For a freelance translator below 0.10 €/word, accepting MTPE rates at agency-standard 40–60% of full rate is rational only when productivity exceeds 1.8× source-rate baseline; below that ratio, MTPE work is rate-cannibalising and the freelancer should refuse it or move directly to higher-margin language pairs.
Operators register. Cohort: solo freelance translator, 0.04–0.18 €/word band, CAT-tool users (Trados/memoQ/Wordfast). Primary trigger: sustained MTPE rate compression below 35% of full rate across major pairs (CSA Research tracks) or a major CAT vendor shipping native Claude/GPT-4o plugin with full tag handling. The 1.8× productivity threshold is editorial synthesis (source: our-estimate) consistent with CSA Research fatigue-rate data and TAUS post-editing productivity studies. Sister claims: OPS-003 (Claude Pro vs ChatGPT Plus for solo founder), OPS-061 (AI delegation framework).
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The claim: For a freelance translator below 0.10 €/word, accepting MTPE rates at agency-standard 40–60% of full rate is rational only when productivity exceeds 1.8× source-rate baseline; below that ratio, MTPE work is rate-cannibalising and the freelancer should refuse it or move directly to higher-margin language pairs.
About this register
The Operators register tracks claims published from practitioner-advisory pieces addressed to solo founders, micro-SMB, and small businesses up to around fifty people. Claims are reviewed on a 30–45 day cadence — tooling and SMB-relevant pricing shift faster than enterprise procurement signals.
Recent corrections in Operators
- OPS-002 · Partial · 28 May 2026
Price drift: Notion Business with bundled AI now about $15/seat annual ($20 monthly) vs cited $19.50; ClickUp Brain now $7/seat vs cited $9. Verdict logic unchanged; figures need updating.
- OPS-036 · Partial · 29 Apr 2026
Initial publication 29 Apr 2026. Status set to Partial at publication because clause 6 commentary references an order-of-magnitude remediation-cost gap derived from the IAPP 2024 AI Governance Profession Report; the report characterises the gap as material but does not publish a precise multiple, so the wording is annotated source: our-estimate.
- OPS-035 · Holding · 29 Apr 2026
Initial publication 29 Apr 2026. Status set to Partial at publication because category 5 lacks the same regulatory/cited-consequence anchor as categories 1-4.
Reviews coming up in Operators
- OPS-062 · Holding · next +2d (02 Jun 2026)
For a UK sole trader, Claude Pro and ChatGPT Plus subscriptions are allowable expenses under HMRC's wholly-and-exclusiv…
- OPS-065 · Holding · next +11d (11 Jun 2026)
A solo agency delivering AI-assisted work to a client needs four contract clauses by Aug 2026 — disclosure of AI use, I…
- OPS-036 · Partial · next +13d (13 Jun 2026)
An SMB AI policy that actually changes day-to-day behaviour fits on one page and contains exactly eight clauses — sanct…