A translation agency or freelance?

One day, every person runs into a need to order a professional translation for different texts and documentations in Kyiv, and sometimes he doesn’t know where to turn. And he gets a logical question: translation agency or freelance – each of them has pros and cons. We have to figure out all the advantages of ordering a translation in a real agency or on freelance, to give a definite answer.

A translation agency or freelance? Pros and cons of the variants

Either individuals and even entire companies use freelance services in the past few years. The freelance market is really various, indeed. You can find here a translator of pretty rare languages. There are positive sides of such cooperation:

1. Cost of services. Usually, freelancers charge less prices than agencies. The price range isn’t very big: novices agree to complete complicated projects for relatively little money. 
2. Implementation speed. You can always make an urgent translation task and receive a result in a few days (sometimes even hours!).

Indeed, the list ends on this point. Next comes a number of difficulties from which no client is immune:

1. Lack of quality control. Especially, among cheap freelance-translators. There happened such incidents as a text translated by Google Translator, instead of a freelancer. 
2. A freelancer doesn’t meet deadlines. It’s a problem of the majority of “free lancers” when they deliver an order after a week, but they promised to complete it in a couple days. 
3. Non-compliance of responsibilities. It’s more difficult to conclude a contract with a freelancer. Their work isn’t regulated by the government. You can put a deposit and get ignored in all messengers, social media, etc. 
4. Impossibility to receive a legal translation stamped by a translator and a notary. 

For sure, it’s trivialized. Good freelancers exist on the Ukrainian market (especially in Kyiv). There are special websites that have secure transaction systems, ratings, reviews. An experienced translator won’t mess his reputation. But there aren’t low prices.

Benefits of a translation agency 

In general, there are a different cooperation type and a level of services. A translation agency is a legal person working with clients based on an official agreement. 

The single disadvantage is the cost of services. It’s more expensive than the price of a standard translation unit of a freelancer. But you receive:

1. Guarantees. Translations of any difficulty level will meet deadlines.
2. Quality. A translator in an agency doesn’t work alone. His work is inspected by a corrector and an editor, and also by a domain specialist (especially regarding technical translations) 
3. Wide range of services: written translation and interpretation work with documents, technical translations of specific texts (instructions, medical documents, hardware technical descriptions, judgments, etc.)
4. Range of additional services. In addition to a usual translation in an agency, you can order notary certification, сonsular legalization of documents, affixing apostille, diploma evaluation.

To trust a task to a freelancer without additional guarantees and to pay a little more and to receive a high-quality, accurate, notarized (when it’s required). The question is about result credibility only. 

There’s a big number of professional translation agencies in Kyiv (https://dpereklad.com.ua/eng/main), and a client can order a required service.