Guides
Translation Agency Startup: Language Pairs and Memory
Translation agency startup guide: building a language pair grid, quoting from file analysis, owning translation memory and termbase, and selling post-editing.
What to take away
- A translation agency startup sells throughput in specific pairs, not "translation" in general. Decide which pairs you can staff on a bad week before you advertise any of them.
- Word count is a billing unit, not a measure of work. Repetition, reused segments, and fuzzy matches change how much text a linguist actually reads and rewrites.
- Translation memory and termbase are assets. Say in writing who owns them, in what format they are returned, and how fast.
- Source quality sets the ceiling on target quality. A vague, half-finished English original produces vague copy in eight languages, and the client will call that your defect.
- Machine translation with human post-editing is a different service with different staffing and different risk. Price it as its own line, never as a discount on translation.
Start from the pairs, not the market
Everything downstream of language pair coverage is easier to change than the coverage itself. Pricing can be revised. A website can be rewritten in a weekend. A promise that you deliver Japanese medical device text on a two-day turnaround cannot be revised once a buyer has planned a release around it.
Language Pair Coverage Grid
- Source language
- Target language
- Subject area
- Reachable people on Friday
- One name = single point of failure
- Two names minimum per active cell
Write the pair list first as a grid: source language, target language, subject area, and how many people you could actually reach on a Friday afternoon who work in that cell.
A cell with one name is not coverage. It is a single point of failure with a person's phone number attached.
Two names, one of whom has never worked with you, is barely better.
The honest version of this grid is short and it will feel embarrassing. Publish the short version anyway. An agency that says no to a pair on Monday keeps the client. An agency that says yes and then subcontracts blind loses the client and the reviewer's trust in one delivery.
What you are actually selling
Buyers ask for a price per word because it is the only unit they know. That unit hides most of the variables that decide whether a job is profitable.
The same 10,000 words can be four very different jobs: a fresh document with no memory behind it, a repeat of last quarter's manual that is already in memory, a set of near-identical product pages with heavy fuzzy matches, and a scanned PDF that also needs layout work.
Same Word Count, Different Work
New translation
- Linguist effort
- Read and rewrite
- Quote risk
- Underpriced
- Fix
- Analyze file
Repeated segments
- Linguist effort
- Reuse paid segments
- Quote risk
- Overpriced
- Fix
- Analyze file
Scanned images
- Linguist effort
- Rebuild text first
- Quote risk
- Hidden prep cost
- Fix
- Analyze file
Interface strings
- Linguist effort
- No sentence context
- Quote risk
- Layout rebuild
- Fix
- Ask for limits
Analyzing a file against existing memory before quoting separates those cases. Do it every time, even on a small job, because the small job sets the assumption.
Quote a flat rate on the first project without an analysis, and you teach the buyer that analysis does not matter. You will argue about it on the fifth project.
Memory and termbase belong to somebody
Two assets accumulate on every account: the translation memory, which is the paired source and target segments from past work, and the termbase, which is the agreed list of terms and their approved renderings.
Both grow in value. Both are portable. Both are a reason clients stay, and both are a reason clients feel trapped, which is a different thing and turns into a complaint eventually.
Decide your position and put it in the contract. Four terms do most of the work: who owns the memory and the termbase, in what format they are handed back on request, what stays confidential and for how long, and what happens to both when the account ends.
Memory and Termbase Contract Terms
- Who owns memory and termbase
- Exchange format and return days
- Clean other client's content
- What happens if client leaves
The agencies that write this down plainly tend to win the accounts where a procurement team reads the contract. The ones that stay vague tend to keep the memory and lose the renewal.
Post-editing is not a discount
Machine translation followed by human post-editing is a real service that many buyers want and some content genuinely suits. It is not translation performed faster.
Post-Editing vs Translation
Post-editing
- Skill
- Critically read output
- Failure mode
- Reads well, is wrong
- Scope
- Light or full defined
- Quality check
- Catch fluent errors
Translation
- Skill
- Rewrite from scratch
- Failure mode
- Slow, inconsistent
- Scope
- Full rewrite
- Quality check
- Standard review
It needs a different skill. Read output critically, catch a fluent sentence that says the opposite of the source, and know when to stop repairing and retranslate. It needs a written definition of what the finished text has to do, because "light" and "full" post-editing mean different things to buyers.
