Day rate calculator

A day rate is a flat price for a defined block of hours — not for “the day, however long it runs.” The rate only means something when it names its hours: $600 for a 10-hour day is $60 an hour; the same $600 across an unbounded day is an invitation to work free overtime. Quote the number and the hours together, every time.

Once the standard day is defined, everything else is arithmetic. Overtime bills at a multiple of your straight-time hourly — 1.5x is the common floor, and many crews move to 2x after two overtime hours. Weekend and holiday work typically multiplies the whole labor charge (1.5x–2x), and night premiums add 25–50% on top — both standard in union agreements and much of Europe, and negotiable everywhere else. Your kit fee stays outside all of it: gear rents flat, labor earns the premiums.

The habit that protects you is itemizing. An invoice that reads “Gaffer day rate, 10h — $600 / Overtime, 2h × 1.5x — $180 / Lighting kit — $750” gets approved without a phone call, because every number traces to a term agreed before the truck rolled. A single mystery total invites negotiation after the work is done — the one negotiation you can’t win.

And track the effective hourly this calculator shows you. If long days keep dragging your real hourly below your straight-time rate, your overtime terms — or your day rate — need renegotiating.