To turn on or not to turn on the upwork tracker while communicating with a client at work?

Question

Upwork

I am new to upwork.
There is an hourly contract for the development (programming) of the application / website.
Often you have to communicate with the client through the upwork messenger, discussing the development details along the way. These negotiations can take a long time (several hours a day).
Maybe the question sounds silly, but is it worth including the time of these negotiations (correspondence) in your hourly pay or not?
Knowledge of English is far from perfect, sometimes you have to use a translator and this increases the time spent on communication. Somehow it is inconvenient to take the same amount of $$$ for communication, and not for product development/programming. On the other hand, texting for free is also not an option.

Answer 1

All time spent on an hourly project must be paid. Communication with the client is also included here.
The only thing is that if you really spend a lot of time on translations back and forth and your timelog will be full of screenshots of a Google translator, and not a messenger, then you can agree with the client to make communication as manual time. Then you will be able to summarize the correspondence with the client - "Dude, we talked for a total of 2 hours, but 1 hour of them was spent on translations. Therefore, I will now add 1 hour to manual time, ok?". On the one hand, manual time does not fall under escrow protection, it seems. On the other hand, if your communication is in the upwork messenger, then in the event of a dispute, the support will be able to see and confirm this if the client approves in writing each such manual time in the chat.

Answer 2

Of course include.
After all, the client chose you to work, which means that by default he is satisfied with the level of English and the speed of response.
A translator in this way is also part of the work, if English is still not enough.
You are not translating Harry Potter in the original for yourself, but translating the client's speech, which means you are wasting time on his tasks.
Over the years of working at Upwork (and earlier Odesk), I met only one client (not even a client, but a subcontractor of the client) who asked to turn off the tracker while talking with him. In response to my arguments, similar to those set out above, he only repeated that "everyone who worked with him turns off the tracker" and that this is an "unwritten rule" and in general "the client does not have a lot of money, you need to save money." On this, work with him was completed, without even really starting.

Answer 3

you get paid for the time spent on the product. if the product can be developed without this communication - do not include it. but then you have the right not to waste your time not communicating.
and vice versa.

Answer 4

I would include, but subtract the time spent on translation.