Is the cost of telephone interpreting prohibitive or affordable?

(Last Updated On: July 19, 2018)

Trying to find a more-efficient way to get interpretation services and wondering if the cost of telephone interpreting is lower than face-to-face interpretation? Find out in this article.

What is the cost of telephone interpreting?


There is a huge debate over the pricing and efficiency of the telephone interpreting solution. Once you start surveying around, consulting articles and asking questions to the interpreting service providers you understand that in fact, telephone interpreting can be considered an efficient and affordable approach.

To put it into simple words and actual situations we need you to think about the necessity to travel because of business demands into a country which language you do not speak. The first thing that naturally comes into your mind is the interpreter. Are you going to hire him/ her in your origin country, or in your destination country? Despite the options you might choose, you will still need the interpreter.

What if you could avoid traveling at all and still get the business conversation going? Yes, you can. You can use telephone interpreters. If you are the business owner, you might have already hired an in-person interpreter whose salary might be in a range of 1,600 USD – 4,000 USD (if full time employee) depending on a lot of factors. Whilst, if you are still the business owner and you are choosing a telephone interpreter you would be paying 10 times less.

The above comparison between the telephone interpreter and the face-to-face one demonstrates the efficiency of the telephone interpreter in terms of expenses. Anyways, we still need to mention that the in-person interpreter still offers a set of qualities (body language, etc.) that might be vital on certain types of business communications. Another advantage of having the interpreter near you is the fact that you can ask him anything, like street directions, or anything you may want to find out about local customs and culture.

Another topic of discussion as far as expenses are concerned is the fact that a lot of customers are continually complaining because of the time measuring units for face-to-face interpretation. Is it paid by the hour or by the day? Do the travel expenses fall under the interpreter or the one using his services? Are there any other costs associated with using face-to-face interpretation? Yes, there are. On the other hand, the cost of telephone interpreting service providers is lower, with time measurement up to the last second and there are no other expenses but that. This is considered another favorable element in terms of costs.

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