How we price localization work.
TrendsUp Media prices end-to-end localization per finished hour of delivered content. This page explains what that covers, what moves the number, and why we do not publish a rate card.
We price per finished hour.
One number per finished hour, per language, for content ready to publish. It covers the whole chain:
- Translation
- Casting
- Recording
- Editing
- Mixing
- Subtitling
- Quality control
- Delivery
Commission a single service instead, and we price it on its own terms and say so in the quote.
What changes the price.
Six things, roughly in order of impact.
The language.
Talent availability is the single biggest factor. A language with a deep professional voice pool costs less than one where qualified native performers are scarce and have to be sourced and scheduled individually. This is why rare and low-resource languages carry a different rate.
Volume and continuity.
A twenty-hour catalog costs less per hour than a one-hour pilot. Ongoing collaborations cost less than one-off jobs. Setup, casting and terminology work is done once and amortized across everything that follows.
The type of content.
A two-hander drama and a documentary with eight narrators and dense terminology are not the same job. Cast size, dialogue density and technical vocabulary all move the number.
Rights.
What you need to do with the finished audio, territories, platforms, duration of use, whether performances can be reused, affects what we have to agree with performers, and that flows into the price.
Source material condition.
A clean M&E track and an accurate script make everything downstream cheaper. A missing M&E means rebuilding the effects track, which is real work and is quoted separately.
The deadline.
Our standard is three days per finished hour. Compressing that means running more teams in parallel, which costs more.
What a quote from us includes.
Unless we say otherwise in writing, an end-to-end quote covers:
- Script translation and adaptation for timing and culture
- Casting and voice sourcing in the target language
- Recording and session direction
- Dialogue editing
- Mixing and mastering to your delivery specification
- Subtitling where requested
- All five quality-control stages
- Final packaging and delivery in your required formats
- A defined number of correction rounds
What sits outside a standard quote: rebuilding a missing M&E track, audio description, and rush delivery below our standard timeline. Each is quoted separately and identified before you commit.
Why we don't publish a price list.
A published number is either too high to be useful or too low to mean anything.
Fixed price list
One rate for every language. Hindi and Chuukese priced as if they were the same.
Quote per finished hour
A real number for your runtime, languages and deadline, usually the same day.
Getting a quote. We need four things:
- Total runtime, in hours or minutes
- Target languages
- Content type and format
- Your deadline
Useful but optional: whether you have a clean M&E track, your delivery specification, and whether this is a one-off or the first of a series.
FAQs
Frequently
Asked Questions.
Everything you need to know about our services, process and how we work
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