How Much Does a Certified Translation Cost?

Search for certified translation pricing and you will get quotes between roughly $20 and $90 for what sounds like the same one-page birth certificate. The spread is not arbitrary. It comes from three variables that most price pages never spell out.

Variable one: how a "page" is defined

This is the big one, and it is where most billing disputes start.

"Per page" sounds like a physical sheet of paper. It almost never is. Most translation companies define a page as a word count — commonly 250 words — because a sheet of paper can hold 40 words or 900.

The consequence: a densely printed document can be quoted as one page and billed as three. If a provider does not publish its word threshold, that is worth asking about before you order.

At eVerbary, a page is up to 250 words, including numbers, and the rate is a flat $24.95.

Variable two: certified or standard

These are different products, and the price gap between them is not a markup for paperwork.

Certified translation is human, complete, formatted to mirror the original, and delivered with a signed Certificate of Translation Accuracy. It is what USCIS, courts and universities require. Priced per page.

Standard translation is for content you need to understand or use internally — correspondence, reports, marketing material. No certification, no evidentiary function. Priced per word, at $0.10.

Choosing standard because it is cheaper, when the document is going to USCIS, is the most expensive mistake available: the filing gets a Request for Evidence and you pay for the certified version anyway, weeks later.

Variable three: everything bolted on afterward

The advertised rate and the checkout total often disagree. Common additions:

• Rush or same-day fees — sometimes 50 to 100 percent on top
• Certification fees — charging separately for the certificate that makes it a certified translation
• Per-document minimums — a floor that makes a single short document cost more than its page count suggests
• Digital delivery fees — a charge for emailing you a PDF
• Notarization — legitimate as an option, but not something USCIS requires (see certified vs. notarized)

The first four are worth scrutinizing. A rate that only holds if you do not need it quickly is not really the rate.

What eVerbary charges

• Certified translation: $24.95 per page, up to 250 words per page
• Standard translation: $0.10 per word
• Included: the Certificate of Translation Accuracy, formatting matched to the original, digital PDF delivery, and revisions if something needs correcting
• Optional, priced before you pay: notarization, physical mail, same-day delivery

Typical turnaround for a one- to three-page document is within 24 hours.

Estimating your own cost

For most civil documents the arithmetic is short:

1. Birth certificate — almost always 1 page → $24.95
2. Marriage certificate — usually 1 page → $24.95
3. Divorce decree — varies widely; court judgments run long, so count words rather than sheets
4. Diploma — 1 page; transcripts depend on how many terms are listed
5. Police record — typically 1 page

If you are unsure, upload the document for a free quote and you will get the exact price before committing.

Is the cheapest option a good idea?

Below about $20 per page, something is usually being removed — often the human translator, sometimes the certification, sometimes both. Machine output with a certificate attached is a real product on the market, and it fails in a specific way: it handles the dates and names correctly and mangles the institutional vocabulary, the seals and the marginal annotations. Those are precisely the parts an officer checks.

The relevant comparison is not between $25 and $18. It is between $25 and the cost of a Request for Evidence that stalls your case for a couple of months.

For the full breakdown by service, see pricing, or read what USCIS actually requires on our USCIS certified translation page.

Frequently asked questions