Best value online translation Quote

In a lot of cases it’s a hassle to fill out a Translation quote request, send it and wait for the response from the supplier if indeed, he does respond. This is especially the case if the client knows the word count, field and language combination they require.

This is why many most Translation services companies have their own online translation quote facility. In this article we aim to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Which company provides the best online quote?

There are a number of criteria we use when deciding on which translation company offers the best online which we will go through in detail.

Usability of Online Translation Quote

Which online quote has the quickest and is the most usable? The following important questions arise:
• Is the online quote easy to find from the home page?
• Does the quote show in the top search engine rankings? Of course this is of the ultimate importance as the User is very unlikely to go past the first page?
• How many steps does it take to get the online translation quote? The User often has to go through a number of unnecessary steps to get their quote
• Does the User have to provide information to get the online translation quote? In a lot of cases the User has to provide their email address and telephone number to get their online quote. This may lead to many unwanted sales emails and calls which can be annoying

Cost of Online Translation Quote

• Which company offers the cheapest online translation quote? In many cases this can be a difficult query to assess. Many translation prices vary per country, language and service. The simple analysis later in this article takes the four main language combinations (English to German, English to French, English to Spanish and English to Italian) and gets the price per word average for 5 different translation agencies
• Is the cost deceptive? For instance, is the goods tax included? What currency is the total in? While a quote in British pounds of 83 GBP may seem the same as a quote of 83 EUR it is really almost 20% more expensive at 100 EUR, so be aware of the exchange rates. For the sake of the analysis we have chosen EUROS.

Aesthetics of Online Translation Quote

• Is the interface enticing and visually appealing for the user? Does it have the latest graphics and look fresh and modern?
All the above queries are very relevant and we have used a scale for 1-10 across online translation quote facilities from five different translation agencies. Each facility is ranked on:
• Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance)
• Easiness to find in search engines, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance)
• Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance)
• User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance)
• Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average per word of the of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance)
• Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance)
• Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance
Please note our findings below with a summary on each online quote facility:

Applied Language
Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance): 5 Easy to find on front page
Search Engine Ranking, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Number 1 in most important search engines for key word “Online translation quote”
Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance): 0
3 steps
User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 2
Email and telephone requested
Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance): 2
€0,14 per word
Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 3
Proofreading not included in price
Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance; 4
TOTAL out of 45: 23

Exigo Translations
Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance): 5
Easy to find on front page
Search Engine Ranking, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Number 3 in most important search engines for key word “Online translation quote”
Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance): 4
On Screen
User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Email and telephone not requested
Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance): 5
€0,11 per word
Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 3
Proofreading not included in price
Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance: 4
TOTAL out of 45: 35

Translated.net
Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance): 5
Easy to find on front page
Search Engine Ranking, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 6
Number 5 in most important search engines for key word “Online translation quote”
Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance): 4
On Screen
User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Email and telephone not requested
Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance): 6
€0,10 per word
Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 5
Proofreading included in price
Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance: 4
TOTAL out of 45: 37

Click2translate
Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance): 1
Easy to find on front page
Search Engine Ranking, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 2
Number 9-10 in most important search engines for key word “Online translation quote”
Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance): 1
5 to 6 steps
User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Email and telephone not requested
Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance): 2
€0,16 per word
Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 5
Proofreading included in price
Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance: 4
TOTAL out of 45: 22

One Stop Shop Translations
Easiness to find, based on a ranking of 5 due to weighting (importance): 5
Easy to find on front page
Search Engine Ranking, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 5
Number 5-7 in most important search engines for key word “Online translation quote”
Amount of steps, based on a ranking of 4 due to weighting (importance): 4
On Screen
User information, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Email and telephone not requested
Cheapest in EUROS per word, based on an average of the four main European languages, based on a ranking of 10 due to weighting (importance): 10
€0,09 per word
Currency of the quote total, based on a ranking of 7 due to weighting (importance): 7
Proofreading included in price
Aesthetics, based on a ranking of 5 due to importance: 3
TOTAL out of 45: 41

*Four main European Languages are French, German, Italian and Spanish

Summary

- Applied language (Total 23 – Position 4) scored 23 out of 45 and has the lowest score of the five agencies surveyed due mainly to the expensive price per word (€0,14 per word), the amount of steps for the quote and the user details being requested
- Exigo Translations (Total 35 - Position 3) scored well at 35 out of 45 but was the third most expensive agency at €0,11 per word.
- Translated.net (Total 37 - Position 2) scored well at 37 out of 45 and was the second cheapest agency at €0,10 per word.
- Click2translate Total (Total 22 – Position 5) scored poorly due to it being by far the most expensive agency at €0,16 per word and having too many steps.
- One Stop Shop Translations (Total 41 – Position 1) scored well being the cheapest translation agency at €0,09 per word

So there you have it. The report weightings and results are subjective but we think give a fair reflection of the available online translation quotes, so shop around when buying translation services.

