures in the language service industry. The time-honored way in which freelance translators charge out for their work has been per word, while freelance interpreters generally charge out per hour or day. Now, however, there is talk of translators charging out…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? The Wrap-up
This series of posts has laid the foundation for answering a question that confounds many freelance professionals. They know that they have some control over the prices that they charge, and yet, there are clearly forces working against them, limiting their ability to raise their rates. The market for language services (and translations, in particular)…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? Differentiation
My posts up to this point have mostly been descriptive. In other words, they have sought to describe the market as it is (or appears to be). With this post, we turn to a more prescriptive discussion, focusing on what, if anything, can be done in light of this reality. In a fairly competitive market,…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? Market Equilibrium
Now that we’ve laid out the individual foundations of supply and demand in the translation market, we can bring these two concepts together to discuss another theoretical construct that helps understand translations rates: market equilibrium. Without delving into mathematical details, the basic idea is that the price on any market is the result of the…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? Variables Affecting Demand
As with supply, at the most rudimentary level, demand for translation services varies with the market price. If translations are relatively inexpensive, demand will tend to grow. If the cost of services goes up, demand will typically fall. This is a simplification, but it provides a starting point for understanding the other side of the…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? Variables Affecting Supply
In my previous post, I discussed scarcity and introduced the role that supply and demand play in determining rates in the language-service market. We looked at an example or two and noted that language professionals (i.e. translators) make up the supply, while businesses, hospitals, law firms, governments, individuals, etc. comprise the demand. In this post,…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates? The role of scarcity
The first post in this series introduced the economic concept of elasticity as a way of understanding the limitations that freelancers face when attempting to raise the rates that they charge. Two extremes were discussed: a monopoly, where one translator dominates the market and faces no competition; and a highly competitive market, where thousands of…
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Why Can’t I Raise My Rates?*
Many language-service providers work on a freelance basis. They do not have a steady job with steady pay and benefits. Instead, they are constantly hustling, looking for the next client, the next project, the next paycheck. There is a whole host of reasons to explain how the industry got this way, but I’ll leave that…