Subtitle Pricing for Belgium company Thread poster: Kat.larissa
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Kat.larissa
Portugal
Local time: 07:38
French to English
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Hello,
I am a freelance grant writer and editor working mainly in the performing arts and began working recently in film. A large German company has requested a service estimate for the subtitling of 214 minutes total of videos ranging from 1-minute long presentation videos to 30 minute lectures. The work consists in working with automatically generated subtitles, revising them as needed, and editing and exporting them as well as correcting any small video errors they have. They exp... See more Hello,
I am a freelance grant writer and editor working mainly in the performing arts and began working recently in film. A large German company has requested a service estimate for the subtitling of 214 minutes total of videos ranging from 1-minute long presentation videos to 30 minute lectures. The work consists in working with automatically generated subtitles, revising them as needed, and editing and exporting them as well as correcting any small video errors they have. They expect a 1-2 week turn around.
They are interviewing different service providers and this is my first time making my budget as I am new to the field of subtitling for big institutions. I don’t want to pitch too high but definitely don’t want to lowball myself as a freelancer.
What would be the right wage in your opinion? I was thinking 3-4€/hour.
Do you include in your wage material use and quality assurance fees?
Any input would be much appreciated. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Arne Krueger
Germany
Local time: 08:38
German to English
+ ...
| Check the content before agreeing on anything | Feb 2 |
You should first ask them to provide you a sample of their machine text...
Compare it to what you understand in the video and then make a decision.
You might also ask them if they want a sample from you. This way you can show them you are really into it and take it seriously.
Regarding the pay you are thinking about. A lot of people ask about pay here, but nobody can give you a right or wrong answer for it. It just depends on your own situation. But conside... See more You should first ask them to provide you a sample of their machine text...
Compare it to what you understand in the video and then make a decision.
You might also ask them if they want a sample from you. This way you can show them you are really into it and take it seriously.
Regarding the pay you are thinking about. A lot of people ask about pay here, but nobody can give you a right or wrong answer for it. It just depends on your own situation. But considering the time you spend working on it (it will take long...), I would definitely up the rate. ▲ Collapse
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So, what you described sounds like a subtitling MTPE project to me. And I happen to have a first-hand experience on that. Let me tell you, my friend: it's awful. You're practically going to redo the whole thing from scratch. I personally don't think it's worth your time. But if you still want to accept the job, most agencies are expecting you to propose a volume-based rate even for subtitling full review, known in the industry as QC. Nowadays, it's mostly per-runtime-minute. That is, the duratio... See more So, what you described sounds like a subtitling MTPE project to me. And I happen to have a first-hand experience on that. Let me tell you, my friend: it's awful. You're practically going to redo the whole thing from scratch. I personally don't think it's worth your time. But if you still want to accept the job, most agencies are expecting you to propose a volume-based rate even for subtitling full review, known in the industry as QC. Nowadays, it's mostly per-runtime-minute. That is, the duration of the media file. Half to one-third of your subtitling translation rate with a master template is the average price for tier 2 to tier 4 agencies to review a human-translated work. But as always, there are exceptions.
The subtitlers and subtitle translators of yore charged per-subtitle-numbers (a.k.a. events) rates. Unfortunately, to my knowledge this practice has fallen out of favor. Some suggest that you should charge a per-hour rate for this type of assignment. While it may be fair, you could lose the bid since, in my humble experience, agencies rarely agree on this term.
Kalala92 wrote:
What would be the right wage in your opinion? I was thinking 3-4€/hour.
I̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶c̶l̶a̶i̶m̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶m̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶P̶o̶r̶t̶u̶g̶u̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶u̶l̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ That rate is peanut even for a third-world country. Are you sure you can live with it?
[Edited at 2024-02-02 11:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Kalala92 wrote:
as well as correcting any small video errors they have.
How small is small? What kind of errors? Depending on the tasks, these may fall under the category of video editing. I don't offer such services, so I can't give any meaningful comments on that front. But other subtitlers I know wear two hats as video editors. It's best to wait for them to chime in.
I also noticed that this seems to be a bid for a project from a direct client. Just FYI, I charge them more than I do with agencies. The “rules” stated in my previous post may not apply in your case. Perhaps you can leverage the situation and charge a per-hour rate.
However…
If the offer came from a freelancing platform like Upwork, I'm afraid you already lost the game.
[Edited at 2024-02-02 14:23 GMT]
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Kat.larissa
Portugal
Local time: 07:38
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thank you !! not 3/4 per hour** error | Feb 2 |
I rushed when writing that message 🤦♀️. I was thinking 3/4euros per minute of content. Which if we consider an average of 4 hours of work for each hour of content, would round out to about 40 euros per hour.
I know they are reaching out to others to create competitive pricing but not sure how many other people are really competing, and at the end of the day they are a huge institution with a bunch of money.
And YES, it is definetly an MTPE situation.
... See more I rushed when writing that message 🤦♀️. I was thinking 3/4euros per minute of content. Which if we consider an average of 4 hours of work for each hour of content, would round out to about 40 euros per hour.
I know they are reaching out to others to create competitive pricing but not sure how many other people are really competing, and at the end of the day they are a huge institution with a bunch of money.
And YES, it is definetly an MTPE situation.
thank you all for your input, I am new to this. Trying to balance needing the gig + not going lower than the just wage. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Joakim Braun 
Sweden
Local time: 08:38
German to Swedish
+ ...
| The work isn't translation | Feb 4 |
The real work of good-quality subtitling isn't translation but rewriting, condensing, block-division and timing.
1/3 to 1/2 of the time is spent on that, in my experience.
Starting out from scratch you will do most of this in your head as you go along.
Starting with a literal transcript or MT subtitles, the text will get in the way of a smooth workflow and can possibly take more time than a translation from scratch.
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Joakim Braun wrote:
The real work of good-quality subtitling isn't translation but rewriting, condensing, block-division and timing.
1/3 to 1/2 of the time is spent on that, in my experience.
Here's food for our collective thought. I'm currently studying technical translation, and surprisingly a lot of parallels can be drawn to subtitling. Just to name a few: the target audience's cognitive load, information-flow engineering, efficient communication, and formatting techniques to aid comprehension. An argument could then be made that the real work of good-quality technical translation isn't translation, either.
What is translation, anyway?
[Edited at 2024-02-05 09:07 GMT]
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