← Translator Project Quote Calculator
This calculator vs. a flat per-word rate
A flat per-word rate is one number doing five jobs at once: discounting fuzzy matches, covering QA and DTP time, covering a rush premium, and leaving a margin. This page names no company or product — it compares against that generic pricing habit, using this calculator's own worked examples.
What each approach actually does
A flat per-word rate is fast to quote and easy for a client to compare: pick a number (often your hourly rate divided by how many words you translate an hour), multiply it by the word count, done. It treats every word — new or a 90% fuzzy match from the client's translation memory — the same, and it treats every project's QA time, file handling, and urgency as already baked into that one number, whether or not it actually is.
This calculator starts from new and fuzzy-match word counts weighted separately (a fuzzy match bills at its match percentage, not full price), then adds QA hours, a desktop-publishing charge, and a rush fee as their own line items on top of translation labor, then divides the total by one minus your target margin. Four numbers that a flat rate folds into one become four numbers you can see and defend to a client.
| Project | Flat per-word rate ($0.1125/word) | This calculator |
|---|---|---|
| 1,800 new + 1,200 fuzzy-match words at 50%, 2 QA hrs, $75 DTP, 25% target margin | $337.50 — all 3,000 words at full price, no add-ons, no margin | $580.00 recommended — 2,400 weighted words, $165 of add-ons, then margin |
| 2,000 new words, no fuzzy matches, no add-ons, 25% target margin | $225.00 — matches this calculator's own direct cost exactly here | $300.00 recommended — the same $225, plus the margin a flat rate has no line for |
| Every project, regardless of mix | One number, set once, reused everywhere | A number this project's own inputs produced, checked against your stated minimum |
The two examples miss in different amounts but the same direction. The first project's flat rate ($337.50) is *higher* than this calculator's own labor cost alone ($270, from the 2,400 weighted words) — charging every fuzzy-match word at full price overcharges for the discount a CAT tool already reports — and still ends up $242.50 below the $580 this calculator recommends, because dropping $165 of QA and DTP and the entire 25% margin costs more than the fuzzy-match overcharge gives back. The second project has no fuzzy matches to miscount at all, so the flat rate lands exactly on direct cost ($225) and the whole $75 gap to the recommended $300 is the target margin, with nothing anywhere in a flat per-word habit to hold it.
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off.
Common questions
Why not just quote a flat rate per word?
Because one flat rate is being asked to do five jobs at once: discount fuzzy matches, cover QA time, cover desktop publishing, cover a rush premium, and still leave a margin. A rate set from your own hourly productivity on new words covers none of those by default — it only covers the words themselves, at full price, with nothing held back for anything else the project needs.
Does a flat rate always undercharge?
On the two worked examples here, yes, but not for a single reason. Pricing every word at the full new-word rate overcharges for the fuzzy-match discount a CAT tool already reports — that part alone would push a flat quote up, not down. It undercharges anyway because it drops the add-ons and the margin entirely, and on both examples that gap is larger than the fuzzy-match overcharge, so the flat number lands below the honest one either way.
When does a flat per-word rate come closest to matching?
On a project with no fuzzy matches, no QA or DTP add-ons, and no rush fee, a flat rate set from hourly-rate divided by words-per-hour lands exactly on this calculator's direct cost — the gap that is left is purely the target margin, which a flat per-word habit has no place to put.
Is my data uploaded anywhere?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type — word counts, rates, or the price you send — is sent to a server.
This page names no specific company or product — it compares against the generic habit of quoting a single flat rate per word, not a competing calculator or platform. Open the Translator Project Quote Calculator to price your own project, see the full quoting guide with this same worked example, or see this calculator vs. Smartcat if you are choosing between this and a CAT-tool platform instead.