Why Price Per Hour and Not Per Word?

Almost every other translation company quote prices on the basis of word volume, e.g. how many words do we need to translate multiplied by a per word rate for the language pair. For a first time, or one-off job this model can makes sense as it is often the best metric (No. of words) you have to give the client a guaranteed price. But going forward this model can cost clients a lot more. 

At Straker we link the economic cost of the service (a translation) to the time it takes to complete that service - then focus on improving the efficiency of delivering that service (speed of translation), this in most cases has the outcome of significantly dropping the price to the client.

* per hour pricing minimum words per hour varies according to the language pair

If humans cost money, and time drives the cost of translations - how do we decrease the cost?

The traditional way of charging for translations is by the source word in. The problem with this model is that it has no correlation to the actual time taken to complete the job, in nearly every case any time saved is a bonus to the translation agency, not to the client. This is where the Straker “translation by the hour” model is a winner for our clients. The faster the translators, the less our clients pay. Everything above the line is a saving for the client

Why do Straker offer this model when others do not? 

At Straker we have spent years developing a highly advanced online translation management system, which enables translators to work inside our translation portal using a common toolset. This means we have the ability to track translator time and efficient on jobs. Other companies tend to push content out to translators (who then use a variety of 3rd party translation tools) and have no visibility on how long translators are working or what their efficiencies are.