Working in a global marketplace has plenty of upsides – and of course, some downers. Depending upon where you live, pay rates can either be much higher or much lower than your cost of living and daily expenses. Likewise, the value of your currency – whether it be in dollars, Euros, yens, rubles, rupees or anything else – can also be to your advantage or disadvantage, depending upon the location of those employing your translation services. Regardless of your particular situation, regional locations should be considered when determining your rates.
This is not to say that you must adjust your rates entirely to accommodate the economical currency values in proportion to your own. In other words, if you live in the UK, and a U.S. business employs you as a translator, this doesn’t mean you should always decrease your rates to fit within U.S. salary ranges. But, it’s probably not a bad idea to take this into account.
Thankfully, there is a neutral service that allows translators to look up their salary range according to location – zip code, state, country, etc etc. You can then determine which percentile you fall under for your typical rates, and decide if they should be raised or decreased. If you are asking too much from international clients, you may see more business if you decrease your rates a bit. On the other hand, perhaps you do not realize your own worth. You may discover you are not asking as much as you could be.
To determine various salary translator ranges and a few other factors, go here:
