To every translator who refuses to be boxed in,

Not long ago, I read a comment from a fellow translator. They said: “I could never accept low rates because I live in a country with a high cost of living.”

On the surface, that feels fair. Logical. Even noble. But let’s be brutally honest for a second… clients don’t care.

Clients don’t stay up at night wondering if your rent went up. They’re not worried about your grocery bills or whether your government just hiked taxes.

What they care about is the value you deliver to them.

That’s it.

When you argue for higher rates based on your personal situation, you’ve already weakened your position. You’ve made it about you when it should be about them. That’s not persuasion… that’s self-sabotage.

Here’s the bigger problem: by framing the issue around “my cost of living,” you miss the real opportunity.

And the real opportunity is all about value.

This means asking sharper questions:

  • How can I consistently deliver higher quality in less time?
  • How can I make my clients’ jobs easier, smoother, less stressful?
  • How can I position myself as indispensable in a market being reshaped by technology and cost pressures?

Notice what’s happening here: we’re shifting from excuses to control. From reacting to circumstances… to creating opportunity.

This is exactly why I keep hammering on concepts like AI Mastery for Translators and the Micro Iterative AI Frameworks. These aren’t buzzwords. They’re practical systems I’ve built and refined to help you take command of AI. To make it speak in your voice. To bend it to your workflow so you get more done, at a higher standard, in less time.

Let’s talk numbers for a second. Imagine you translate 2,000 words a day and charge 12 cents a word. That’s $240. Not bad. But if the market rate drops to 8 cents, suddenly you’re at $160 for the same output. Ouch.

Now, here’s where control comes in. If you learn to leverage AI to double your daily output to 4,000 words, while actually improving quality, even at 8 cents you’re at $320. That’s not just surviving… that’s thriving.

See the difference? The rate didn’t save you. Your value delivery did.

This is why I keep pushing translators to upskill. Not just learning to post-edit machine translation, but truly mastering tools like CotranslatorAI. With the right methods, you can supercharge your workflow, adapt to different client demands, and build a moat around your business that the Localization Illuminati can’t bulldoze.

Because let’s be clear: the industry elites… the Big LSPs, the CAT-tool makers, the MT providers… they’re not sitting around planning how to pay you more. Their agenda is to automate translation, strip the expertise out of it, dumb down the process, and drive rates down.

So you have a choice. You can argue about why you “can’t” work for low rates because of where you live. Or you can reframe the conversation completely.

The winning mindset is: “How can I deliver more value, faster, and better than before?”

That’s the mindset that future-proofs your career. That’s what lets you get back to doing everything you love about translation… the thinking, the creativity, the deep work… while AI handles the drudgery.

So let me put the question back to you: what’s your opinion?

Do you see cost-of-living arguments as dead weight? Or do you still feel they’re valid? I’d love to hear your take.

Until our next conversation, keep raising the bar.

Steven (for the team)