Total cost of four CAT tools over 6 years Thread poster: Dominique Pivard
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Amazing work. Thank you so much. Most interesting.
Yes, I agree with the calculations made with memoQ. Being a user of memoQ, I am happy to see it also pays financially compared with other tools.
Just in case it is useful: With a memoQ Server with 5 user licenses at the moment we pay very roughly 2 thousand euros of maintenance fee, which is fair enough for our volume of work.
I wonder: How does that compare with other server-based solutions? Are there smal... See more Amazing work. Thank you so much. Most interesting.
Yes, I agree with the calculations made with memoQ. Being a user of memoQ, I am happy to see it also pays financially compared with other tools.
Just in case it is useful: With a memoQ Server with 5 user licenses at the moment we pay very roughly 2 thousand euros of maintenance fee, which is fair enough for our volume of work.
I wonder: How does that compare with other server-based solutions? Are there small offices like ourselves who use other solutions? How are their tools paying themselves? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Comparison of server setups | Sep 26, 2012 |
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Amazing work. Thank you so much. Most interesting.
Thanks! I had great fun doing it, as it was the first one I made hand-writing on my iPad 
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Yes, I agree with the calculations made with memoQ. Being a user of memoQ, I am happy to see it also pays financially compared with other tools.
Yes, the calculations for memoQ (and Wordfast) were easy to do, as their pricing is very predictable. Basically, the only thing that can change is the list price, but even if it goes up by 100 euros, the yearly impact will only be 20 euros (memoQ) or 17 euros (Wordfast).
With Studio, there are more unknown factors: for instance, SDL could switch to yearly paid upgrades (which is what they had with SDLX, and what Trados also had when they were an independent company). In that case, the cost of the support-less option would increase (if you wanted to stay current).
Déjà Vu has the most uncertainty: as I see it, their current pricing combined with their existing policy of not charging for support is not sustainable, unless they start releasing paid upgrades much more often.
Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:
Just in case it is useful: With a memoQ Server with 5 user licenses at the moment we pay very roughly 2 thousand euros of maintenance fee, which is fair enough for our volume of work.
I wonder: How does that compare with other server-based solutions? Are there small offices like ourselves who use other solutions? How are their tools paying themselves?
Thanks for the info about the maintenance fee for your memoQ server setup. It's difficult to make a similar comparison for server products, because pricing is very opaque. You would have to ask colleagues who have a competing solution.
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I don't know whether it will be sustainable or not, but to date: only three payments - DV3 in full, DVX upgrade and DVX2 upgrade - over a period of 15 years, with free updates and no support needed except paid replacement of a faulty dongle. This is quite good for the outstanding performance it delivers.
Thank you for the comparison Dominique, good job!
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| How do you know? | Sep 27, 2012 |
Dominique Pivard wrote:
not charging for support is not sustainable, unless they start releasing paid upgrades much more often.
I wouldn't be surprised if you are right, but just about all relevant data are missing. I for one have no idea about profit, costs, and turnover, etc.
Thanks for the video anyway. The costs of CAT tools seem to be very reasonable, even for "the one I shall not mention." Maybe we should start a strike for higher prices?
Cheers,
Hans (happy DV user from 1997-2010 for a grand total of around USD 600 plus USD 60 for a stolen dongle)
| | | | | Get your own stolen dongle now! | Sep 27, 2012 |
Meta Arkadia wrote:
Hans (happy DV user from 1997-2010 for a grand total of around USD 600 plus USD 60 for a stolen dongle)
Hans, that sounds interesting. Where did you get your stolen dongle that cheap?
Hans
| | | | | That's funny... | Sep 27, 2012 |
Hans Lenting wrote:
Hans, that sounds interesting. Where did you get your stolen dongle that cheap?
It sounds as though there is a market for stolen dongles and you paid more for yours
Regards
Paul
| | | | | Just in case... | Sep 27, 2012 |
SDL Support wrote: It sounds as though there is a market for stolen dongles and you paid more for yours
... it's not clear for everyone: Hans' dongle was stolen and he had to buy a new one, for 60 dollars. He didn't buy a stolen dongle, though this is what his wording could suggest. Using English can be tricky when you're not native.
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| About costs and sustainability | Sep 27, 2012 |
Meta Arkadia wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if you are right, but just about all relevant data are missing. I for one have no idea about profit, costs, and turnover, etc.
Costs are an easy one: a company with more than 10 employees spread in two Western European countries (Spain, France) is going to incur personnel costs of several hundreds thousands of euros per year.
