1. what's your specialty? If you have one eg. legal or engineering then your rates are higher

2. are you looking at joining at agency eg. SDI Media or being a standalone freelancer on the likes of Upwork? The former is stable, boring work eg. RM1-2k monthly. The latter will probably net you a higher income but you have to market yourself well to avoid the lowballers

3. Provided your English is good and you can communicate well, you can also expand into proofreading and editing, however again these are full of lowballers from places like India. Best to establish your expertise and work locally rather than online.

I used to do subtitle translations for TV3. Rates were roughly RM200 for 1 hour of show times. 1 hour of showtime is equivalent to 3-6 hours of work. Unfortunately they don't hire directly anymore and have outsourced to agencies. Rates have also not gone up after many many years...

Is RM200 per hour of showtime really low?

Assuming you can do 1-2 hours of showtime per day (that's between 5-8 hours full time translation work), you're netting around RM200-400 per day or RM4-9k per month.

I'm sure many people don't think earning RM4,000 and above per month is low. I used to do it on top of my full time work and could easily earn RM2+k per month. Why did I stop? Because it's super boring

Realistically it's 4-5 hours per hour of showtime, so you're getting RM40-50 per actual hour worked.

Yes there are a lot of shows, out there, think of all those cooking, reality, korean dramas etc. The limit is more on how much work you really want. Once you have your schedule/process clear, then you can easily churn through the whole thing.

If you still feel that RM40-50 per hour worked is low then not much I can do, try competing on Upwork to see how low that can go even for specialized skills.