The hidden localization costs

Big companies that reach hundreds of countries can spend millions on translation costs alone and still not reach all their audience.

There are revealing facts about the business growth for high-quality localized content to engage new audiences, grow brand recognition and loyalty and boost revenue.

Localized content is important to enhance top of funnel efforts. Everyone can estimate the cost of content localization by obtaining bids from language service providers or translation job marketplaces. But companies often forget the actual translation work cost is just a minimal part of the complete localization costs.

What many may not consider when calculating the budget are the hidden costs of localization, for example:

• extract source files from your software project
• copy-pasting, exporting, importing, etc... from your resource files to various file formats for translation and back again
• order translations, sending emails to translators to check how much they have translated, proofreading...
• converting files to different formats, getting charged by translation agencies for converting your files to formats used by the translators
• import/sync translated resources back to your software project, resolve conflicts because in the meantime new features or software changes have been made, etc...
• release new version of software because of translation issue, new roundtrip
• for a better alignement, a dedicated resource for technical writer/translator/coordinator
• development team <-> translation team alignments
• managing the localization process with tools and workflows that haven't changed for a lot of years
• delayed rollout because of delayed translations, alternatively lock down content changes 2 to 3 months ahead of the launch date to carry out localization
• ...

In terms of your investment, the above hidden costs tend to be higher than the actual cost of translation.

How to get rid of these hidden costs?

➡️ Good processes and modern tools that are focused on you with your development team and not only the translation service provider.

By improving workflow processes and using a modern translation management system like locize, the content is translated faster and your software is released more efficiently. Moreover, you will reach your target audiences faster, trying to get ahead of your competition.