~/services $ ls -la --fees
tuesday, 9:02am. a 212-page manual and a hard deadline are sharing one inbox.
Here is everything we translate, what each kind of file costs, and the jobs we politely wave toward someone else. Every price is one fixed fee. The certified sign-off and the second reader are already inside it, and the invoice carries the same number the quote did.
- DE ⇄ EN
- PT ⇄ EN
- ES ⇄ EN
~/ledger $ cat what-we-translate.tsv
six kinds of file, six honest prices
Fees follow the word count, not the glamour of the document. A privacy notice and a purchase agreement of the same length cost the same, which is the one fairness lawyers rarely get from us or anyone.
| document | size · turnaround | fixed fee |
|---|---|---|
letters, riders & certificatesA one-page agreement, a power of attorney, a birth certificate headed for a consulate. Short, and unforgiving about every comma. |
s · the one-pagerup to 1,000 words 2 business days |
$265 Quote this → |
contracts, NDAs & corporate papersCommercial, employment and licensing agreements, shareholder agreements, corporate minutes. “Shall” stays “shall”, and “may” never gets promoted. |
m · the contractup to 5,000 words 5 business days |
$1,085 Quote this → |
terms, privacy & cookie noticesWritten in the legal register for the country that will read them, not the average of every country at once. The short ones are one-pagers; a full GDPR-grade policy is usually a contract. |
s or mby word count 2 to 5 business days |
from $265 Quote this → |
regulatory filingsDossiers, submissions and supporting documents. Two translators share the load, one second reader holds the whole file in their head, and the glossary comes back with the files. |
l · the dossierup to 20,000 words 12 business days |
$3,640 Quote this → |
instructions for use, manuals & safety data sheetsTranslators with an engineering or pharma background, because “torque” and “drug-product” should not be guessed at. We keep your part numbers and warning symbols exactly where they stand. |
m or lby word count 5 to 12 business days |
from $1,085 Quote this → |
software UI & help textSend strings as XLIFF, JSON or a spreadsheet, ideally with a screenshot of where “Save” lives. Button labels are tiny and we treat them like clauses: they get a glossary entry and a second look. |
m · the contractup to 5,000 words 5 business days |
from $1,085 Quote this → |
s = up to 1,000 words · m = up to 5,000 · l = up to 20,000 · more than that is quoted by the project, still as a single number.
~/extras $ cat addons.txt
the extras, priced on the wall
The ledger above is the base fee. These are the only things that change it, and each one appears on your quote as its own line, so the invoice reads the way the quote did.
Add one to my quote- rush+25%
Added to any size. We confirm the delivery date in writing before you say yes.
- notarized certificate$45 each
Signed in front of a notary, for the court or agency that wants a stamp on the stamp.
- courier copy of the certificate$28
Wet-ink original in a rigid envelope. The PDF is already in your fee.
- second regional variant35% of fee
pt-BR and then pt-PT, de-DE and then de-CH. Same glossary, new native reader.
- glossary review$180
We audit the terms you already use against the file before drafting begins, and flag the ones that disagree with each other.
- back-translation spot check$140
Up to 500 words of your finished text, run back into the source language by someone who has not seen the original.
- glossary exportincluded
Your termbase as a spreadsheet, to keep whether or not you ever hire us again.
~/declined $ cat not-us.md
the not-list, for honesty’s sake
A short list of jobs that sound adjacent to ours and aren’t. We would rather tell you now, over the phone, than invoice you for a near miss.
- no.
interpreting
We translate text. If you need a voice in the room, we’ll point you to an interpreter we would hire ourselves.
- no.
languages outside our three pairs
German, Portuguese and Spanish, to and from English. Ask us for Finnish and we’ll say so, kindly, within the hour.
- no.
machine output with a polish
We don’t edit a free web translator’s draft and call it certified. Every file is drafted by a person who signs for it.
- no.
“make it punchier” rewrites
Marketing copy that needs fresh invention is another trade. A contract that needs to say exactly what it said is ours.
~/estimate $ ./count --words
guess your fee in ten seconds, then make it official
Type a rough word count and the terminal on the left will tell you the size, the turnaround and the fee we’d most likely quote. The real quote comes after we’ve counted the real file, within one business day.
stdout · rough fee, no commitment
- $ wc -w source_file
- + 3,820 words → size m, “the contract”
- turnaround: 5 business days
- fee: $1,085 fixed · certificate included
- ✓ a rush would be $1,356 (+25%)
Scanned or fuzzy? Guess high. We count the real file before we quote.
i only have a scanned pdf. is that a problem?
No. We read scans, and if the text is too faint to quote from we tell you before quoting, not after. The word count is estimated first and confirmed on the real file.
can one project cover two language pairs?
Yes, as two fixed fees, one per pair, quoted together on a single page. A pt-BR file that also needs pt-PT is the same job with the second-variant extra at 35% of the first fee.
what is the smallest job you take?
One page, at $265. A 180-word cover letter still costs $265, because the certified sign-off and the second read take the same effort whether the letter is short or not.
send the file, get the number
A free read-through and a fixed fee, back to you within one business day. Hours are Mon–Thu 9am–5pm and Fri to 3pm, so a Friday-evening file is answered Monday, with coffee.