The real cost of translation is not just the price per word.
I find myself having this conversation with clients more often than you might expect. Low-cost translation is understandably attractive, especially when budgets are tight and deadlines are short. But the true cost of a translation project is rarely just the initial invoice. When quality is compromised at the translation stage, the problems tend to surface later – and later always means more expensive. Campaigns need reworking because the tone was wrong for the market. Layouts break because text expansion was not accounted for. Subtitles need correcting because timing and character limits were ignored. Internal teams spend hours reviewing content they had already paid someone else to deliver correctly.
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are situations I have seen repeatedly, and they all share the same root cause: a focus on price per word rather than on the overall value of getting it right the first time.
Cost should be understood as the total investment involved in reaching an international audience effectively – including the time your internal team spends reviewing, correcting and managing the output you receive.
At FB Language Solutions, I am always fully transparent about pricing, workflows and timelines before a project begins. I would rather have an honest conversation about budget and scope upfront than have a client discover unexpected costs or quality issues at the end. Getting it right the first time is always the most cost-effective approach.