Translation Project Timeline Calculator

How it works

Translation days = weighted words ÷ (daily throughput × translators); review days = words ÷ review throughput; total = translation + review + DTP/QA + PM, × (1 + buffer); delivery counted in business days

A professional translator produces about 2,000–3,000 finished words a day — more with strong translation-memory leverage or machine-translation post-editing, less for marketing copy, legal text or unfamiliar subject matter — and a reviewer reads two to three times that. Those throughputs, applied to the weighted word count, give the core schedule; desktop publishing, software builds, in-context QA and project management add fixed days that small projects often underestimate. Deadlines can be compressed by splitting a language among several translators, but every split costs consistency and needs a shared memory, glossary and a final harmonising read. Languages run in parallel, so adding languages adds cost, not time — except that right-to-left and Asian DTP usually take longest and set the delivery date.

Worked example

9,000 weighted words with one translator at 2,500 words a day: 3.6 days of translation, 1.3 of review, 2 of DTP and QA and 1.5 of project management — 8.4 working days, 9.6 with a 15% buffer, so a project kicked off on a Monday delivers about two weeks later. A second translator would save 1.8 days at some cost to consistency.

Frequently asked questions