Free tool
Translation deadline and capacity planner
Before you accept a delivery date, check the word count against your genuine throughput, your review time and the hours you can actually protect in a day.
Free tool, no sign up
Translation quote calculator with fuzzy bands and a minimum fee
Enter the analysis figures from your CAT tool, your per word rate and your minimum fee, and see both the quote total and the real rate per source word it works out to.
A translation quote is rarely one rate times one number. A repetitive user manual and a dense marketing deck with the same total word count are different jobs, and quoting both at the full rate loses you the first and undercharges you on the second. This calculator takes the three bands most analyses produce, applies your own discount percentage to the fuzzy band, prices repetitions and full matches at a quarter of rate, and holds the total against your minimum fee.
The last output is the one worth watching. Effective rate per source word tells you what you actually quoted once discounts and the minimum are applied. On a short certificate it will look high because the minimum fee is doing the work. On a heavily repeated file it will look low, which is your prompt to check that the review effort on those repetitions really is as small as the grid assumes.
Your result
Weighted word count
5,265
The billable count after the grid is applied to each band.
Line total before the minimum
$842.40
Weighted words multiplied by your full per word rate.
Quote total
$842.40
The higher of the line total and your minimum fee.
Effective rate per source word
$0.13
What you really charged across every word in the file.
Add separate lines for DTP, OCR cleanup, subtitle spotting or certification rather than folding them into the per word rate.
Reading the weighted count honestly
Discount grids exist because translation memory genuinely saves work, but the saving is not the same on every file. A repeated warning label really does take seconds. A repeated legal clause that appears in three different contexts still needs to be checked in each one, and a fuzzy match that differs by one negation takes longer to fix than a fresh sentence takes to write.
So treat the fuzzy percentage as a decision, not a default. If a client insists on a grid that assumes fuzzy matches take almost no effort, run the numbers here and look at the effective rate output. That single figure is the argument, because it converts a grid dispute into a number both sides can talk about.
Why the minimum fee is not negotiable arithmetic
A two hundred word marriage certificate involves downloading the file, checking whether the seal text is legible, translating, formatting to match the layout, writing the certificate of accuracy, signing it, exporting to PDF and emailing it. That is the better part of an hour regardless of the word count.
Set your minimum so it covers that hour, then let the calculator apply it. The visible effect is that short jobs stop being charity work. The invisible effect is that you stop resenting small clients, which is worth more than the fee, because those are frequently the clients who come back every few months for years.
Questions about this calculator
Should I quote from source words or target words?
Source words wherever you can, because the client can verify the count before work starts and neither side gets a surprise. Target word quoting invites arguments about expansion, particularly into Spanish or French where the target routinely runs longer. If a client insists on target counts, factor the expansion into your rate rather than hoping it evens out.
How do I price a file with no CAT analysis available?
Put the whole count into the new words field and quote at full rate. Then add an hourly line for the handling the file needs, such as OCR cleanup on a scanned PDF or rebuilding a table. Quoting an unanalyzed file as if it were clean is how a profitable job turns into unpaid weekend work.
Does this work for post editing of machine translation?
Use it for the shape of the job but set a post editing rate rather than your translation rate, and be clear whether the client is asking for light or full post editing. They are different deliverables with different effort. Pricing both from one number is the single most common way post editing work loses money.
More free tools and working documents
Working document
The quote-ready file checklist
Twenty checks that stand between an incoming file and a price you will not regret, grouped in the order you actually do them.
That figure, against the client record
You just priced or planned one file with numbers you typed in by hand. The version worth having pulls the fuzzy grid you agreed with that account, applies the minimum fee automatically and opens the client glossary beside the quote. Twenty minutes on a demo, using your own language pairs and your own figures rather than our examples.