Translation agency services: what belongs in a package

What to take away

What to take away

The service lines, and what each one actually needs

Translation

A linguist reads the source, understands it, and rewrites it for a different audience. Inputs: the source file, reference material, a glossary if one exists, and enough context to resolve ambiguity.

The controllable failure is missing context. An isolated string with no surrounding sentence can be a noun or a verb, and the string alone cannot tell which.

Revision and review

A second linguist compares target against source. This is not proofreading and it is not the same person rereading their own work. Price it separately, define what the reviser may change, and say who resolves a disagreement. Without that rule, revision turns into preference-swapping and the client sees churn.

Machine translation with post-editing

A different service sold at a different price. The post-editor is looking for fluent output that says the wrong thing, which is a harder read than a rough sentence that is obviously wrong. Define the finished state in writing: what must be corrected, what may be left, and what content is excluded from this route entirely. ISO 18587, the standard for post-editing of machine translation output, is where the level of post-editing a buyer is paying for gets its definition.

Terminology management

Building and maintaining the client's approved terms. This is the line that quietly makes every other line cheaper, and the one clients most often decline to pay for until a reviewer has rejected the same word three times.

Transcreation

The brief is an effect, not a text. A tagline is rewritten for a market and may share no words with the original. It is billed by time or by concept, never by source word count, because the source word count has almost nothing to do with the work.

Lines with their own production problems

The four below are not harder to translate. They are harder to produce, because each brings a step that has nothing to do with language and everything to do with getting a usable file back out.

Software and interface localization

Strings, not documents. Character limits, placeholders, plural rules, and text that expands or contracts in the target language.

A German or Finnish rendering of a short English button label can break a layout built around the English. Ask for limits and screenshots at quote time. If the client cannot supply them, put the risk in writing.

Multimedia: subtitling and voice

Subtitling is constrained by reading speed and line length before it is constrained by meaning. Voice work adds casting, recording, and synchronization. Both need a script freeze, and both are where a late source change is most expensive.

Desktop publishing

Rebuilding the laid-out file after translation. Text length changes, scripts run in different directions, and a font that carried the English may not carry the target. Quote it separately by page or by hour.

Lines that are a different profession

Interpreting

A different profession from written translation, with different availability and different scheduling risk. The occupational reference from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on interpreters and translators is explicit that the spoken and written disciplines are distinct. Selling both means running two supply chains.

Certified, sworn, or attested translation

What "certified" means depends on who asks and where. A court, an immigration authority, a university, and a hospital may each require something different: in the United States, USCIS accepts a signed certification statement from the translator rather than a government stamp. Some countries keep a public register of sworn or court-appointed translators, and courts that need spoken interpreting run their own interpreter certification programs; in the United States the written requirement usually travels with the receiving body's own instructions, and credentials such as ATA certification come from a professional association rather than a register.

Never state a requirement as fact from a general page. Ask the receiving authority what they accept, in writing, and put their answer in the file.

Choosing the line by what the content has to do

That last row deserves care. Public-facing organizations may carry accessibility duties that shape how translated material is produced and delivered. In the United States those duties usually arrive through Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act for federal agencies and the Americans with Disabilities Act for many other bodies; in Ontario the AODA sets its own standards. Which one applies depends on the country, the sector, and the type of body.

Do not settle this from a general summary. Ask the client's own counsel or regulator what applies to a school district, a hospital, or a public agency in their jurisdiction. Record the answer in the account file.

Packages: what they solve and what they break

A package makes a buyer's decision easier by removing choices. That is the benefit and also the risk, because the choices you removed are the ones that used to protect your margin.

Three rules keep packages honest.

Bound the input, not just the output. A package that promises a monthly volume without saying what happens to a file that arrives as scanned images has no boundary. State the file formats, the source condition, and the turnaround the package assumes.

Name the review model. Say whether revision by a second linguist is inside the package or outside it. Most disputes about package pricing are actually disputes about whether review was included.

Put terminology inside. Packages that exclude terminology work produce inconsistency across months, and inconsistency is the thing clients notice and resent.

What a buyer sees should be short: a package name, the lines inside it, the review model, the accepted input, and the turnaround and rate model the price assumes. A documentation package, for example, might cover translation, bilingual revision by a second linguist, and terminology maintenance, with desktop publishing, subtitling, notarization, and certified output named as outside the package and quoted separately.

Whatever the package promises must be true. Claims about capability, coverage, or turnaround are advertising claims. The Federal Trade Commission guidance on advertising for small businesses says they must be truthful and supportable.

"Forty languages" is a claim. "Certified" is a claim. "Native speakers only" is a claim, and you should evidence it per project.

Keep the records the menu implies

Every service line you add adds records. Separate rates for separate lines require separate cost tracking, or you will not know which line pays.

Subcontractor payments, purchase orders, and the evidence behind each invoice must be retrievable. The IRS list of the records a business should keep sets the expectation that records support what the invoice says.

For the broader business questions that a widening service menu raises, including insurance and structure, the SBA guide for managing a business lists the topics; a qualified adviser answers them for your situation.

Adding a line to the menu is a staffing decision before it is a marketing decision. Work out the sequence with the startup decisions and the order they come in before the website changes.

Common questions

How many service lines should a small agency offer?

As many as it can staff twice over and price separately. Two lines done reliably beat eight listed on a page and improvised in practice.

Should post-editing be cheaper than translation?

It is a different service with a different scope, so comparing the two as discounts of each other is the mistake. Price it from what the post-editor actually has to do on your content, and say in the scope note what the finished text is expected to achieve.

Can I promise a language I have one linguist for?

You can deliver it. Promising it in a package with a turnaround commitment is different, because one person's calendar is now your service level. Say what your fallback is before a buyer asks.

What does certified translation actually require?

That depends on the authority receiving the document, and it varies by country, by institution, and sometimes by office. Ask the receiving body directly and keep their written answer. Anyone who tells you there is one universal answer is guessing.