A day rate is not simply your hourly rate times eight.
A working day rarely contains eight billable hours — meetings, context-switching, and admin eat into it — so a sound day rate is your hourly rate times the hours you can genuinely bill in a day, usually five or six. Set it from your hourly rate, then sanity-check it against the day.
Here's how to build one properly.
Start from your hourly rate
Your day rate should rest on the same foundation as your hourly rate: the income you want to keep, plus taxes, self-funded benefits, expenses, and a cushion, divided by the hours you can actually bill.
