Guides
How to design translation agency service packages and their boundaries
How to define a translation agency service package: bound the source and freeze point, fix the review and terminology model, and set a change order trigger.
What to take away
- A package is a set of boundaries. Design the boundaries first and the price second.
- Bound the input as tightly as the output. Most package losses come from what arrives, not from what is promised.
- State the review model inside the package. Almost every package dispute is really an argument about whether revision was included.
- Put terminology work inside the package. Excluding it produces the inconsistency clients notice most.
- Write the change-order trigger as a sentence a project manager can apply on a busy Tuesday without calling you.
Build the package in this order
- Name the buyer's recurring problem.Not the service. The problem. "Our product releases every three weeks and translation is always the thing that slips" is a problem worth packaging around. "Translation" is not.
- Write what arrives.File formats you accept, the source condition you assume, how content is delivered to you, and how much notice you get. This is the boundary that protects you.
- Write what leaves.Deliverable formats, what has been checked, and what the client still has to do.
- Fix the review model.Say whether a second linguist revises, whether the client's in-country reviewer is inside the cycle, how long that reviewer has, and what happens when the window closes with no comment.
- Fix the terminology model.Who maintains the termbase, how a new term is approved, and how disputes are resolved.
- Set the turnaround as a rule, not a promise."Received by Tuesday noon, delivered Friday" is a rule. "Fast turnaround" is a slogan and it will be quoted back at you.
- Write the change-order trigger.One sentence. If the source changes after the freeze point, if the volume exceeds the stated band, or if a new file type appears, the package pauses and a change order is issued.
- Price it against your own cost model, then sanity-check the worst month.Run the package definition against the ugliest project you handled last year. If the package would have swallowed it silently, a boundary is missing.
The four boundaries that do the work
Source condition. A package that assumes editable, final, spell-checked source should say so. Text locked inside images, half-finished sentences, and a document still being edited while you translate it are three different problems and all three arrive labeled "the file".
The four boundaries that do the work
Source condition
- What it fixes
- What arrives
- Failure if missing
- Three problems labeled the file
- What to state
- Editable, final, spell-checked
Volume band
- What it fixes
- How much arrives
- Failure if missing
- Setup costs or financing a launch
- What to state
- Range and above/below rules
Language set
- What it fixes
- Which languages
- Failure if missing
- Reviewer coordination shifts
- What to state
- Fixed set or per-language price
Freeze point
- What it fixes
- When changes stop
- Failure if missing
- Re-record, relay out, re-review
- What to state
- Moment changes cost money
Volume band. State a range, and state what happens above and below it. Below the band, you are still paying setup costs. Above it, you are financing someone's launch.
Language set. Fix the set, or price additions per language. A package quietly extended by one language changes the reviewer coordination as well as the word volume.
Freeze point. The moment after which source changes cost money. Multimedia and interface work fall apart without one, because a single changed English string can mean re-recording, relaying out, and re-reviewing in every target.
What belongs outside the package
Some things should stay outside because pricing them inside makes the package dishonest.
What belongs outside the package
- Certified, sworn, or attested output
- Desktop publishing for an unseen file
- Interpreting, a scheduling business
- Anything needing an untested specialist
- Certified, sworn, or attested output, because what counts as acceptable is set by whoever receives the document, and that varies by institution and jurisdiction. Ask the receiving authority and quote per instance.
- Desktop publishing for a file you have never seen.
- Interpreting, which is a scheduling business rather than a volume business, and a distinct profession from written translation according to the occupational description of interpreting and translation work.
- Anything requiring a specialist you have not yet tested.
Say only what you can support
A package page is advertising. Turnaround commitments, coverage claims, quality claims, and any statement about who does the work are claims you should be able to evidence for any project a client picks at random. The FTC guidance on advertising claims for small businesses puts the standard plainly: claims have to be truthful and backed up.
That has a practical consequence for package design. If you cannot staff a promise on a bad week, do not write the promise. Rewrite it as a rule with a condition attached, which is both more honest and easier to deliver.
Keep the package definition versioned and dated, and keep the signed version with the project records. When a dispute arrives eighteen months later, the question is what was agreed, and that is a records question. The IRS overview of records a business should keep is a reasonable baseline for the expectation that documents support what was billed.
Choose which lines to package by earning rate rather than by rate card, using the method in how to work out which service lines actually pay. The full menu and what each line requires is set out in what each language service line involves, and the number itself comes out of how pricing and margin are built.
Whether you can honor the turnaround depends on the depth of the linguist bench behind it. How you present the package to the market is covered in attracting the buyers a package is designed for.
Common questions
How many packages should I offer?
Few enough that a buyer can hold them in mind at once. Three shapes with clear boundaries beat seven with overlapping ones, and overlapping packages make your own team hesitate.
What if a client wants a package for content I have not seen?
Quote the first cycle as a project, not a package. Use it to learn the source condition and the query volume, then package the second cycle with real boundaries.
Should discounts for repetition be built into a package?
That is a policy decision, not a technical one. Whatever you choose, state it once and apply it consistently, because a discount that appears on some invoices and not others reads as arbitrary pricing.
Can a package include a quality guarantee?
It can include a defined process and a defined remedy. A guarantee of subjective quality is unmeasurable, and a remedy you cannot afford is worse than no promise at all.
