Multilingual Consulting Firm Website in Amsterdam: True Translation Cost

The verdict in three sentences

For an Amsterdam strategy consulting firm targeting the Netherlands, Belgium and the DACH region, the cost of translation can exceed the cost of the site itself: about 140,000 words for 60 pages and 40 case studies in two target languages. Reviewed machine translation at 0.04 EUR/word suits case studies and secondary pages, while human translation at 0.14-0.20 EUR/word remains essential for service pages, the homepage and expertise content. A hybrid model brings the bill down to 10,000-13,000 EUR and, with clean hreflang, supports a target of +35% leads from new markets within 6 months.

How many words do you really need to translate?

The first mistake is to price translation by page count. A consulting firm produces long content: a case study runs 900 to 1,500 words, an expertise page 500 to 800 words.

With deduplication of repeated segments (legal notices, CTA blocks, bios), billable volume usually drops to 135,000-145,000 words. Request quotes on that basis.

Three translation options compared

German needs specific care: Swiss and Austrian business vocabulary differs from Germany's, and formal address (Sie) must be applied consistently. For Dutch, decide whether you target Flemish Belgium or the Netherlands first.

The site itself and international SEO

An EN/NL/DE site costs between 22,000 and 38,000 EUR in Amsterdam, excluding translation. The budget covers subdirectory architecture (/en/, /nl/, /de/), reciprocal hreflang tags, one sitemap per language, translated URLs and a language switcher that does not redirect automatically by IP, a practice Google advises against. Add editorial maintenance around 350 EUR a month to publish new case studies in all three languages, plus translation of the new content, about 150 to 250 EUR per case study in the hybrid model.

Mini case study

Pieter, partner at a 25-consultant strategy firm in Amsterdam, earns 15% of revenue in Germany and Belgium. He invests 30,000 EUR in the EN/NL/DE site and 12,000 EUR in hybrid translation, 42,000 EUR in total. Before the redesign, the site generates 24 qualified leads a year outside the Netherlands; after 6 months, a 35% increase brings this to about 32 leads, 8 more. With a 25% close rate and an average engagement of 55,000 EUR, that means 2 extra engagements a year, or 110,000 EUR of revenue. The project pays for itself with the first signed engagement.

FAQ

Does Google penalise reviewed machine translation?

No, Google evaluates content quality and usefulness, not how it was produced. Text reviewed by a native speaker at 0.04 EUR/word is acceptable for case studies; raw unreviewed text is a real quality risk.

Should all 40 case studies be translated?

Not necessarily at launch. Translating the 15 most relevant case studies for each market covers the essentials and cuts volume by about 50,000 words.

What is hreflang and why is it essential?

It is a tag that tells Google the language version of each page. Without it, the English version may show to a prospect in Munich; hreflang errors often affect 20 to 40% of pages on multilingual sites.

What timeline should we plan for a trilingual site?

Allow 10 to 14 weeks in total: 8 to 10 weeks of build and 5 to 6 weeks of translation run in parallel once the English content is approved.

Is 350 EUR a month of editorial maintenance enough?

It covers publishing and checking 2 to 4 pieces of content a month in three languages. Translation of new content is billed separately, about 150 to 250 EUR per case study.

Let's scope your project. We price your multilingual site with the real word count, the right translation model and hreflang setup, for an indicative budget of 22,000 to 38,000 EUR excluding translation and a 10 to 14 week timeline. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.