Quote for translation into English: how to get one and read it

What a quote for English translation should tell you

A useful quote is more than a bottom line. Before approving a translation into English, you should be able to see at least five things:

• the word count used for the calculation, and how it was counted;
• the language pair (for instance French into English);
• the translation level, which sets the price per word;
• any discounts or surcharges applied (several languages, urgency, language coefficient);
• the total and the VAT position.

If any of these is missing, you can neither compare offers nor predict the final bill. On Manuce, all of them appear on the quote, which is shown before any payment. The full price grid is on the pricing page; this article focuses on getting an accurate quote and reading it properly.

The three things that set the price

The word count, taken from the actual document

Translation is priced per word. Manuce counts the words in the file you upload rather than estimating from a number of pages. A page can hold very little or a great deal of text depending on the layout, so counting the real document means no gap between the quote and what you pay.

The practical consequence: everything in the file is counted. Appendices already written in English, duplicated sections or forgotten drafts at the end all push the quote up. Strip them out before uploading.

The translation level

Three levels, three prices per word for documents of up to 5,000 words:

• Essential — 0.58 cents per word: faithful and readable, straight away. Ideal for understanding a document or sharing it internally.
• Professional — 1.8 cents per word: ready to send, translated by the specialist for the field.
• Premium — 3.5 cents per word: the most advanced engine, followed by a cross-review, for high-stakes texts.

The rate falls with volume: from 5,001 to 20,000 words it drops to 0.52, 1.64 and 3.15 cents; above 20,000 words, to 0.46, 1.42 and 2.69 cents. A minimum applies per language: €3.50 for Essential, €5 for Professional, €12 for Premium.

The target language: English at the base rate

Each language carries a coefficient. English is one of the common languages, at ×1.0, so nothing is added to the per-word price. Some other European or Latin-script languages carry a 25% uplift, non-Latin scripts, Asian and Middle Eastern languages 60%, and rare languages 100%. For the specifics of the pair itself, see the French to English translation page.

Worked example: 1,000 words from French into English

Take a 1,000-word French document, roughly two pages, to be translated into English. These are the amounts shown on the quote by the pricing engine on the day this article was written:

Two points to note. At Essential level, €5.80 becomes €6, because the total is rounded up to the next euro. And in all three cases the quote states « TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI » (VAT not applicable): the amount shown is the amount you pay.

What if English is not the only language?

The same 1,000-word document at Professional level, translated into English, German and Spanish, costs €18 per language, so €54 before discount. The 30% three-language discount takes off €16.20, and the quote shows a total of €38. Discounts run from 20% for two languages up to 50% for five or more.

For a broader view of how translation prices are built, read our guide to the price of professional translation.

Getting your quote, step by step

1. Prepare the file. Accepted formats: Word (.docx), PDF with a text layer, PowerPoint (.pptx), Excel (.xlsx), plain text, Markdown, HTML, RTF and CSV, up to 40 MB. Remove anything that does not need translating.
2. Check your PDF. If you cannot select the text with your mouse, it is a scan without a text layer and cannot be processed. Go back to the source file if you have it. See also translating a PDF without breaking the layout.
3. Upload the document in the translation workspace and choose English as the target language.
4. Check the word count displayed. If it looks high, an appendix or data table has often been left in the file.
5. Choose the level: the quote shows the total before any payment.
6. Read the free sample translation: it is the best way to judge the English before committing.
7. Approve: the translation is delivered within minutes to your client area and by email, with the original layout preserved (images, tables and fonts in place).

On confidentiality: no human ever reads your files, servers are in France and your documents are never used for training.

Which level for which document?

• Essential: understanding a document you have received, preparing for a meeting, internal circulation.
• Professional: a letter to a client, a sales presentation, a procedure sent to a subsidiary. The document goes to the specialist for its subject: Atlas for general documents, Thémis for a contract, Métis for accounts (see all the specialists).
• Premium: high-stakes texts such as terms and conditions, a document for an investor or a publication.

If you translate regularly, the business account groups your translations on a single monthly invoice, with no subscription and 25% off translations.

When this kind of quote does not apply

To be clear: some documents fall outside standard professional translation. A birth certificate, a degree certificate, a court judgment or a Kbis extract intended for a foreign authority often requires a sworn translation by a translator accredited to a French court of appeal (traducteur expert près une cour d'appel). Manuce does not offer this. Our guide when is a sworn translation required will help you decide. Interpreting and subtitling are also outside the scope of the service.