The Cost of Translation: A Practical Guide for Video Content [Free Budget Planner]
Understanding the cost of translation is crucial for companies looking to succeed in global markets. Professional translation services are essential for localizing products and content, but global product leaders must evaluate whether to build an in-house team or to partner with a vendor. The most cost effective and efficient approach will depend on various factors, including your business goals, budget, operations, and scale.
This article explores the cost of video translation, subtitling, and dubbing, so you can determine the optimal path for your localization strategy.
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Breaking Down the Cost of Translation
In-House vs. Outsourcing: Weighing the Options
Planning Your Video Translation Budget
Breaking Down the Cost of Translation
The translation workflow is a multi-step process designed to ensure a high-quality output. A strong process will have checks and balances in place to maintain quality and brand consistency throughout each step. Multiple key players specialize in different aspects of the process. Translators and QA specialist ensure the final output captures the original intent, cultural nuances, and maintains brand voice. Localization managers and project managers ensure projects stay on schedule. AI technology can also play a key role to streamline various steps.
What are the core components that contribute to video translation costs?
- Source Transcript: the foundation of a high-quality translation process is an accurate transcript of the original source audio. This can be created utilizing speech-to-text technology, but should incorporate human review to ensure accuracy.
- Translation: the transcript is translated into the target language(s). Machine translation expedites this step, but often struggles to capture the complex terminology and cultural nuances human review is critical. Therefore, human review and quality assurance are critical components for proper localization.
- Subtitling: the translation is formatted to industry standards and target platform requirements. Factors such as placement, reading speed, cues, and on-screen text may also be considered to ensure a smooth viewing process.
- Dubbing: a voice actor or AI synthesized voice is utilized to create a localized audio track. Subsequent editing, synchronization of the dubbed track, and audio processing techniques can contribute to the overall cost of dubbing.
- Quality assurance: glossary creation and maintenance, along with additional human quality review, should be factored into the overall cost of translation projects.
How do different translation methods (machine translation vs. human translation) impact cost and quality?
Translation workflow can be structured in different ways — utilizing professional linguist exclusively, implementing machine translation, or combining human expertise with AI capabilities.
- Human translation is the most expensive approach, but yields the highest quality output. However, it is more time consuming than other methods.
- Machine translation is generally faster and most cost-effective, but the quality can suffer.
- AI-human collaboration combines the speed and affordability of machine translation with the quality assurance of having professional linguist refining the machine output. This approach is the most cost-effective as it allows human reviewers to focus solely on quality assurance, leveraging their expertise more efficiently while automated systems handle the initial processing tasks.
What are the typical pricing models for video translation services?
Pricing for translation services will vary depending on the vendor, language pair, turnaround time, and other factors. The most common pricing models in the industry are:
- Per-word pricing where price is calculated on the word count of the subtitles. Rates can range from $0.05 to $0.30 per word, or higher for less common language pairs.
- Per-minute pricing is based on the duration of the video. Typical rates range from $2 to $20 per minute, depending on the language pair, audio quality, and turnaround time.
- Subscription-based pricing charge a monthly or annual fee for a certain number of minutes or words translated.
How do factors like video length, turnaround, and language pair affect the overall cost?
- Video length: Duration is typically the primary cost driver of translation. The turnaround time, quality level, and any additional services like dubbing increases proportionally with video length.
- Turnaround time: Expedited turnaround times typically incur rush fees.
- Language pari: Commonly spoken languages, like English to Spanish, are generally less expensive than less common language pairs, like Japanese to Arabic, due to greater linguist availability.
In-House vs. Outsourcing: Weighing the Options
When it comes to video translation, one of the key decisions organizations face is whether to handle the process in-house or outsource to a specialized vendor. Building an in-house localization team requires dedicated personal with the necessary language skills and subject matter expertise. Outsourcing to a vendor often has lower upfront costs and provides flexibility for scaling or fluctuating organizations.
The most important question organizations need to ask is, “do we have the internal resources (personnel, technology) to handle video translation in-house?
The Hybrid Approach
In a hybrid approach, organizations combine in-house resources and outsourcing. This model allows organizations to maintain control over strategic aspects of their localization efforts while leveraging the scalability and expertise of external vendors.
The in-house localization team manages critical tasks such as terminology, style guide development, and project coordination, ensuring consistency and alignment with the company’s brand voice and messaging.
The vendor acts as an extension of the in-house team handling overflow work or highly specialized projects that require subject matter expertise or language combinations not available internally.
What are the cost associated with an in-house localization team?
In-house video translation typically involves a higher upfront and ongoing costs, including salaries, benefits, training, and technology investments. However, it may ideal in the long run for organization with consistent and high-volume translation needs in a few languages.
In-house localization costs include:
- Staffing costs: such as translators, project managers, voice actors, QA specialist, software engineers, and localization managers
- Technology costs: can vary depending on the tools used such as translation management systems (TMS), machine translation software, and editing tools.
What are the cost associated with a localization vendor?
Partnering with a vendor eliminates the overhead costs associated with maintaining an in-house team. A vendor model ensures that you only pay for the actual work delivered, without bearing the burden of compensating for the time spent on research, terminology management, or quality assurance processes.
Unlike in-house teams, which are often limited in their language capabilities, translation vendors have access to a broader network of linguist covering virtually any language. By leveraging a vendors ability to swiftly mobilize resources, organizations can confidently pursue growth opportunities in new markets, while maintaining high-quality localized content.
Translation vendors help organizations save money by:
- Offering access to a broader pool of linguist, including native speakers and subject matter experts
- Greater cost efficiency for long or complex translation projects that may take an in-house team much longer to complete.
- Ability to handle high volumes and fluctuating needs, providing the agility that in-house teams often struggle to achieve.
- Ensuring brand consistency and quality assurance.
- Access to the latest translation tools and industry best practices.
Planning Your Video Translation Budget
Translating videos into multiple languages can be a significant investment, so it’s important to plan your budget. Here are the key factors to consider in your budget translation budget:
- Project scope: determine the number of videos, their length, languages required, and any additional services needed (subtitling, dubbing, audio description).
- Language pairs: map the languages you’ll need for each video in the project.
- Turnaround time: rushed turnarounds will be more expensive, timeline mapping will help you maximize budget.
- Translation quality: different quality tiers (ex. machine translation, light or full human review) can influence the price.
- Volume discounts: many vendors offer volume discounts for larger projects or high annual volumes, so it’s worth considering in your budget.