Document Translation Time Estimator

Translation time per word: rule and example

The estimate is hours = words / words_per_hour. On technical or legal texts a professional translator handles roughly 250-350 words/hour, climbing to 400-500 on literary or general content. How much terminology you have to research, and how many references you check, decides where you land in that range. Take a 5,000-word manual at 500 w/h: that is about 10 hours of work. Hand the same word count to a translator working on a regulated pharma document and it can stretch to 15-20 hours. Brazilian market rates sit around R$ 0.30-0.50 per word, and the ATA standard reference for English assumes about 2,000-3,000 words per day.

Applications

Freelancers lean on the estimate to quote a job and commit to a delivery date. Agencies use it to plan capacity across language pairs. CAT tools like Trados Studio or MemoQ go further and track actual throughput, factoring in TM matches and fuzzy discounts. Reference rates and daily-output benchmarks from Sindicato Nacional dos Tradutores (SINTRA) and the American Translators Association (ATA) regularly show up in contracts.

FAQ

Does the source or target count? Most contracts count source words. Literary publishing often goes the other way and counts the target (translated) words.

What about CAT-tool discounts? Work out the weighted word count first (100% match, fuzzy, no-match), then divide by w/h.

Does revision time count here? No. This covers the first-pass translation only. For revision, use the separate calculator.

Why so slow on technical texts? Looking up terminology and verifying references can easily double the effective time you spend on each word.