Games are translated only by native speakers living in the target language countries. For most projects, text translation is priced per word and the source language is English. We also do a lot of projects with source languages like Chinese, Russian or Korean. These are the most popular language pairs, sorted into pricing tiers based on native linguists rate. Note that repetitions in the text will be translated free of charge and each project is discounted individually. For a precise figure, please request a quote!

Pricing for localization testing (LQA)

Here are some examples so you can get a sense of how it all comes together in a single project.

Small Game Update (with large game translated beforehand)

COST: $390.00

• Language pair: English - Korean, Chinese Simplified, Japanese (CJK)
• Word Count: 1,300
• Word Count excluding repetitions: 1,000
• Extras: None
• Timeline: 3 business days (Normal)

This is a small project in one of the most popular language combinations (main Asian languages). The project will take 1 day to quote, gather a team, 1 day to translate and 1 day to gather results and double-check everything (if it is a standard pre-scheduled update it can be done in 1.5 days).

Note that with such a low word count, the project management fee represents more than half of the project cost.

Extra Small Marketing Update (with large game translated beforehand)

COST: $17.68

• Language pair: English - French, German, Italian, Spanish (FIGS)
• Word Count: 34
• Word Count excluding repetitions: 33
• Extras: Normal Marketing Rush (1 business day)
• Timeline: 1 business day (Normal)

This is an extra small (usually) marketing job in the most popular language combinations (main European languages). The project can take 1 day to quote, gather a team, translate and gather results and double-check everything (we’d like to have an extra day to gather team but it can also be done during a working day if pre-arranged).

Note that with such a low word count, we don’t apply either the project management fee or language pair fee.

We also don’t apply any rush fee except weekend jobs (can be priced up to 2 times standard cost, sorry but we love our team to have a great weekend:))

Asian to American Localization and LQA

COST: $39,600 for localization and $900 for LQA

• Language pair: Simplified Chinese - English, Spanish (LATAM), Portuguese (BRZ)
• Word Count: 180,000 Chinese characters
• Word Count excluding repetitions: 120,000 Chinese characters
• Word Count for English source: 100,000 words
• Extras: LQA testing. 10 hours per language
• Timeline: 47 business days (2 linguists per language team)

This is a typical RPG game localization project with a mid-size word count. The notable things about this project are:

• a full-scale project with 2 stages, pre-approved project plan, 9 linguists, 2 project managers (localization and testing), terminology expert and both linguistic and structural pre-translation analysis.
• 3 stages workflow: Simplified Chinese - English, English - Spanish (LATAM), Portuguese (BRZ), localization testing.
• the difference in word count between characters and words comes from nature of languages (usually there are 20-25% fewer English words than Asian characters).
• The LQA testing phase, in which our linguistic tester assesses the final product before it goes live to ensure that every aspect of the final output works in context and there is no spacing, line-breaking, cosmetic issue employing regression testing and bug documentation.

Standard workflow

Allcorrect standard 4-stage workflow includes a pre-translation analysis of the text (PTA), a round of human translation, a round of revising by a separate linguist, and a round of automated and manual checks by our translation tools and localization manager.

Discounts

The pricing listed above is for one-off projects of small-to-medium size. Due to economies of scale and the benefits of planning, we can offer discounts for very large projects, ongoing projects with recurring content drops, or similar scenarios. Please ask if you think your projects warrant a discount.

Minimum fees

In short, yes, we can have minimum fees. There are significant economies of scale in localization projects, which means that tiny projects cost us about as much as small projects. In practice, we have them on northern Europe languages (like 5 Euro minimum order for Danish translation) and for extremely small scale projects (less than 100 words). But we don’t apply it to updates and marketing jobs for already translated projects.

Minimum fees vary by language and range from $5 - $7. This means that the break-even word count is between 30 and 50 words, depending on the per-word cost of each language.