How to save money on your business translation

If you run your own business, then ways to save money and ensure funds are spent efficiently will no doubt be fairly near the top of your priority list. In that spirit, we’ve mapped out ways in which you can save money on your business translation needs – without compromising on the quality of your translations. 

Shop around

Just like any product, you can shop around to find better deals. It’s a good idea to approach several translation agencies and ask each one for a quote. Prices can vary significantly, so be sure to find out what your options are (and what you get for the money) before committing to a particular translation service. 

Ask for a discount

If you’ve got a whole batch of documents to translate, let the translation agency know that you’ve got plenty of work for them and don’t be afraid to ask for a discount for a bulk job. They may not offer discounts (simply as a matter of course) but if you don’t ask, you don’t get! 

Look out for offers

Many translation agencies offer time-limited seasonal discounts, or offers such as referral schemes, whereby the referrer and referee can take advantage of a discount when certain conditions are met. It’s well worth keeping an eye out for these kind of offers, which can be used to make a saving on translating your business documents. 

Forget machine translation

Another important way to save money on your business translation is to forget about using machine translation. It’s not yet good enough for professional purposes and relying on it to represent your company in other languages is a bad idea. Using machine translation can lead to reputational damage and time wasted having to unpick the mess of a poorly translated document. It invariably needs to be corrected by professional human translators, so using an agency in the first place can save you time, money and hassle. 

Take advantage of additional services

Be on the lookout for a translation agency that offers additional services such as desktop publishing. Using the same company to translate your documents and typeset them can work out to be much more cost effective than buying in the two services separately. It also means less investment of your time, as you only have to explain to one agency what you’re aiming to achieve, instead of two. 

Don’t leave it to the last minute

Finally, don’t leave your translation to the last minute, as doing so will mean that you end up paying more for an urgent translation service. Planning ahead will keep your costs down, so be sure to schedule your translation work with plenty of time. 

To discuss your business translation needs in detail, please contact the friendly Tomedes team. We’ll be happy to help.