Freelance translator income
According to the 2007 Summary of ATA’s Translation and Interpreting Compensation Survey, the average US-based full-time freelancer earns $60,423 per year ($56,672 for non US-based translators).
Meanwhile, this post to the Honyaku mailing list for J-E translators reports the results of a survey given to Japanese to English translators in 2001. Here are the results for annual income (figures are votes/percent of total/income):
10 ( 21%) US$20-40K
8 ( 17%) 40-50
8 ( 17%) 50-60
4 ( 9%) 60-70
5 ( 11%) 70-80
3 ( 7%) 80-90
3 ( 7%) 90-100
5 ( 11%) over 100
Which gives us a median income of $50-60K USD; quite similar to the results of the ATA survey. Nice when our data lines up for us! But notice also that there's quite a spread of incomes listed, with a sizable minority earning over $100K USD per year.
Income factors
So what gives with this spread? Well, when you think about it, "how much does a translator earn?" is kind of meaningless, much like "how fast does a car go?" — they both depend on a lot of factors. For the car, it depends on the kind of car, the road and traffic conditions, the posted speed limit, and the driver's propensity to obey traffic laws, among others. For translators, income depends mainly on three factors: rates, capacity, and utilization of capacity.
- Rates: How much the translator charges (per page/word/etc.)
- Capacity: How much the translator can translate per day
- Utilization of capacity: How much of her capacity the translator can fill
Capacity and utilization both affect income potential. Say for example that a translator can manage 100 pages per week. In week 1, she gets offers for 200 pages of translation, but she can only take 100 pages of it. In week 2, she only gets offers for 50 pages. So even though she could have done 200 pages over the two weeks and got offers for 250 pages, she only does 150. This is a scheduling problem, and it's one of the most difficult ones that freelance translators face: keeping your schedule full without over-committing.
Below are some sample values for rates, capacity, and utilization that give results similar to the spread shown above.
| Level | Rate per page | Pages per day | Days per month | Total for year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scrub | $20 | 10 | 10 | $24,000 |
| Established | $30 | 15 | 15 | $81,000 |
| Top | $50 | 20 | 20 | $240,000 |
The Dip
Notice that there's a rather large group of people in the bottom three income rungs for the J-E survey, accounting for 55% of the total. If there were a nice steady progression from scrub to top translator, you'd expect a more even distribution of income, but this one is fat at the bottom (it's fat at the top too, but we might see it thin out if we extended the income brackets beyond "$100K+").
One way to explain this is The Dip as espoused by Seth Godin. Most translators start out as scrubs, unable to command top rates or do a lot of translation per day (because they have to struggle to understand the text, and do a lot of dictionary work/research). Those who persevere move up the income ladder until they reach the "established" or "top" level, but the quitters leave before they break out of the bottom rungs.
If I strip out these hypothetical quitters by halving the numbers in the bottom three rungs, the median income jumps to $60-70K, which is more in line with my "established" translator group.
The bottom line
The table above shows that if you can reach the "established" level, you've got a pretty decent income without really killing yourself. This level of productivity (15 pages/day and 15 days/month) is fairly attainable given some experience.
Note that this isn't the only way to do it. You could charge $50 per page, do 10 pages per day, and work 15 days per month, and you've got $90,000 a year. Or be a boutique translator: charge $60/page, do 10 pages/day, and work 10 days/month to earn $72,000 a year.
In short, there are many ways to earn a decent living as a freelance translator, and you can choose the work style that suits you.
Ryan, you also shouldn’t discount the fact that a lot of translators only do this part-time. I know a lot of translators who are stay-at-home moms or retirees who translate to supplement their income. They don’t want or unable to work full-time for a large number of reasons. This is most likely the reason behind the majority of translators indicating their income is lower than the mean.
@Jill
That’s a very good point. The ATA’s figures are for full-time freelancers, but the Honyaku list survey was for anybody. That’s another possible explanation for the “fat bottom” of the earnings spectrum!
Another thing to keep in mind generally when considering incomes is that these are gross incomes. As self-employed people (in the United States), the benefits you would get from an employer (health insurance, paid vacation, retirement benefits, 401 matching, etc.) as a rule of thumb are worth about $20,000 per year. Thus, a freelancer translator earning $65,000 gross can be said to be earning the equivalent of an employee translator at a firm with a salary of $45,000 + benefits.
Nice post! The car metaphor is very helpful, I think.
-MT
@MT
It’s certainly true that the same take-home income is worth more when you’re in-house. I think the main benefit is that your employer’s paying half of your social security tax (7.5% of your income) — do American employers really shell out for things like health insurance these days?
On the flip side, working in-house you’ve got a commute, higher clothing expenses, etc. Plus when a freelancer is only working 15 days of the month, she’s doing something else for those other 15 days; the in-house person has to actually park it in the office for 22 days, even if she’s only doing 10 days’ worth or so of work; so the per-hour earnings of the freelancer are higher.
Yes, I fully agree to the author. I am among the freelancers who are in the bottom line. Among such problems as lack of clients and experience ther is another one – where you are living, I suppose.