Rates

The cost of a trans­la­tion is gene­rally cal­cu­la­ted based on the number of words in the source text.

My basic fee for gene­ral trans­la­ti­ons from English into Ger­man is € 0.15* per word. The actual fee for a par­ti­cu­lar trans­la­tion con­tract may be hig­her, depen­ding on the dead­line, dif­fi­culty of the text, file for­mat, etc.

My mini­mum charge is € 50.00*.

Fac­tors that could increase the word price:

• File for­mat. For trans­la­ting from .ppt, .xml, .html, .jpg, .pdf files or simi­lar, I add a surch­arge of at least 10 %. Please pro­vide me with your files in Word for­mat if possible.
• Deli­very date. More urgent trans­la­ti­ons attract a hig­her surch­arge. My usual daily out­put is a maxi­mum of 2,000 words and a trans­la­tion requi­ring more than this will be more expensive.
• Pur­pose. A trans­la­tion nee­ded for inter­nal use and for infor­ma­tion pur­po­ses only is chea­per to trans­late than a text inten­ded for publi­ca­tion. In the second case, I will always send the text to be proo­fread by a col­lea­gue, who will natu­rally need to be paid as well.
• ‘Out-of-hours’ work. Alt­hough I am wil­ling to work over the wee­kend, on bank holi­days and during the eve­ning, a surch­arge of at least 50% will apply for this. I will gladly provide you with an individual quote if you send me the text (or at least an extract from it).

*All the pri­ces quo­ted on this page are inten­ded for cor­po­rate cust­o­mers and are cal­cu­la­ted wit­hout sta­tutory Ger­man VAT at the cur­rent rate of 19%.

Certified document translations are charged in accordance with the German Judicial Remuneration and Allowances Act (JVEG) at € 2.08* per standard line (55 characters incl. spaces, based on the target text). I will gladly provide you with an individual quote if you send me the document, either via fax or by scanning it in and attaching it to an e-mail. Texts of fewer than 20 lines (55 characters each) will attract a one-off minimum fee of € 50.00.
Addi­tio­nal copies of the trans­la­tion will cost € 2.00 per page when orde­red toge­ther with the ori­gi­nal trans­la­tion. All trans­la­ti­ons are kept for 10 years, so you can order fur­ther copies at a later date; this will attract a one-off charge of € 10.00.

Pos­ting as a let­ter wit­hin Ger­many is free of charge!

 

*As docu­ment trans­la­ti­ons are gene­rally requi­red by pri­vate cust­o­mers, all the pri­ces shown under “Document Translation Rates” include sta­tutory Ger­man VAT at the cur­rent rate of 19%.

Proo­frea­ding is char­ged by the hour, at a rate of € 50.00* per hour.

It is dif­fi­cult to cal­cu­late a fixed price, as the amount of time nee­ded for a text depends on how much there is to correct.
In my experience, a simple proofreading job that involves carefully reading through the text to check for typos, spelling and grammatical errors requires 4 minutes per page–this results in a minimum charge of € 3.50 per page (1,500 characters).

An editing job is slightly different. As well as checking the text for typos, spelling and grammatical errors, I also carry out a thorough review in terms of style and consistency. In my experience, I can work through 8 pages per hour, resulting in a price of approx. € 6.50 per page (1,500 characters). These are estimates and both proofreading and editing may cost more depending on the number of corrections and time required.

Revising a translation from English or Russian into German requires a combination of in-depth proofreading and editing. Not only does the text need to be checked for typos, spelling and grammatical errors, style and consistency, it must be carefully compared with the source text. This kind of work would cost at least € 10.00 per page (1,500 characters).

Would you still like to know how much it will cost in advance?

If so, I can offer to work on your text for exactly one hour. As soon as this hour is up, I will stop. This makes it pos­si­ble for you to assess my work on the one hand, and decide if it is necessary for you, whilst on the other hand you will be able to cal­cu­late exactly how long it will take to edit your whole text. And should you decide not to go ahead with the full proo­frea­ding after this hour, you will only pay € 50.00 net–and no more.

*All the pri­ces quo­ted on this page are inten­ded for cor­po­rate cust­o­mers and are cal­cu­la­ted wit­hout sta­tutory Ger­man VAT at the cur­rent rate of 19%.

Translations of novels are charged per page. To ensure that none of my book trans­la­ti­ons from English into Ger­man are ever publis­hed wit­hout being edited and proofread (the result could other­wise damage my repu­ta­tion), I pro­vide this service as a sin­gle package.
You can expect to pay approx. € 25.00* per page (1,500 characters) for translation, editing and proofreading (plus statutory German VAT). There may be royalties on top of this, but these will be agreed in advance.