Costs and pricing
Part of How to compare multilingual social media translation quotes
How to compare multilingual social media translation quotes
Compare multilingual social media translation quotes by separating core work, checking minimum fees and accounting for review and campaign tasks.
What to take away
- A per-word rate is one input, not the final price. Platform limits, review rounds and Welsh drafting change the total.
- Ask three suppliers to quote the same sample posts in the same language pairs.
- Keep translation, in-market review and transcreation on separate quote lines.
- Treat British English localisation as its own task when the source copy was written for a US audience.
- Budget separately for community replies, paid partnership labels and re-approval of changed claims.
Why a per-word rate is only a starting point
A per-word rate covers a unit of text, nothing else. It says nothing about scheduling, comment replies or the review a legal team asks for. Buyers chasing multilingual social media translation cost figures want that second number.
Rates move with the language pair as well as the volume. English into Welsh often prices higher than English into French, because fewer copywriters post in Welsh. Public bodies in Wales work under duties in the Welsh Language Act 1993, which shapes how bilingual copy is commissioned and checked.
Demand can be measured rather than assumed. The ONS publishes census language data for England and Wales, a public baseline for deciding which languages a campaign should carry at all.
Settle what each language version must do before you collect quotes, because that decision moves the rate more than volume does. If you are weighing bilingual output against full multilingual output, work through localising social posts for Welsh and English audiences first.
What sits inside a UK per-word quote
| Quote line | What it covers | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Translation only | Source text into one target language | Does the rate include a second reader? |
| Translation with in-market review | Native speaker checks tone after the first pass | How many review rounds are included? |
| Transcreation | Rewriting the idea, not the sentence | Is the creative fee separate? |
| Bilingual Welsh and English drafting | Both versions written to match, rather than one translated from the other | Who signs off the Welsh version? |
| Community replies | Short, repeated text with no fixed length | Retainer or per-reply rate? |
A blended rate hides which line is expensive, so ask for the split. Social copy is short, which means fixed costs inside each line matter more than the word count.
What each quote line covers
Quote line
- Translation only
- Source into one target
- In-market review
- Native speaker checks tone
- Transcreation
- Rewriting the idea
- Bilingual drafting
- Both versions written to match
- Community replies
- Short repeated text
What it covers
- Translation only
- Second reader included?
- In-market review
- How many rounds?
- Transcreation
- Creative fee separate?
- Bilingual drafting
- Who signs off Welsh?
- Community replies
- Retainer or per reply?
What to ask
- Translation only
- In-market review
- Transcreation
- Bilingual drafting
- Community replies
Character-limited platforms make per-word billing awkward. A caption that took twenty minutes to transcreate may still run to forty words. Suppliers cover this with minimum fees, so compare the minimum as well as social media translation pricing per word.
Why British English localisation is priced as its own job
Translation is not the only task on the list. Copy written for a US audience needs a UK pass for spelling, currency, date order and product names. Colour and date order are the obvious giveaways, and licence shifts meaning between noun and verb.
That pass is priced like editing rather than translation. It still needs a named owner, or the mistakes surface in public comments.
An illustrative minimum-fee calculation
A worked example shows how a minimum fee works. If a quote shows a £40 minimum and £0.12 per additional word, 300 words prices at £76. Those figures are illustrative, so check what the minimum covers.
Benchmarking quotes in five steps
- Write one brief with five short posts and one long caption
- Name the language pairs you plan to run
- Ask three suppliers to quote that brief
- Request minimum fee and rate per hundred words
- Ask what changes if you drop a language
Budget lines that sit outside the word count
Paid partnerships need a clear label in every language version, and the ASA guidance on recognising ads in social media sets out what that label must achieve. A label adds words, so it adds cost.
Community management is usually retained monthly. Replies are short and repetitive, and volume depends on how busy the campaign becomes.
Agree who approves each language, what counts as a change request and how re-approval is charged. Settling that before the first invoice prevents arguments later. The considerations in pinning quote terms into a commercial contract cover parties, scope and exit.
Common questions
Is a per-word rate cheaper than a monthly retainer?
For steady posting volumes, a retainer spreads fixed monthly costs across the work and usually works out better. For one-off campaigns, per-word pricing is easier to compare.
Does Welsh translation cost more than other languages?
Often it does, because fewer suppliers write social copy in Welsh and bilingual drafting takes longer. Ask for the Welsh and English versions to be quoted as one line so the real cost is visible.
How many words does a social post count as?
Suppliers count the words in the final target-language text, not the source. Short posts therefore attract minimum fees, because the count rarely reaches a supplier's normal threshold.
Should British English localisation be a separate line?
Yes, when the source copy was written for a US audience. It is a checking and editing task, so it should not be bundled into the translation rate for another language.
