A minimum fee is the lowest amount a translator charges for a job, applied when the per-word price of a very short text would come to less, because opening files, checking terminology and delivering take time however short the text is.
Every job has a fixed part: reading the brief, setting up the files in the CAT tool, checking the client's terminology, a final review, delivery and an invoice. On a 100-word text, that fixed part can take longer than the translation itself. Priced per word only, short jobs would not pay for the time they take.
The translator works out the price as usual, from the word count or a CAT analysis, plus any extras or rush surcharge. If the total is below the minimum, the client pays the minimum instead. Many quotes show this as a separate line, so the client can see the per-word price and the adjustment.
There is no standard amount: each translator or agency sets its own. One common approach, given here only as an example, is to set the minimum near the price of an hour of work or of a few hundred words. With several target languages, the minimum often applies to each language, because each one is a separate job.
A client asks for a 150-word product description at $0.10 per word, which comes to $15. The translator's minimum fee is $40 (an example figure). The quote shows:
If the client had sent five such texts together as one project, 750 words would come to $75 and the minimum would not apply. As the translation rates guide puts it, sending several small texts together in one project usually costs less than paying the minimum several times.
TraduQ's free word count and quote tool has a minimum fee field: when the quote total, including extras and any rush surcharge, comes to less, it adds a "Minimum fee adjustment" line for the difference. The invoice generator turns the result into a PDF invoice. Both run in your browser and are free, like everything on TraduQ.