Translation Quality vs Speed vs Cost
Every translation project is a position on three axes: quality, speed, and cost. No single point optimises all three. Naming where your project sits clarifies the framework and tier choice.
The three axes
- Quality: how close the target text is to a senior human translator's output.
- Speed: turnaround from source upload to final export.
- Cost: price per finished word.
How the three tiers position
Budget optimises cost. Standard balances all three. Premium optimises quality. Speed varies primarily with document length, not tier. Tier choice is a quality-cost decision; the framework choice (driven by register analysis) is independent of tier.
Further reading: tier pricing, choose a model and framework, compare to alternatives.