Meta Arkadia wrote:
Hans (happy DV user from 1997-2010 for a grand total of around USD 600 plus USD 60 for a stolen dongle)
So your use of DV has generated annual revenues of 43 USD per year for Atril. Just think of the number of licenses they must sell in order to cover their development and operating costs, knowing they employ several persons based in Western Europe. That's what I implied when I said the policy is not sustainable. Hopefully (for them), they are selling to other clients (eg. corporates) at more lucrative prices, including paid support.
[Edited at 2012-09-27 09:25 GMT]
| | | | | I plead guilty | Sep 27, 2012 |
Dominique Pivard wrote:
So your use of DV has generated annual revenues of 43 USD per year for Atril.
I know. That's why I suggested an annual fee for support, years ago. I felt guilty.
I'm still not convinced you have or can estimate all relevant data.
Cheers,
Hans
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Dominique Pivard wrote:
Using English can be tricky when you're not native.
That's why I don't record screencasts in English.
Cheers,
Hans
| | | | Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 02:23
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Dominique Pivard wrote:
The tools I covered are: SDL Trados Studio, memoQ, Wordfast Studio and Déjà Vu X2. Since the video is quite long (13 minutes), the blog post (first link) includes direct links to the section for each tool, and to the conclusion (comparison of all tools in the same table chart).
The first time I saw this post, I just skipped to the last frame of the video, and saw that MemoQ is the cheapest tool. Then, today, I watched the whole video, and discovered the the "5" in the last frame is actually a "9", and Wordfast ends up as the cheapest tool.
I agree with your assumptions, although I find it a bit odd that you did not include Trados 2007 while you did include Wordfast Classic. I suppose one could say that this is so because Wordfast Classic is not a retired product, but IMO Wordfast Classic and Wordfast Pro are so greatly dissimilar that you can't really treat them as a single product. I know the same can be said for Trados 2007 versus the later versions (i.e. they are completely different from each other), but the fact is that many agency clients still require Trados 2007, whereas very few agency clients still require Wordfast Classic.
I also think it would be interesting to analyse the real costs that a translator would have had in the past 6 years (and not in the coming 6 years).
Another question I have is what these tools would have costed (or would cost in future) over 6 years, if the translator was not forced to upgrade at any time (assuming a new computer every 2 years). In other words, the translator would be forced to pay for Wordfast again after 3 years, but would he be forced to pay anything extra for Trados? I suppose such an analysis can also be done on the past 6 years instead of the future 6 years, because upgrade policies can't always be guessed.
Finally your analysis assumes (though not indefensibly) that these tools will remain "the same tool" for 6 years, which is not always consistent with history. Trados 2007, for example, is completely different from Trados 2009, so although you could say that 2009 is an upgrade of 2007, in reality it is a new product that the user would have to learn to use all over again.
Samuel
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Dirgis (X)
United States
Local time: 20:23
German to English
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| Annual cost for WF Pro? | Sep 28, 2012 |
Hi,
I just purchased WF Pro (discounted upgrade from Classic) shortly before this conference, not knowing there would be such deep discounts for tools and needing one quickly.
The video states that there is an annual upkeep cost, which I was not aware of and I didn't see that anywhere on the WF site.
In that case, I would have to factor that price into the cost, could anyone clarify for me?
| | | | | Wordfast license agreement | Sep 28, 2012 |
sjkm wrote:
I just purchased WF Pro (discounted upgrade from Classic) shortly before this conference, not knowing there would be such deep discounts for tools and needing one quickly.
First of all, you didn't "purchase Wf Pro as a discounted upgrade from Classic", you renewed the validity of your existing license (purchased in Jan-2008 and therefore expired in Jan-2011).
Secondly, you didn't lose any money, because the price you paid for renewing your license (175 euros) is lower than the discounted price on a new license via the TGB deal (325 euros).
You elected to renew your license as Pro only, but even if you had renewed it as Studio (Classic + Pro), the price (250 euros) would still have been lower than with the TGB deal. So all is well, you secured your Pro license at the best possible price.
sjkm wrote:
The video states that there is an annual upkeep cost, which I was not aware of and I didn't see that anywhere on the WF site.
The annual fee mentioned in the video for Wordfast is for an optional hotline subscription, which means in practice access to direct technical support. Such a subscription is included with any new license for the first year. Thereafter, it's up to you to buy one or not: as I said, it's optional.
All this is mentioned in the license agreement, which you have to agree to when purchasing a new license (on the Wordfast webstore) or renewing a license. Here is a snapshot taken from the agreement:
A one-year subscription to the hotline currently costs 60 euros, as mentioned in the video.
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