Telephone Interpreting Rates

Sybille wrote:

I recommend to take your rates for interpretation (hourly rates)
divided into pieces of, let's say 5-10 minutes. So presume you take 30 Euro for interpretation for one hour, 10 minutes would cost 30:6 = 5 Euro. And if you have to do it from your home phone, you have to add the rate the phone company will charge you.
When I do telephone interpeting I always include time to be briefed about the subject I have to interpret. )this time also has to be paid in the same way as described above. Because if someone stands beside you saying what you should say to the phone partner, it is really better to know something about the subject around this.

MdT wrote:

I believe that you should base your rates for telephone interpreting on the concepts of a minimum and the expected burden on your time. No matter how short the telephone time is expected to be, you should consider the time required to accept the assignment, wait for the call, perform the assignment, invoice the assignment, process the payment, and possible charges to your phone. You should also consider inconvenience to your daily schedule. Taking these factors into consideration, I could not expect a charge of less than one full hour at your normal interpretation rate. If the scheduled call falls outside your normal business hours (like 3:00 am local), a hefty premium is very reasonable. It is also my experience that clients requesting telephone interpretation, if not already known or easily identifiable as a responsible party, probably deserve more than usual scrutiny.

Good luck, but be careful

Marc