Translation rates are challenging to determine in the translation industry because there is not a single answer for how much it will cost. The price of a translation (or any other service) depends on various factors such as:

Language Pairs.

The translation rates depend on the language pairs that a customer requests. A single translation from German to French will be cheaper than translating from English to Japanese because these languages have fewer words in common. There are translation rates for all language pairs. For example, Translating a document from Japanese to English would also be more costly because translation rates depend on language pairs: There are fewer common words between these languages than with German and French. It means that the translation agency has spent time looking up synonyms for specific terms or even include a list of translations at the end of their text so readers can understand what each word means in both languages.

Word Count.

The translation rates also depend on the word count of a document. When translation agencies calculate translation rates, they often consider how many words there are on one page and then charge accordingly. For example, translating 100 pages will be much more expensive than translating 20 pages because it takes longer to translate them individually.

The difficulty level of the text.

Translation rates also depend on the translation's complexity. Very short, simple texts can cost as little as 0.02 USD per word because they don't require translation expertise or much time to complete. However, long and complex documents set a high price point for translation service providers, which may be difficult to negotiate down from USD 50-60 per hour of translation work performed (depending on location). It sometimes makes sense with these types of jobs to break up the text into smaller segments so that translation costs are lower overall.

Deadline or urgency of translation.

One translation rate factor that is often overlooked by clients, but is essential to translation agencies, is the deadline or urgency of a translation. For example, if someone needs their translation done in one day, they will have to pay more per word than for a job with an indefinite turnaround time because there's less lead-time, and it takes longer (thus costing more) to complete the translation.

Subject Specialization.

The translation rates depend on the translation agency's specialization in a particular subject. For example, some agencies only translate legal documents or specialize in scientific translations; these companies will charge more for their services. However, no rule says this, and translation rates can vary based on the type of text being translated, making it difficult to determine how much it will cost beforehand.

To conclude, many factors influence translation rates so before you sign any contracts with your translation company, be sure that you carefully review all of them! These include but are not limited to language pairs requested by the customer, word count per document (often charged according to page), difficulty level - whether easy or complex sentence structure is being translated, translation agency's specialization in a specific subject.