It needs its own quality checks, since the failure mode is a text that reads well and is wrong.
Sell it as its own line item with its own scope note. When a buyer asks for post-editing pricing on content you would not put through it, say which content and why. That conversation is the service.
Settle these in order
- Write the pair and subject grid, with names in the cells.
- Test three linguists per priority cell on a paid sample of your own real source text, not a generic one.
- Choose the CAT and TMS tools that hold memory and terminology — Trados, memoQ, Phrase, XTM, and Wordbee are the usual starting points — and confirm you can export your memory and termbase from them.
- Write the quote methodwhat you analyze, what you count, what you charge for separately.
- Write the scope note that says what is included and what is a change order.
- Write the confidentiality terms your subcontractors sign, before you need them.
- Decide who reviews, on what schedule, and what happens when the client's own in-country reviewer appears late.
- Set up records from the first invoice rather than the first audit.
- Run three projects at deliberately low volume and record every question the client asked.
- Only then publish the service list.
Where new agencies lose money
| The situation | What it costs | The fix that works |
|---|---|---|
| Quoting from raw word count with no file analysis | Repetition is billed as new work, or new work is billed as repetition, and one of you is angry | Analyze before quoting, every time |
| A source file the client will not correct | Queries, rework in every target language at once, and a late delivery | Raise source defects once, in writing, before translation starts |
| An in-country reviewer added after delivery | An unpaid revision round and a delayed launch | Name the reviewer and the review window in the schedule |
| Interface strings translated without character limits | Broken layouts and a rebuild in several languages | Ask for limits and context screenshots at quote time |
| One linguist per language pair | Any illness becomes a missed deadline | Two tested names minimum per active cell |
What outside sources can settle
Public references will not tell you what to charge or which pairs to open. They do settle the general business questions that new owners waste months on.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics profile of interpreters and translators separates spoken interpreting from written translation and describes research, terminology work, review, and subject specialization as part of the job. That distinction matters for staffing, because the two are different labor markets with different availability.
The SBA guide to planning and launching a business covers market research, structure, permits, insurance, and hiring in a general form. Treat it as the checklist of topics you owe an answer to, not as the answer.
The IRS page on starting a business covers structure choice, tax identification, and keeping records from the start. The companion IRS list of records a business should keep explains what those records must support.
Subcontractor payment records matter more in language services than in most service businesses, since these companies usually pay more people than they employ. Ask a tax professional in your jurisdiction how to document those payments before the first one goes out.
On certification, credentials, and any standard a buyer names in a request for proposal, do not take an internet summary as fact. Read the standard itself — ISO 17100 for translation services, ISO 18587 for post-editing — or ask the certifying body what conformity actually requires, and ask the client's own regulator what they will accept for the specific document type. Individual translator credentials in the United States usually mean American Translators Association certification.
Common questions
Should I open with many language pairs or a few?
A few, staffed twice over. Breadth is easy to claim and expensive to honor. Buyers who need thirty languages will ask whether you can hold quality in the three that matter to them first.
Do I need my own linguists on payroll to start?
Most agencies start with tested subcontractors and add employees where the volume is steady and the subject is narrow. The employment question turns on how the work is directed and scheduled, which is a legal question in your jurisdiction, not a preference. Ask an employment attorney before you decide.
What is a fair way to handle a client whose source text is poor?
Say it once, early, in writing, with two or three specific examples and the cost of leaving it alone. Offer source editing as a paid step. If the client declines, note the decision and price the queries into the project. What does not work is absorbing it silently and hoping the reviewer is generous.
How much can this guide tell me about my own market?
Not much, and no page can. It can tell you which questions have a checkable answer. Demand in your pairs, what buyers near you already pay, and which subject areas are underserved are things you learn by talking to buyers and losing a few quotes, not by reading.
