Translation / Localization

Human translation is still priced per source word, typically 0.10 to 0.25 dollars depending on the language pair, subject difficulty, and how many review passes are included. Rare pairs and regulated content like medical or patent work sit at the top. The fastest growing line item is machine translation post editing, or MTPE, where AI produces the draft and a professional linguist corrects it, usually priced 40 to 60 percent below full human rates.

Beyond per word, agencies charge hourly for review, transcreation, and desktop publishing, flat fees for certified documents like birth certificates and diplomas, and per minute rates for subtitling and dubbing. One mechanism deserves attention: translation memory, the database of your previously translated sentences, earns discounts on repeated and similar text. Good agencies apply those discounts automatically and treat the memory as your property. That single clause can change your long run cost more than the headline rate.

This is one of the categories where AI displacement is not a forecast, it is the current price list. Neural and LLM based translation now produces usable drafts for major language pairs, and buyers know it, which is why pure human translation of routine business text is shrinking while MTPE becomes the default offer. Agencies have repriced accordingly, and any that pretend otherwise are competing against a free tab in their client's browser.

What holds value is shifting up the stack. High stakes content where errors carry legal, medical, or brand consequences still commands full human rates and expert review, because someone must be accountable for the output. Transcreation, adapting campaigns so the idea lands rather than the words, resists automation because it is writing, not conversion. And large buyers increasingly pay agencies to run the machinery itself: managing terminology, tuning engines on their own translation memory, scoring output quality, and deciding which content deserves which tier. The agencies growing in 2026 sell that judgment layer. The ones shrinking sell words by the pound.