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Mark Kieran, CEO, One Stop Shop Translations

One Stop Shop Translations is a translation services company based in Madrid, Spain. If you want an online translation quote described in this article, click here, or get a more complicated great value personalised translation quote here.

Try One Stop Shop Translations for Quality, price and timeliness!

Your Spanish Translation Quote – Tips and Advice

Choosing the correct translation services is often a very difficult and time consuming. These days there are thousands of freelancers, agencies, directories, software and methodologies. To add to this, the difference in the Spanish translation quotes from agency to agency can vary greatly. This mish-mash of decisions make it very difficult for a person to be happy with the choice they have made and may make them always wonder what they may be missing.
The aim of this article is to aid the reader to make informed decisions when purchasing translation services. The article touches many translation issues and hopefully some will be applicable to you the reader when making a safe decision.

The core resource of translation is course the translator. Let’s take a scenario where we have a friend who is bi-lingual in Spanish and English and a medical patent to translate from English to Spanish. Easy, he’s a friend and he’s cheap although he has no translation experience. Wrong, the consequences of choosing this resource, although cheap, could be disastrous. Every particular field of translation requires particular skills. In this case where we have a medical patent translation the translator needs to have grounding in medical science and be up to date with the latest medical terminology. In addition, they must also be experienced in writing in the particular style of medical patents, something which is learned over years of practice. At One Stop Shop we have medical patent translators with PHDs in fields such as chemistry, biology and biotechnology and years of experience translating in these particular fields. Even within the Medical or life Sciences field a translator with education and experience in chemistry would be a much better choice, than for instance a translator with a background in Biology, for the translation of a drug patent. It must also be emphasized that your translations should be handled by professionals. A good translator is a linguist, they have studied the art of translation, specialized in the language combination and fields they are most suited to and built up years of knowledge and experience. A linguist also has to mold the Spanish translation for an international audience meaning that the language must be neutral and not have any slang or regionalisms.

Some people may query the importance of being so selective when choosing a translator, after all, it’s only translation but take the example of the drug patent which is written by a chemist. To the average lay person the patent is double Dutch. The patent will only be understood by peers in the industry. This is why peers in the Spanish speaking drug patent field deserve to receive a high quality translation from a translator with grounding and experience translating drug patents regardless of the translation price.
The image of the company depends on it. A poor quality translation will cause untold damage within your industry and affect your standing within this industry.

Some clients may say that they have this great software that translates automatically. One thing to bear in mind that machine translation is only approximately 60-70% accurate, the rest of the fine tuning needs human intervention. While machine translation is good for informal translations and getting the general gist of something, professional translation that represents the image of the company requires a human. Then a client may say to edit the machine translation thus saving up to 70% of the costs. The reality is that a professional translation agency or translator will probably refuse to do this as editing a machine translation involves re-writing the whole translation and may involve more work than starting the translation from scratch.

The next question is whether to use a freelancer or a translation agency? The main question is what the difference is. With an agency the text is revised which is why the translation quote tends to be more expensive. The main advantage to having the text revised is that it is better to have a “second eye”. No matter how good the translator they are bound to make errors from time to time and in this respect, the revision cycle is like an extra safety net to eradicate these simple errors providing a higher quality translation.

To summarize, here are a few questions to ask oneself, before deciding on the translation service to use:
• Is the translator experienced and qualified in this particular field. Ask for a profile of the translator or better still ask for a sample of profiles and decide on the best fit
• Why is the translation so cheap from this agency? In some cases the translation rate may not include revision, hence the reduced fee. The translator may not be fully qualified either and cheaper to sub-contract.
• Does the Translation Agency use the latest Translation memory technology? This is very useful in the case of updates. The previous translation is re-used and hence reduces costs and ensures consistency.