How a day rate works?

Out of context: Reply #42

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  • jh0

    There is a piece missing here:

    You HAVE to work out a day rate based on what you need to run your business (service). You need to divide the days you think you might work by the amount you need to operate. That becomes a guide to your day rate. You need this regardless of whether you charge by a project basis since you can't calculate the true cost of a project unless you can estimate the time value.

    Charging by the hour can actually be quite profitable - but it does depend on the client. Charging by the project often means working more for less money since clients always push if they know you can't budge on the cost.

    If you work more than 8 hours per day you could count that as overtime (an agency cetainly might) but only if the deadline requires it, not if you're trying to give yourself a free day the day after. I would stick with a fixed hourly costing, based on a day rate calculated as above - if you can.

    Costing out jobs takes forever and often eats into the amount of time you can do "invoicable" work. But again it's an overhead you need to allow for.

    Much of this is just business not specific to design, but any type of service.

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