What does a German translation cost?

What a full German edition typically costs

These are worked examples, not a checkout price. A full transcreation means the finished, market-ready German edition, not a rough machine draft. Figures are in USD.

Based on a standard transcreation rate of roughly two cents per source word. Your exact figure depends on the factors below.

Two other things authors ask about

• A fully hand-worked edition. A slower option, worked entirely by hand and measured in months rather than weeks, for authors who want the most painstaking treatment possible. Roughly $0.12 to $0.15 per source word, so about $12,000 to $15,000 for a full-length novel.
• Rescuing an existing German edition. Repairing a translation you already have, rather than making a new one from scratch. Priced separately, around one cent per source word depending on how much repair the text needs. Send the file and I will tell you honestly whether it is a fix or a fresh start.

What moves your number up or down

• Length. The single biggest factor. Word count drives most of the figure, which is why longer books cost more and a series is quoted book by book.
• Genre and complexity. Voice-driven prose, heavy dialect or wordplay, and system-heavy LitRPG with invented vocabulary all take more craft than plain contemporary text.
• Series work. A glossary and consistency tracking across books is real work up front, but it makes every book after the first faster and steadier.
• Source condition. A clean, final manuscript costs less to work from than one that is still changing or messy.
• Scope. The translation alone, or the full launch package with blurb, keywords, metadata and proofing. The wider the scope, the higher the figure.
• Deadline. A normal schedule costs less than a rush that has to displace other work.

How this compares

For a sense of scale: on translator marketplaces such as Reedsy, literary translation into German commonly starts around seven cents a word and climbs from there, and translation agencies generally sit well above that again, since they are built for corporate localisation rather than trade fiction. The ranges above sit below agency pricing for two reasons. You are hiring the translator directly with no agency markup in between, and the standard tier runs a faster, lighter production process than the fully manual tier, which is why the fully manual work is priced where it is. At the very bottom, free machine tools cost nothing up front and, for a series you intend to sell, usually the most in the end. For why that is, see Kindle Translate vs. a human translator.

Good to know

• Every book is quoted as one fixed figure before any work begins. No surprises later.
• A sample edit from your own book comes first, at no cost, so you judge the quality before you commit.
• Minimum project fee of $40 for very small jobs. Rush work under 24 hours or over a weekend adds 30 percent.
• Payment is Net 14 by Wise bank transfer. On final payment, the full copyright in the German text is yours.

Want the reasoning behind all of this, the pricing models, the trade-offs and why the cheapest route usually costs the most, see the deeper guide: How German book translation is priced (and why).