Human translation of public health documents cost $130 to $1220 per document while MT added no cost

Description #

Based on the actual vendor invoices for the 11 human-translation projects, the cost of translating a public health promotion document ranged from $130 to $1,220 (an average of about $365 per document, or $0.67 per word), varying with word count and number of languages. Machine translation of the same documents via Google Translate incurred no additional cost, because the tool is free (Table 2).

"The cost of HT ranged from $130 to $1220; MT required no additional costs." (Turner, 2014, p. 523)

"The costs of HT, based on invoices, ranged from $130 to $1220." (Turner, 2014, p. 527)

"Google Translate is free and translations are produced within seconds upon uploading the text." (Turner, 2014, p. 524)

Methods Context #

What? #ⓘ

The observable: the dollar cost to translate a document, computed per document and per word from the vendor's translation charge.

"We then calculated costs per word by dividing the total cost of the vendor translation portion by the number of English words in the original document, not adjusting for inflation." (Turner, 2014, p. 526)

How? #ⓘ

Costs were taken from the actual invoices charged by the commercial translation vendors for the tracked projects; the machine-translation alternative was priced at zero because Google Translate is a free tool.

"The costs of HT, based on invoices, ranged from $130 to $1220." (Turner, 2014, p. 527)

Who? #ⓘ

Eleven human-translated public health promotion documents at Public Health–Seattle & King County, of varying length and language mix (Spanish plus several other languages), averaging $365 each to translate.

"On the basis of costs estimated in this study, these documents cost an average of $365 each to translate." (Turner, 2014, p. 528)

Other Notes #

The "no additional cost" for MT reflects only the elimination of the initial-translation vendor charge; the study still assumes human postediting labor (elsewhere estimated at roughly $18/hour) after the free machine translation. The authors frame this as a preliminary cost indication, not a full cost-effectiveness analysis (see caveat).

Caveats #

• Cost analysis was a preliminary indication not a complete cost-effectiveness analysis The cost comparison is described by the authors as minimal and preliminary rather than a complete cost-effectiveness analysis. It counts the eliminated vendor translation charge but does not fully model the offsetting and overhead costs of the machine-translation-plus-postediting workflow (e.g., postediting labor, quality assurance, tooling, and staff training), so the reported cost advantage of MT should be read as an indicative direction, not a validated net-savings estimate.