What a Master Service Agreement for translation covers: rate schedules, quality SLAs, TM ownership, NDA terms, and escalation procedures.
- The clauses that actually matter
- Make quality measurable
- Scope the NDA to the delivery chain
The clauses that actually matter
Rate schedules get the most negotiation attention and cause the least trouble later. The clauses that cause trouble are the ones nobody argued about: asset ownership, NDA scope, and what happens when quality is disputed.
Specify who owns translation memory and terminology, in what format they are delivered, and on what notice. Without it, switching vendors means abandoning years of accumulated decisions.
Make quality measurable
"Professional quality" is unenforceable. Reference a structured QA model, define severity categories and thresholds, and agree what happens when a delivery falls short — rework, timeline, and at whose cost.
Also define who raises an issue and how fast it is acknowledged. Most quality disputes are really escalation-path disputes.
Scope the NDA to the delivery chain
Confirm that confidentiality binds everyone who touches the files, including individual linguists and reviewers, not just the contracting entity. This is the most common gap in language service agreements.
Add retention and destruction terms if your own obligations require them — retrofitting is far harder than specifying up front.