Freelance Translation & Localisation Business: Word Counts, Match Discounts, Throughput, Rush Fees & Project Quotes

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Count characters with LEN, convert a brochure into standard lines, and estimate the target word count and target lines with illustrative expansion factors per language.
• Weight a match analysis with a fictional discount grid, total the weighted words with SUMPRODUCT, measure the effective discount and price the job.
• Work back from an income target and business costs to billable hours, the required hourly rate, the rate per word at your speed and a clean quoted rate with CEILING.
• Turn weighted words into working days for translation plus review, set the standard delivery date with WORKDAY, count the working days the client allows and price the rush surcharge with IFS.
• Apply a minimum charge with MAX, count the jobs that hit it, and compare full translation, post-editing and hourly proofreading by earnings per hour and per-word equivalent.
• Calculate due dates and days late from payment terms, compare how long agency clients take to pay, and measure the agency's margin on the same job.
• Price a six-language localisation project from weighted words, rates per language and layout pages, add a project-management fee and a one-off file preparation and round the quote up with CEILING.
• Summarise four months of jobs by client and language pair with SUMIFS, calculate the effective revenue per hour for each client and chart the revenue by client.